An Empire of Sex

The A & E cable channel has done a documentary on Bob Guccione, the founder of Penthouse Magazine and his short-lived global empire. Older folks followed the Guccione saga in real time starting in the 1970s when he challenged Hugh Hefner’s Playboy empire. ...

Almost Our Queen

History has many twists and turns.  Nations and cultures can be shaped by a single event. A Roman battle fleet September 2nd marked the anniversary of the Battle of Actium in 31 B.C.  Julius Caesar had been assassinated thirteen years before, setting off a...

IF YOU CAN’T STAND THE HEAT, SAY SOMETHING!

Summer is still with us, especially in Europe, where hot weather continues to flourish. On Wednesday, August 23rd, for example, the city of Milan hit 33 Celsius (close to 92 Fahrenheit), one of the hottest temperatures since 1763, the year in which weather temps began...

The Italian Tribe

de Corti, of the Italian tribe Before it was condemned as ‘cultural appropriation” non-White movie roles were played by Euro-Americans.  For Indigenous Americans one of the most egregious appropriations was Chief Iron Eyes Cody, the iconic face of the...

Muzzled Voices

Last week, our suburban newspaper Newsday published an op-ed by former congressman Steve Israel recounting how Albert Einstein wrote President Franklin Roosevelt in 1939 warning him that Nazi Germany was pursuing an atomic bomb.  The op-ed cited work by Jewish...