by Melinda Snodgrass | Mar 16, 2017 | General
“A good deed is never lost; he who sows courtesy reaps friendship, and he who plants kindness gathers love.” Basil Caesarea. Why am I quoting a Saint? (I was going to use Galatians 6: 7-9 but that particular quote seemed more ominous than encouraging so I went with Basil.) But back to the question — why a quote about good deeds? Because they really do come back and reward you and I have a living, breathing example. Tuesday afternoon I attended George’s...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Mar 1, 2017 | General
I hate to even link to this Tweet. The man is vile on every level, but you have to see the genesis of what came out of Trump’s mouth today. So a few days ago David Duke, former imperial wizard of the Ku Klux Klan and all around racist, anti-Semite, neo-Nazi tweeted the following. David Duke @DrDavidDuke President Trump, do you think it might be the Jews themselves making these calls to get sympathy to push their ethnic agenda? @POTUS (I removed the link. I refuse to link to this...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Feb 21, 2017 | TV & Movies
I ended up seeing ARRIVAL and ROGUE ONE relatively close together. I liked both movies a lot, and have been mulling over the similarities and differences for the past month or more. I think I’m ready to take a stab at talking about them. ***********************************USUAL WARNING SPOILERS!!!!******************* In many ways they have the same theme — courage and sacrifice are sometimes worth the pain. In one film the sacrifice is personal. In the other epic, but at their core that’s...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Feb 2, 2017 | General
Last night the campus of Berkley was roiled with protests that turned violent, led to objects being thrown, fires being set, and ultimately the cancellation of a speech by noted alt-right gadfly and baby Nazi Milo Yiannopoulos. This is not a productive way to resist, people. Let us not fall into the trap of the anti-war protestors during Vietnam who turned a complacent middle class against them, led their, perhaps, persuadable parents to vote for and support Richard Nixon in a backlash...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Jan 30, 2017 | General
A friend of mine just posted a long and very moving post about his father who managed to get to America out of the ashes of the Holocaust. It got me thinking about these white nationalists and the angry Trump voters who want America for the Americans and would shout out the Nazi tainted slogan “America First”. You want to measure who gets to be here. How about this? My father’s ancestors came to New York (what was then called New Amsterdam) around 1690. Dad thought that...
