à la carte spirit by ilona fried
Fear
It’s Possible to Drown Out Marching Nazis. What About the Ones in Our Heads?
That 40,000 people marched peacefully in Boston on Saturday against hate groups, including Nazis, gave me hope that civilization would survive, at least for the weekend. While it’s important to starkly delineate what is, and what is not, acceptable in a modern democratic nation, it would be a foolish mistake to believe that everyone on … Continue reading
Why It’s OK, Even Imperative, to Laugh at the Tiki Torch Troglodytes
My late father, a survivor of Auschwitz, periodically told variations of the following joke when I was a kid: “Did you know that Jews and bicyclists caused World War II?” “Why the bicyclists?” I naively asked the first time. “Why the Jews?” After delivering the punchline, my dad chuckled. I either rolled my eyes, groaned … Continue reading
Attention is Love. Where is Yours Today?
Some people will celebrate today with flowers, chocolates, red and pink candies, heart shaped cakes, cards, gifts and/or romantic dinners. Festivity is fun, yet if one were to strip away the veneer of romance one would discover that to love another is, simply, to give one’s attention to them. Yet, offering our attention and being present with another human being … Continue reading
What to Do When the World is in Chaos? Get Present
The flurry of news, executive orders and meetings in Trump’s first week in the Oval Office has been breathtaking, the potential consequences overwhelming and, for me, heartbreaking. Some scholars and analysts have referred to the immigration ban as a “shock event”, designed to destabilize people and distract them from a more subtle, but possibly more dangerous maneuver. … Continue reading
Oh, the Places You’ll Go! HuffPo?!
As some of you know, my recent piece, An Open Letter to Ivanka Trump from One Daughter to Another, was published on The Huffington Post. It first appeared in the unindexed, unsearchable contributors’ section, sort of a virtual slush pile. Then an editor highlighted some quotes and posted it on the political blog, a place I never expected to see … Continue reading
à la carte spirit by ilona fried 
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