What's Tony Thinking

Quick Takes: The Election, COVID Disproportionality, and Your Bucket List

November 3, 2021 — “Thank you Pramila Jayapal.” Former Northern Virginia Congresswoman, Barbara Comstock (R), got the last word in on the PBS Newshour election analysis segment. It was, “Thank you Pramila Jayapal,” meaning thank you Democrats for frittering away your opportunity to govern with party in-fighting. Another election is over with a message from Seattle that Democrats nation-wide might... Read More

Empty Pews: An American Public Health Crisis

November 2, 2021 — Two Harvard professors, one an epidemiologist, the other a specialist in “human flourishing,” have an article out with the surprising title, “Empty Pews Are An American Public Health Crisis.” We’ve heard about a lot of public health issues and crises of late: guns, addiction, violence. But empty pews? The gist of the article are two... Read More

All Saints Day: Grace, Not Perfection

October 31, 2021 — Reader Scott Freeman passed along Tish Harrison Warren’s fine reflection on All Saints Day — which is today, November 1. I’m not sure how Warren found her way to the pages of the NYT on a regular basis, but she’s a most welcome addition. She speaks in a compassionate and contemporary, yet theologically substantive and... Read More

A Surprise in the Great Good Guy/ Bad Guy Shuffle

October 30, 2021 — As I’ve mentioned in several recent posts, we’re living in a time of historical reappraisals and revisions that challenge some long held notions of who are the good guys and who are the bad guys — or if anyone really can be so simply and clearly described. But here’s a surprise: in the “stock rising”... Read More

The New Meth

October 29, 2021 — Another death took place in the Ballard Commons Tent Encampment this week. EMTs showed up to remove a body as police looked on. I’ve seen no further information yet on the person who died or the cause of death. Recently, here, I mentioned walking through Ballard Commons on a trip to drop off my ballot.... Read More

Art on Display, Mental Health Break and He-Brews

October 27, 2021 — Art on Display Sometime last spring, while visiting Laura in White Salmon, WA, we went across the Columbia River to Hood River, Oregon. Once mainly know for its fruit (apples, peaches and pears), Hood River has become sort of artsy. Lots of galleries and eating places that display local art. On the “nothing ventured, nothing gained”... Read More

So Much for Self-Righteousness

October 25, 2021 — As mentioned in a recent blog, I did much of my growing up in the D. C. suburb of Arlington, my father being an employee of the Interior Department. But even as we lived “in the south,” or at least on its northern fringes, I was aware that I was from the Northwest, an Oregonian,... Read More

Back in Seattle

October 23, 2021 — Linda and I spent a longer time in the Wallowas this year than ever before. Basically six months. And it has been a especially beautiful fall season there. I got in one last hike on the Ice Lake Trail last weekend with my good friend, David Laskin. The first photo captures the blaze of Tamarack... Read More

A Personal Epiphany

October 22, 2021 — Do you ever wonder about decisions you made in the course of life and why you made them? In college I decided, after a brief dalliance with biology, to major in history. Specifically, Modern European History. And then, in graduate school, European Cultural and Intellectual History. I’ve always wondered what drew me to European History,... Read More

Why God’s Love Isn’t Enough

October 19, 2021 — Let me begin this one by noting that of late, for reasons not entirely clear to me, a greater percentage of my blog posts have been straight up religious, Christian or theological. I realize that at least some, perhaps many of you, dear readers, are not religious or Christian or maybe much interested in theology.... Read More

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