A Keen Observer

Several years ago a white female teacher of Irish descent in a Worcester elementary school approached a Black female colleague with a complaint. “My daughter can’t get a teaching job,” she said. “They’re looking for minorities.” The Black teacher replied, “Well, you folks have your...

I wrote blogs for the Telegram & Gazette for five years, from January 2011 to January 2016. We parted ways because, according to the current online editor, my writing was “inflammatory and obscene.” Last year I found out that Bruce Gaultney, who was at the...

I have a son. I don’t have a daughter. I have a brother. I don’t have a sister. I don’t have a granddaughter. I have a couple of nephews, but not even one niece. So when it comes to the gender of the next president,...

Former House Speaker Tip O’Neill once said that “all politics is local.” In 2015, however, a New York Times pundit said that had changed to “all politics is national.” In a recent blog I agreed with the latter observation by pointing out the vote-getting, racial...

Believe it or not, I still have some friends at the Telegram & Gazette. And because my heart is pure and I lead a good Christian life I’m always willing to help them out with a suggestion for an interesting story. So I e-mailed someone...

When I want to know something about music, I ask my son. He’s a walking encyclopedia of every musical genre except classical music and a very accomplished guitarist to boot. He has a collection of over 5000 CD’s, and he can tell you the history...

In my last blog I compared boxers George Foreman and Mike Tyson to presidential candidate Donald Trump. Today the comparison is between the zealous supporters of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and ordinary religious zealots. Sanders supporters are “faith-based.” Their ideology trumps (pun intended) their...

You’re probably asking yourself what these three names have in common. What is the connection? In the immortal words of Ricky Ricardo, I guess I “got some ‘splainin’ to do.” When Big George Foreman was the heavyweight champion back in the early 1970’s everyone thought...

Republican presidential candidate Senator Ted Cruz is the most hated man in Republican politics. His own colleagues in the Senate can’t stand him, and so far not one of them has endorsed him in his run for the highest office in the land. Here in...

I’ve had commenters on my blog tell me I can’t write about what goes on in Worcester because I live in Sutton, even though I grew up in the city, taught school there for 34 years, and owned an income property in the Plantation Street...