We lost two significant arts entities recently: BluSeed Studios and ADK ArtRise. BluSeed was a not-for-profit that provided opportunities for artists (including dancers, musicians, writers and other performers) to exhibit, teach and create. There were free or low-cost educational programs ...

It is difficult for me to understand why so many Americans seem to like seeing our country divided into factions on social terms (friends/enemies), by racial background (white, black, brown, blended etc.), by gender and sexuality (male/female, straight, LGBTQ-plus, etc.), socioeconomic status ...

Memorial Day is coming up. Time for some stories in honor of the fallen. Wherever they are, I hope they get a good chuckle. When you join the military, there is a security/clearance form you must fill out. Before they hand someone a gun, they want to know everything about that person and ...

Think of slavery and the first image that comes to mind is a 19th-century Southern cotton plantation. However, by the 1630s, slavery already existed in all 13 colonies with the first enslaved Africans arriving in New Amsterdam (later New York City) in 1626, brought there by the Dutch West ...

A strange thing happened after I dropped off my son at high school this morning. It hit me how different this young man is from the high school freshman I first dropped off four years ago. Somehow, this high school senior looked like a carbon copy of a few of his teachers — or maybe some ...

I’ve been thinking about the U.S. Constitution a lot lately. Of course I learned about it in high school civics class. I even used to tote a copy around in my briefcase (back in the day when people carried those) when I was lobbying in Washington, D.C., and various statehouses. But, it’s ...