Lionel Deimel’s Web Log

I have long been ambivalent about giving statehood to the District of Columbia. Clearly, the District is “different” from the existing 50 st...

Shirley Jackson “The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day; the flowers were blossoming p...

President Trump has been adamant in his opposition to renaming military installations carrying the names of generals of the Confederate Stat...

It is often said that Donald Trump seeks to divide Americans rather than unite them. His actions certainly have that effect. Nevertheless, I...

When his mother and my former wife, Betty Deimel, died, my son, Geoffrey August Deimel, wrote a tribute to his mother on Facebook the next ...

Betty Deimel, the former Betty Elaine Lovell, died in a hospital in Canandaigua, New York last Thursday. She apparently died of a bacterial ...

Trump supporters do not think like the rest of us. They share many odd and dysfunctional views. Although they are not uniform in their opini...

Nancy Pelosi On August 4, 2018, I wrote a post titled “ The Wisdom of Dumping Pelosi .” I argued that Nancy Pelosi, who was then minorit...

I just saw a news report of another coronavirus outbreak at a pork-processing plant. It’s time to think more carefully about the significanc...

I recently encountered a Facebook post that collected several English language quirks. One of my favorite items asked whether the “s” or the...

We may not always want to admit it, but our behavior is influenced by what we see in the media. When we see beautiful and seemingly competen...

She is hardly the only person to use the locution, but Rachel Maddow repeatedly refers to a state as “The Great State of [wherever].” (I hav...

Today is the129th anniversary of the birth of Russian composer Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev. Well, maybe it is, anyway. The composer apparen...

The president is eager to “open up” the economy, and governors—not all of them Republican—are beginning to relax regulations designed to pre...

NPR reported today that the World Health Organization has enumerated six prerequisites for ending a coronavirus lockdown. They are the foll...

This blog was originally intended for “quick takes,” but my essays here have often been anything but. On Facebook, however, I often post tho...

Some years ago, I attended a workshop sponsored by the Anglican Fellowship of Prayer. I participated in one session on the structure of coll...

I was particularly struck by an op-ed in The New York Times by Charlie Warzel, “ Trump Chooses Disaster as His Re-Election Strategy .” This...

I picked up limes and tonic at the supermarket yesterday. After dinner, I planned on having a gin and tonic. When I took the gin bottle out ...

For the sake of argument, suppose that we could immediately test everyone in the country for the coronavirus and instantly get test results....