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Black-and-Blues Friday

It seems that “Gray Thursday” is the new name for the fourth Thursday of November each year in the United States. The name marks the re-purposing of a traditional event — from a communal giving of thanks, to shopping. Shopping for sale items is well on its way to supplanting America’s traditional harvest festival, and Gray Thursday (the day formerly known as Thanksgiving Day) is increasingly recognized as the precursor of Black Friday. Black Friday, of course, has for the past decade or so been the most busy day of the year for U.S. retailers. This year, instead of  waiting to

On Ferguson, Darren Wilson, and Michael Brown

Ferguson, Missouri, burst into flames after a grand jury found no cause to indict police officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of teenager Michael Brown on August 9. Some 700 National Guard troops were immediately summoned, with 2,200 reinforcements added Tuesday, to quell rioting. But the story of Ferguson is deceptively simple, and beguiling: a tale of authorities versus delinquents, blacks versus whites. devils versus angels. Here is my column on the case, Ferguson’s Damned Details.   Here is a select list of journalism collations and original documents about the story:  Overview:  The Marshall Project:  Collated news and opinion items about FergusonMoyers and

Welcome Aboard

  Facts and Opinions warmly welcomes two new journalists aboard our adventure: Tom Regan, on the eastern seaboard of the United States, and Michael Sasges, on Canada’s West Coast.   Michael Sasges is F&O’s new copy editor. He also contributes occasional Verbatim and other reports, and essays. A retired Canadian newspaperman, Mike Sasges reads and writes in Vancouver and in one of its high-country hinterlands, the Nicola Valley in British Columbia. He holds a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies from Simon Fraser University in Vancouver and is a director of Nicola Valley Museum, an affiliation that has motivated him to research and write about the men

Manthorpe on Gucci Grace, Zimbabwe’s “most reviled and hated woman”

In 1996, the year Robert Mugabe married Grace Goreraza, life for the majority of Zimbabweans was probably the best it ever had been, or was to be since, writes International Affairs columnist Jonathan Manthorpe. Many give credit for country’s good times to Mugabe’s late wife Sally. Since then, the country has been in free fall. “Grace has a lust for power and wealth almost beyond the country’s power to provide for her passions. Grace has become the most reviled and hated woman in Zimbabwe,” he writes. Excerpt of Manthorpe’s new column,  The Rise of “Gucci Grace,” Zimbabwe’s “First Shopper”: Sally Mugabe was

Brennan: Tom Lehrer’s common sense gave him a cult following

Although musical satirist Tom Lehrer had not been active as a performer and recording artist for 15 years when Arts columnist Brian Brennan met him in 1980, he still had a cult following of enthusiasts who fondly remembered his trenchant observations of 1950s’ American life and politics. An excerpt of Brennan’s Brief Encounters column, The Media-shy Satirist: Tom Lehrer: The Associated Press called him the J.D. Salinger of musical satire. Tom Lehrer was a brilliant American songwriter with a sardonic wit who scored big with the college crowd in the 1950s, only to walk away from it all in 1960 when

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