This week we said goodbye to Dex, Mr. Dexterity with Pips. The second of our aging trio, Dex was fifteen. Too big to show, he was sent from our breeder friend in Santa Barbara back in 2007 to join Jetta, Larra, and Eva, previous gifts from the “basenji farm.” Dex was one of our […]
Sunday is Mother’s Day, the twenty-four-hour period of required respect for the women who shaped us, and which, for today’s women, is life’s greatest cause of ambivalence. In my day, motherhood was the default occupation, the expected role of adulthood. Today women are urged to remain “free” to develop themselves, their careers, their interests and […]
Biden has declared his candidacy for President. I find that event both reassuring and sad. It’s reassuring because it acknowledges that he is the only available candidate who can beat Trump. It’s sad because Democrats remain tepid toward the President, conceding unenthusiastically that he is the candidate with the best chance of winning, but […]
If you want to discover the values of an institution, ask what it rewards. In the university, tenure is the reward, and it’s earned by publication of research. The order of names on a piece is of vital importance. Individual accomplishment, therefore, is prized over teaching, administrative service or any other community activity. […]
Law students at Stanford University have been shouting down professors and other students, and the scene apparently has been repeated at other top-rated law schools around the country. That the uncivil behavior of polarization has reached universities does not come as a surprise, but it is, nevertheless, upsetting. I grew up in the […]
Anyone you talk to will be happy to tell you the root cause of today’s social, economic and political ills, and I’ve certainly done my share of that. However, I’ve spent most of my time pointing at the liberal’s contribution to these upheavals. It’s time to turn to the other side of the coin—the hyper-individualism […]
The current crises in over racial education in primary school leave me without a response. The voices I hear speak the language of extremism on both sides, are irreconcilable, so will lead to nothing but name-calling. I think back on my own racial education; I don’t remember not knowing that the nation has always […]
Readers should be warned that the following is written by a deaf-old-woman-writer who loves the language in all its dimensions. I’ve lived long enough to remember previous efforts to change attitudes by manipulating the language, and I urge political correctness proponents to look more carefully at the consequences of those previous attempts. I understand the […]
Our sixteen-year-old basenji, Bridget, died in her sleep last week, an event that fills us with both sadness and relief. Blind for the last three or four years, increasingly senile, with a sensitive stomach to boot, she took a lot of patience and a lot of care. She was the sixth of eleven […]
I’m realizing, as I cope with age and its disabilities, that a good part of the fear of growing old is loss of place—of being a part of something larger than myself—and the importance this plays in our identity. For many, especially women of my age, family remains the primary group, and in […]
Please forgive the silence of my blog since the new year began. I celebrated Friday the 13th by breaking my leg. Some might say it’s an omen for the year, but I’m not in the mood to accept that. After a rude three-week introduction to the helplessness of old age, I’m now reclaiming my place […]
As I sat down to write this last blog of 2022, I looked back at the blog I wrote at the beginning of the year. Here is the opening paragraph. I don’t know how to start this new year that feels already old. The usual resolutions seem irrelevant, the questions bewildering, the answers out of […]
Judith Kirscht lives and works in the beautiful Puget Sound area. She is the author of four published works of fiction with more to come soon!
