ArcaMax

At age 68, former wrestler Paul Zine still looks as though he could personally deconstruct a skyscraper with his bare hands. A personal trainer for the last 20 years, Zine went by the professional name "Prime Time Paul Zine" on the wrestling circuit. In his prime, he once bench pressed 512 pounds. Now, decades later and after too many shoulder...Read more

Last week's formation of a new Israeli government, comprised of Parliament members from across the country's wide political spectrum, was good news for Israel, which needs to move on from long-time Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Reinforcing that good news was the election of Isaac Herzog, the widely respected former Labor Party leader, as ...Read more

Even in ordinary times, the inside of a professional baseball stadium is a sight for sore eyes. These are extraordinary times, and not in a good way. So taking in a baseball game on a spring night in the spanking new stadium built by the Boston Red Sox' Triple A affiliate in Worcester, Massachusetts, provided a lift to the fans who streamed ...Read more

Addressing Suffolk University graduates on Saturday, retired Washington Post editor Martin Baron summarized the sociopolitical virus afflicting the nation in three sentences. "We learned in recent years that our institutions were more vulnerable to pressure and intimidation than we ever imagined," said Baron. "Many turned submissive when a ...Read more

In a statement last week, a Hamas spokesman expressed the mentality behind the suffering in Gaza in a nutshell. "The decision to bomb Tel Aviv, Dimona and Jerusalem," he boasted about the 3,000 rockets Hamas has fired at Israeli communities in recent days alone, "is easier for us than drinking water."

You bet it is. As in the past, the ...Read more

For anyone who follows sports, the name "Tiger" means golf legend Tiger Woods. Music lovers know that "Yo Yo" means cellist Yo Yo Ma. For Jewish communities around the world, and for those with a stake in the never-ending battle to roll back anti-Semitism, "Abe" means Abraham Foxman, whose name has for decades been synonymous with the struggle...Read more

President Joe Biden's address to Congress last week wasn't merely a sobering recitation of the nation's most profound wounds and weaknesses, and it wasn't only a summary of the specific proposals he has made in his first 100 days to confront them. It was an old-fashioned call for bipartisanship by one who came of age in a different, better ...Read more

Hot tempers at last week's House hearing on the battle against COVID-19 highlighted again the hatred that America's hard right continues to harbor for Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. It's both ironic and fitting that America's preeminent warrior against infectious diseases is despised ...Read more

Bernie Sanders was never the most all-American of presidential candidates. The Brooklyn-born socialist senator from Vermont has a New York accent less thick than overpowering. Lecturing America relentlessly on its serious ills, he presented as a cross between Scrooge and the Grim Reaper, seemingly as likely to appeal to American voters as Leon...Read more

Former House Speaker John Boehner's new book landed just in time to underscore the point that Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz has been making in spades: The Republican Party is a hot mess. In "On The House: A Washington Memoir," the Ohio Republican bluntly assesses the paltry intelligence and dubious character of many of the leading figures in the ...Read more

Folk singer Phil Ochs was biting about one state's especially noxious mistreatment of Black Americans. "Here's to the land you've torn out the heart of," goes the refrain in "Here's to the State of Mississippi," Ochs' 1965 protest song. "Mississippi, find yourself another country to be part of."

Georgia has now taken center stage as our ...Read more

It is hard to imagine that, faced with aggressive, relentless assaults on American elections by the Kremlin, evidence of Russian bounties placed on the heads of American soldiers in the Mideast and bare-knuckled moves to re-gobble Ukraine, Ronald Reagan would have kissed Vladimir Putin's posterior. There was a time -- lasting decades, in fact ...Read more