The Funny and Insightful Thoughts of Simone Klugman
If you click on this link, you will be taken to Simone’s blog post that appeared on the site called Medium.com It’s a terrific post and received thousands of appreciations on the site. At the end you find over 100 comments from readers. It was a fun experience going out into the wider world. And […]
Just like their American counterparts, French First Ladies have no real existence. They have no official function and no defined role. They just “come with” and “go with” the President they happen to have married. People mostly see them stepping out of a plane with their spouses looking decorative and smiling bravely. They are […]
It has now been nearly a decade since a fruit vendor in Tunisia set himself on fire in a protest against police brutality and corruption. Thus began, “The Arab Spring” protests driven by millions of people who wanted participation in the governance of their countries. But when it was over the foundations and pillars on […]
France’s role in American life predates the birth of the United States. Our founding Fathers were greatly influenced by French Philosophers of the Enlightenment- Voltaire, Diderot, Rousseau. Thomas Jefferson loved everything French; Benjamin Franklin loved quite a few French women and spent many years in France. These founding Americans absorbed the concepts of “Liberty, […]
I first wrote about Ukraine in 2014 during the Maidan Revolution, a response to the Russian annexation of Crimea and the establishment of two pro-separatist regions in Eastern Ukraine, Donetsk and Luhansk. Since then the pot of revolt has been boiling furiously while still being, somehow, contained. Now Ukraine has elected a new president, […]
From my window I see a very tall tree with contorted branches. It looks the same throughout the year so there is really nothing to “observe” about it except for the visiting crows and sparrows who perch on it on their way somewhere else. I have found out that it is a twisted oak tree. […]
The task of making a huge, alien land a friendly and cozy one was never easy. Colonialism mistakenly assumes that a conquered territory has no civilization of its own and has to have one imposed on it. In this scenario, the governing and the governed actors each play their assigned roles in a well-oiled machine. […]
Have parents really been listening to the nursery rhymes they read to their children at bedtime? Do they truly want them to hear that after Jack and Jill climbed up the famous hill, that Jack sustained a head injury while Jill was left careening down the hill behind him? How about the maid in the […]
When I lived in Beirut in the 1930’s, I used to feed a stray cat who hung around outside our house. I would lower a container of leftovers to him from a kitchen window. People’s relationship with cats goes back to antiquity. Cat images are found on walls of ancient caves as well as […]
While we are still feeling the sadness of the Notre Dame fire, let me mention a few things about Cathedrals in general. A definitional element of every Cathedral is that it is the site of the Bishop’s residence from which he spreads the word of God as revealed by the Pope from his throne. Thus […]
