Ronald Owens, aka “Cornbread,” lives in Lynn, Massachusetts. He spent 13 years in a Massachusetts maximum security prison, where he and Noel Ignatiev met in 1996 as pen pals. They remained close friends ever since. What has life been like for you during this time? I used to run to Connecticut to assist Noel. I […]
Archives for April 2020
Silver Lining Time
I just got off the phone with one of my daughters. She’s a math teacher in a public middle school here in New York and has to try to teach her 100 plus sixth and eighth graders “remotely”—mostly by way of links through electronic devices. Her husband is in the same boat. They’re both trying […]
Crisis on top of crisis in Kensington
During this COVID-19 crisis, probably many of us have had moments where we have thought, “Oh, shit, what’s going to happen when coronavirus spreads to (fill in the blank)? We have worried about those who fill the manifold jails and prisons of this land, and we’ve already seen those horrible potentialities begin to unfold. We’re […]
The Death President
Four presidents of the United States have been assassinated: Abraham Lincoln (1864), James Garfield, William McKinley and John F. Kennedy (1963). An additional fourteen presidents are considered to have been the targets of assassination attempts. Keep in mind that there have only been 45 presidents. (On another occasion, when things are perhaps a bit less […]
The Guessing Game
Every now and so often, we are reminded of how much the inexact art of prediction dominates all facets of American society. The numbers that are crunched by non-humans (computers) find their way into reports and models prepared by think tanks. They then become fodder for a whole slew of influential pundits and spokespeople, from […]
Underlying Conditions
We’ve all become used to what doctors and other experts on the cable news shows say—people with underlying conditions are much more vulnerable to the COVID 19 virus and are in much greater danger of becoming seriously ill and dying. Those underlying conditions have been identified, among others, as heart disease, diabetes, lung ailments, suppressed immune systems, […]