ArcaMax

The holiday season is a generous one. More than half of U.S. adults report donating or having plans to make charitable donations by the end of this year, according to the Charities Aid Foundation. Times are hard, no doubt. But as we give to help our neighbors in need, let's remember that the actions inside our home also ripple out and affect ...Read more

I'm a Rhode Islander, but I don't live in Providence. I live in one of the towns in the state, but I can drive to Providence in maybe 40 minutes, because you can drive from nearly anyplace in Rhode Island to any other place in Rhode Island in 40 minutes. This ain't Texas.

We're a cozy state, is what we are. We like the ocean, and Italian food...Read more

Marjorie Taylor Greene's early exit from Congress reveals that her tough-broad persona was very much an act. After she angered Donald Trump by demanding release of the Epstein files, she became target of the slings, arrows and threats unleashed by the president and his enforcers.

Her response? Flight.

"Once I left her, she resigned," Trump ...Read more

At first, when I saw it on Facebook, I thought someone had fallen for some AI slop, was reposting "fake news." Even President Donald Trump could not be that tasteless.

He could be. He is. This is the full post:

"A very sad thing happened last night in Hollywood. Rob Reiner, a tortured and struggling, but once very talented movie director and...Read more

The strange house on 23rd Street -- a trapezoid of plywood, shower glass and chain link fence -- was the laughingstock of our Santa Monica neighborhood. Even Frank Gehry's gardener joked about the architect owner: "Poor Mr. Gehry."

Years later, my father and I attended an inaugural concert given at his stunning, sculpted Disney Hall. The ...Read more

Ahh, Christmas time! The joy of children's laughter! A time for caring, sharing and giving!

So, why not make this Christmas a time for giving something that most American children, families and communities are now denied -- and desperately need: a good child care system.

This is a basic element of civilization, yet the leaders of our ...Read more

Historians considering the state of American depravity will doubtless pause to reflect on the remarkable support in certain quarters for accused killer Luigi Mangione, charged with murdering UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on a Manhattan sidewalk last year. Mangione was caught on video pumping bullets into Thompson, a father of two, as he ...Read more

"Just FYI if you're seeing the news right now, I'm totally safe," a son enrolled at Brown University texted me. "I've been home for a few hours now and wasn't there when stuff started to happen. Seems to be some crazy shooting near brown."

What?! I turned on CNN and saw the quaint streets of Providence's College Hill -- lined with front ...Read more

The Supreme Court announced that it will hear oral argument in our birthright citizenship case. The case blocks President Donald Trump's executive order seeking to take away the right to birthright citizenship for many native-born American children, even though the 14th Amendment guarantees that right.

Just hours after the president signed ...Read more

They clearly wanted attention and attention is what they got. Eight students at Branham High School in San Jose, Calif. posted photos of themselves on social media forming a human swastika -- and lest there be any doubt, accompanied the photo with a quote from Adolf Hitler calling for the killing of all Jews.

Happy Hanukkah. It starts on ...Read more

The Achaemenid Persian Empire. Byzantium. The Ottomans. Ancient Rome. All these regimes wielded immense power relative to their contemporaries. They dominated militarily, economically, culturally and globally in ways comparable to the United States' current superpower status. All collapsed or were destroyed.

We Americans often forget that ...Read more

When visiting San Antonio with my family, I came prepared. If we were going to take our son to see the Alamo, I wanted to make sure he learned the whole history. I did not want him believing a caricature of U.S. history that only served to enshrine so-called white heroes. Especially since my husband is Tejano. Our son is a complicated mix of ...Read more

The last time I ordered a $12 coffee, the nice woman behind the coffee bar made me show her the money first.

"Yeah?" I said. "Then why don't you get those gay pride colored biscotti outta here, and the churros?"

Not that I go out for coffee all that much. I make coffee at home, is what I do.

After the coffee, I went on down to Sam's House ...Read more

Bribery, inflation, plagues, crumbling trade links, stalled innovation -- all these negatives helped bring down the once-mighty Roman Empire. But Rome needed centuries of bad leadership to collapse.

Donald Trump seems to be undoing American greatness at warp speed. Sure, the United States possesses strengths that will maintain an aura of ...Read more

He did it again. Consider the pattern. On Dec. 8, President Donald Trump went after Rachel Scott, who happens to be a woman of color, for asking him whether the administration would release the controversial video of the strike on the Venezuelan boat.

Scott: "Are you committed to releasing the full video?"

Trump: (reportedly growing ...Read more

This month marks the 70th anniversary of Rosa Parks' arrest for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white passenger in Montgomery, Alabama. Her courageous act triggered the historic Montgomery bus boycott, launched the career of a young preacher named Martin Luther King Jr., and changed the world. Remarkable events like the boycott have long...Read more