Deb Booth

A quiet drama unfolds on Thursday afternoons at Huntley Middle School in DeKalb. One after another, cars turn off Fourth Street to line up in the parking lot. Well before Barb Food Mart’s 4:30 start time, the cars are snaking around the lot. And they just keep coming. The Depression era breadlines are back.

A poll taken after the first presidential debate showed that by two to one, viewers thought Biden had won. The President's bullying made a travesty of the debate. His constant interruptions prevented Biden from describing his views, policies and plans. And the President's rants and insults were a way to avoid talking about anything. So distraction may have been the point.

It was almost exactly a year ago that the president made his fateful call to President Zelensky. You remember -- Trump said he’d deliver the money Congress had appropriated for Ukraine's protection against Russian military incursions, then he added: "I would like you to do us a favor, though...."

In this topsy-turvy world, one welcome sign of normalcy has been the daily rattle of our mailbox. Mail delivery has been a connection to the outside world and a sign that things will return to normal one of these days.

I used to buy a local paper when we traveled so I could learn more about the community we were visiting. But in recent years it has become rare to find one. I now know why. Local papers have become an endangered species. Since 2006, one-third of U.S. papers have disappeared, and tens of thousands of local reporters have lost their jobs.

The disaster movie starts and when bad things start to happen, a scientist always warns the people to change course. But the people never listen. That’s the gist of a mordant Facebook post circulating among scientists as they, along with the rest of us, have watched this frightening scenario play out in real life.

The pandemic moved so fast and was so vicious that it’s no mystery why people insisted it couldn’t happen here. After all, we’re not Italy, or China.

We first see a little girl counting as she plucks the petals from a daisy. A countdown starts -- and then a mushroom cloud fills the screen. This was an ad for Democratic presidential candidate Lyndon Johnson when he was running against arch-conservative Republican Barry Goldwater. The year was 1964 and we had witnessed the birth of the modern political ad. 

At last Thursday’s Democratic debate Pete Buttigieg said something I hadn’t heard before. “I know you're only ever supposed to say middle class and not poor in politics,” he said, “but we've got to talk about poverty in this country.” 

Because of the current impeachment hearings, Richard Nixon’s name has come up a lot recently. His second term was cut short by the Watergate scandal and he became only the second president in history to be impeached. Nixon resigned in 1974 when he lost the support of Republicans in the Senate.

Nixon’s crimes involved a systematic attempt to subvert the democratic process. Determined to win a second term in 1972, he authorized a burglary at Democratic Headquarters. But that was only one of his many crimes and cover ups.

The sight of a policeman greeted worshippers as they arrived at DeKalb’s synagogue in late September to celebrate the Jewish New Year. The reason for the guard? One year ago, 11 worshippers were killed by a hate-filled anti-Semite at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh.

As I walked into the sanctuary to find a seat, I had a vivid image of a gunman bursting into the room spewing hatred and gunfire. Suddenly the sanctuary didn’t feel like such a safe place anymore.

I recently read an extraordinary memoir written a few years ago by my dad’s cousin. 

It was September 1776, just two months after the American colonies had declared their independence from Britain. British naval commander Richard Howe demanded a meeting. Perhaps the Americans wanted to change their minds about their rash decision.