Category Archives: Katharhynn Heidelberg

Ginger ale, that refreshing, slightly spice-kicked drink, came our way sometime in the 1840s. But this isn’t about ginger ale, except tangentially: in a roundabout way, ginger ale may have saved my life. Not because of any healing properties, but … Continue reading →

It should have been a surprise. It should have been a shock. It should have been unifying — galvanizing, even. But Donald Trump’s decision to commute the justly earned sentence of Roger Stone — the latest in a long line … Continue reading →

There was a time, so they say, that people could disagree on politics while agreeing on certain basics like the common good. Those days, if ever they were, appear to be behind us, as we now can no longer agree … Continue reading →

“You knew damn well I was a snake when you took me in.” Donald Trump said those words in 2017. As an analogy for migrants, he read from a poem about a woman who nursed a snake back to health … Continue reading →

In about the space of one week in June, Donald Trump suggested a newspaper committed “virtual” treason; joked (perhaps) about staying in office beyond term limits, while at the same time, saying two major papers would be out of business … Continue reading →

Albert told me the weather is always dreary when people go — cold, rainy, gray. Given my friend was speaking of the concentration camp at Dachau, it seemed fitting that the sky above would reflect the grim reality below. It … Continue reading →

Entertain a scenario: An angry young man stalks your neighborhood, committing crimes. But no one tells you who it is, even after his arrest, for fear of “giving him attention.” Entertain a few questions: Who was Ted Bundy? Do you … Continue reading →

Colin Kaepernick has reached an agreement with the National Football League over what amounts to the loss of his job for exercising his rights. The agreement, announced in mid-February, resolves the former 49ers quarterback’s claim of collusion that kept him … Continue reading →

The result was predictable: Although allegations of sexual assault against Brett Kavanaugh took his smooth-sail Supreme Court nomination into choppy waters, he made it to dry land, propelled in no small way by the gusting grandstanding of Sen. Susan Collins. … Continue reading →

Brett Kavanaugh’s July nomination to the United States Supreme Court prompted an explosion of worry from those who believe in women’s bodily autonomy, as well as those disturbed by his agreement with a 2015 ruling in favor of a program … Continue reading →

Evil triumphs when good men do nothing — Attributed to Edmund Burke (paraphrased) Raise your hand if you’re tired of hearing about the latest in Things Trump. (I’m raising both right now, so you know.) Any president is a newsmaker, … Continue reading →

What’s the difference between a dung hole and a dung house? A meaningless one, when the sitting president of the United States utters such a term to describe predominantly non-white countries, and follows the utterance by saying we need to … Continue reading →

Dear Alabama GOP: Hello there! I see you are about to elect Roy Moore to the U.S. Senate. Now, I could rail at you about why this is a spectacularly bad idea for anyone who wants America to continue functioning … Continue reading →

Tidal wave. That’s how I was going to describe the growing number of accusations of sexual misconduct (and worse) in the wake of producer Harvey Weinstein’s fall. Other Hollywood luminaries (director James Toback) have been accused since the news broke, … Continue reading →

It’s 2017. I know that’s hardly news to anyone; we’ve all got calendars and the ability to keep track of time. And yet, I wonder. The Aug. 12 murder in Charlottesville, Va., of Heather Heyer weighs heavily on the mind. … Continue reading →

Donald Trump is at once a unique danger to the Republic and that for which it stands — and the leader we had coming. The man genuinely behaves as though he can do whatever he pleases and, when curbed, acts … Continue reading →

If this column were to go away, I don’t harbor the illusion that many people would mourn much. It’s just one voice. But if your access to information and your ability to compare claims with fact were to diminish or … Continue reading →

If this column were to go away, I don’t harbor the illusion that many people would mourn much. It’s just one voice. But if your access to information and your ability to compare claims with fact were to diminish or … Continue reading →

Ah, the couch crouch! You know — the photo of Trump propagandist Kellyanne Conway kneeling on a sofa in the Oval Office, intent on whatever photo she was taking with her smartphone. People lost their minds over it, inveighing about … Continue reading →

Ah, the couch crouch! You know — the photo of Trump propagandist Kellyanne Conway kneeling on a sofa in the Oval Office, intent on whatever photo she was taking with her smartphone. People lost their minds over it, inveighing about … Continue reading →

