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I have known Mick Rosenthal since the day he came from the hospital after his birth. His parents are my close friends and they are political activists. His mother Nancy Stephens Rosenthal actually spent a Christmas with the Obamas. Born with Cerebral Palsy, Mick grew up with many challenges but instead of curbing his enthusiasm, they actually inspired him to do everything in his power to open doors for people like himself. Since the 2016 election, Mick has worked on a mobile voting app called...
Call me crazy (or call me meshugganah, as I am writing this on the most solemn Jewish day of the year, Yom Kippur), but the pandemic does have a good side. Believe me, I am devastated as the numbers of dead and dying all around the globe just keep getting higher. I want this to end sooner than later and I am praying on this holy day for an end to this madness. That said, I am seeing some positives. My wife arrived on a flight from Los Angeles yesterday and today she taught her third graders, all...
My Uncle Harry Rosenfeld turned 91 years old this month. His is a remarkable story that constantly reminds me why I value the message of the Statue of Liberty so much. Harry was born in Berlin, Germany in 1929 and is eight years younger than his sister, my mother Rachel. Their father, Sam, was an uneducated Polish immigrant who became a very successful furrier in Berlin. After Hitler came to power, Jews were not allowed to go to public school. Before Krystallnacht happened in 1938, Sam was...
A priest and a rabbi are sitting together in the back seat of a taxicab on the way to an ecumenical event. The taxi gets side-swiped, jumps the curb and comes to a grinding halt. The priest and rabbi each jump out of the car and cross themselves. The priest is confused. “Rabbi, YOU, thanking the Father, The Son and the Holy Ghost?” “No Monsignor, just checking.” He goes through the motions again, crossing up and down and then sideways, narrating “Spectacles, testicles, wallet, watch.” H...
Dear Sir Donald, I am writing to you as a fellow New Yorker. Okay, we grew up a little differently but we are both very tough and very proud people. We both avoided fighting in Viet Nam. I failed my physical but your rich father used his connections to get a doctor to make up a story that classified you as 4F. We were both Bill and Hillary Clinton supporters back in the day but I became a progressive independent and you became a right-wing Republican. It is clear after last weekend’s fiasco i...
Ah, life during a pandemic. This is usually my favorite time of year. Mostly sunny but not too hot. Flowers blooming. Great golf weather. Start of the major league baseball season. My solution to social distancing is to get in my car and explore new places, listening to as much bad news as I can bear before turning the radio dial to old time rock and roll. Have you driven along the S Skagit Highway? Because it’s a road rarely taken, it has some funkiness but there are also beautiful farms and i...
As if COVID-19! wasn’t scary enough, there is a new peril in our little corner of the universe and it has a face that could easily end up on the poster of a Hollywood horror movie. Say hello to your new neighbor, the Asian Giant Hornet. Last November, beekeeper Ted McFall was checking hives in nearby Custer in Whatcom County, and came across thousands and thousands of dead bee carcasses. Inside the hive, McFall discovered thousands of headless bees. McFall came to suspect Asian giant hornets, w...
Did you know that Shakespeare did some of his best work during a pandemic? And he even referenced it in his work. “A plague on both your houses” are Mercutio’s dying words in Romeo and Juliet. Now, I am a totally ADHD person dealing with the challenges on self-imposed, government mandated (common sense) isolation. So, I am finally sitting down and finishing my play, “MAX TO THE MAX.” I’ve had staged readings with theatre companies in Vancouver, BC, and Santa Rosa, CA, gotten notes from friend...
The clouds broke and the sun made a rare appearance on Sunday and I texted my dog-walking buddies and we all showed up at the off-leash dog park. Just as we were leaving our cars in the parking lot, Betsy got a text and announced that Kobe Bryant had been killed in a helicopter crash along with his four young daughters. We all went into an immediate funk, praying that his widow could somehow someday overcome this horrifying unimaginable grief. As we walked the dogs, we continued to get updates...
Father William Treacy, the iconic Irish Catholic priest, celebrated his upcoming 100th birthday on Sunday surrounded by 200 of his friends and followers. He will actually hit the century mark Friday. Religious and spiritual leaders from India to Seattle to Skagit County eloquently heaped praise on Treacy. Speaker after speaker, including priests, rabbis and imams, shared their incredible respect for a man who has been a powerful presence in the lives of many people for 75 years. The event took p...
No way am I going to bury the lead in this review of META’s new production of “West Side Story,” which opened at the Lincoln Theatre last week. Some critics love to play with their readers and try to slowly build up to a thumbs up or thumbs down but I’m going to cut to the chase. The production is wonderful. I entered the Lincoln from snowy streets on a wintry day in Mount Vernon and was transported into another world. The story of “Romeo and Juliet” was transformed by some of Broadway’s...
A priest and a rabbi walked onto a dairy farm… No, seriously. It sounds like the beginning of a joke, but it is actually the genesis of an amazing journey that continues on almost 50 years later. Father William Treacy and Rabbi Raphael Levine bought the 200-acre dairy farm with contributions and founded Camp Brotherhood at Lake McMurray near Conway. Their mission was to promote understanding and common ground between different religions and cultures. Rabbi Levine, born in Lithuania, and...
La Conner Weekly News’ resident “zookeeper” columnist is Mel Damski, who has directed 29 movies and hundreds of hours of series television, from MASH to Boston Legal. For the last eight years, he has been the producer-director of Psych on USA network. He has been nominated for an Oscar, two Emmy Awards, and earned a Christopher Award for Everybody’s Baby: the Rescue of Jessica McClure. A graduate of theAmericanFilmInstituteCenterfor Advanced Film Studies, Mel has taught at AFI, USC and most re...
