Imagine that every state were free to choose whether to allow Black people and white people to marry. Some states would permit such marriages; others probably wouldn’t. The laws would be a mishmash, and interracial couples would suffer, legally consigned to second-class status depending on where they lived.
My “To Read” list got a little shorter this week. I have added James Patterson’s “22 Seconds” to my list of read books and am anticipating starting Jennifer Weiner’s “The Summer Place” this weekend.
Have you ever watched the reality television show Shark Tank? If you’re not familiar, it features aspiring entrepreneurs who pitch their ideas to a panel of successful, wealthy businesspersons in hopes of securing their financial and intellectual support. The premise is that once they can partner with one of the “sharks” they will be well on their way to prosperity. Some get rejected and leave the show dejected while some get chosen to team up with one of the panelists. For them it’s a dream come true to work with a financial expert.
Dear Abby: My sister and I have always been close. She’s married to a man I have always thought is domineering and arrogant. I also suspect that he’s emotionally abusive from things she has confided over the years. These include days of the silent treatment, refusing to celebrate her birthday because he doesn’t believe in it and discouraging her from taking a job she was interested in. He refuses to go to counseling and says whatever problems there are between them are her fault. I hold my tongue and try to tolerate him because she has chosen to stay with him.
Dear Dr. Roach: I have had bad experiences with my local trauma center. Mainly, they will not consult with my doctor or my hospital, and vice versa. Things would move more quickly and safely if they got my medical history rather than starting from scratch. As a result, I ask the EMTs or paramedics to take me to MY hospital, which is not that much farther away. Most times they refuse. Can I insist? I am so adverse that I ask a friend to take me to the emergency room instead of an ambulance.
The 428,000 net new jobs last month in the Labor Department’s Friday report is mildly encouraging since every major industry added workers. But the report also contains a warning that inflationary pressure may be starting to hurt the labor market.
Now that we have bid April a fond farewell for another year and welcomed May into the fold, graduation season is starting in earnest, and I am not mad about it. In fact, I am super excited.
A third member of the extremist Oath Keepers group pleaded guilty Wednesday to seditious conspiracy, admitting his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack. The pleas provide more proof that the right-wing campaign to whitewash Jan. 6, playing down the extent to which the participants sought to stage an insurrection, is not just craven but also dangerous. The attackers did not behave like “tourists”; they were not unarmed; Jan. 6 was not a normal protest that got out of hand; the attack was not staged by farleft agitators posing as Trump supporters. Instead, it was a coordinated and concerted effort on the part of pro-Trump zealots, riled up by then-President Donald Trump himself, to reverse a presidential election by intimidation and force.
For too long, state lawmakers have taken snipes at public schools. From the 1970s through the 2010s and beyond, funding formulas have been revised, lawsuits filed and temporary cuts made permanent.
It has taken anti-abortion campaigners a concerted five-decade campaign to get here: the supreme court’s provisional decision to overturn Roe v Wade. More than half of America’s women can expect to live in states where abortion is banned or greatly restricted if, as anticipated, next month’s ruling is largely unchanged. Yet that will not mark the climactic triumph of the anti-abortion lobby. In their eyes, it is merely a staging post to further restrictions on other matters too, affecting more people – including outside the U.S.