Post-truth. Truthiness. Alternative facts. Some of the terms we’ve been hearing lately are inventive; one is even humorous — and intended as such. But all of them mean the same thing, and there’s nothing funny about the suggestion that we … Continue reading →

Post-truth. Truthiness. Alternative facts. Some of the terms we’ve been hearing lately are inventive; one is even humorous — and intended as such. But all of them mean the same thing, and there’s nothing funny about the suggestion that we … Continue reading →

In the wake of Donald Trump’s election, I will say one thing emphatically. I hope with every fiber of my being that I am completely wrong about him. Wrong, wrongedty wrong-wrong-wrong. Unlike Rush Limbaugh’s snarling when President Obama was elected, … Continue reading →

Two images. One: A young woman in a spangled leotard balances on one leg, arms wide, poised to spring, on a balance beam. Two: A woman on a beach, surrounded by police, face obscured, as she removes a long-sleeved swim … Continue reading →

Heed, for a moment, the stridently anti-woman crowd’s complaints after the Supreme Court of the United States’ June decision in Whole Women’s Health v. Hellerstedt. Perhaps the caterwauling and handwringing show you what it shows me: the critical importance of … Continue reading →

Orlando. If gut-wrenching tragedies could be summed up in just a few words by a common person of no importance, these would be: I am tired. I am tired, because 49 human beings minding their own business were murdered at a nightclub … Continue reading →

“The GOP is destined to lose the White House and the Senate if Donald Trump secures the nomination.” — Karl Rove, paraphrased. If Donald Trump is the nominee, the “prospects for a safe and prosperous future are greatly diminished … Donald Trump lacks the temperament to be president. … Dishonesty … Continue reading →

I came of age in a household in which “militia” was not a scary word. In my world at the time, it just meant people suspicious of government and committed to the Second Amendment. But it’s more than that. In … Continue reading →

You might be hearing about morality a lot lately. We have “heart problems, not gun problems,” or so we’re told in the wake of America’s latest mass murder(s). Evildoers are doing to do evil. If we would just allow prayer … Continue reading →

Kim Davis, Rowan County, Ky., clerk, apparently does not understand either the Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage or her job as a civil servant of secular government. That didn’t stop her from repeatedly denying two gay men a marriage … Continue reading →

Just stop it. Stop defending the state-sanctioned display of the “Confederate” flag on public buildings/grounds where the public’s business is conducted and where the public’s representatives meet. Note that I said “state-sanctioned” and “public buildings.” I couldn’t care less if … Continue reading →

The War on the Poor. It has a nice ring to it, rhyming as it does, and all. But this isn’t just a catchy phrase, it is too often reality, both in government and in daily practice. People appear to … Continue reading →

“I don’t care.” The phrase was being heard quite a bit, and in a number of ways in December, when the U.S. Senate released a long-hidden executive summary of the CIA’s use of torture. A sampling of the “reasoning” on … Continue reading →

By now, you’d think I would know better than to read articles titled “Shamed, flamed, harassed: What it’s like to be called fat online.” But, I did reason that it appeared in the New York Times, and I reasoned further that … Continue reading →

“He wore his gun outside his pants, for all the honest world to feel.” — Townes Van Zandt, “The Ballad of Pancho and Lefty,” as sung by Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard Entertain, if you will, some scenarios: 1. You … Continue reading →

The U.S. Supreme Court’s June Hobby Lobby ruling isn’t about birth-control. Wait. What? How can that be, when the case, and a similar case brought by Conestoga Wood, were specifically about birth-control coverage in the Affordable Care Act? The case centered on … Continue reading →

Check any book of quotations and you can find ammunition for or against the argument that “America was founded as a Christian nation.” True, it is a ridiculous debate more than 230 years later, in a land where legal precedent … Continue reading →

This May 22 marks the fourth anniversary of my father’s death. Four years. It’s hard to fathom. I still hear his voice, and not a day goes by without a thought of him. Mostly, I think of him with fondness, … Continue reading →

Did you hear the one about how the deficit has soared under Obama, who is a gun-grabbing Kenyan-born Muslim socialist communist fascist traitor because he doesn’t agree with everything in which I believe? How about the one that says the … Continue reading →

It was hard to feel sorry for Eleanor Mc- Cullen, a Bostonian featured in the Jan. 13 New York Times. McCullen is among the self-appointed public scolds of women who go to a Planned Parenthood clinic in her city. She is … Continue reading →