Several years ago, I participated in a National Geographic “people to people” tour to Cuba. Now that Trump’s oil embargo is threatening Cuba’s very survival, I’m sharing my memories of Cuba for those unacquainted with its amazing people. Everywhere I went Cubans were open and warm, eager to share their impressions of daily [...]
Pat Taub
In our increasingly dark times, despair is a seductive force. Many of us have been deeply affected by the 170 Iranian schoolgirls murdered by US bombs; ICE’s inhumane detention centers; and an increasingly unhinged President who is oblivious to how his policies are threatening WW lll. The list is long, but if we limit our focus to the darkness, [...]
Pat Taub
I’m in a dream where I’m trapped. I’m running through a long hall, looking for an escape from the perpetual bombings that leveled Gaza and now aim for the same carnage in Lebanon and Iran, where 170 school girls were murdered by US bombs. For a brief moment the bombs let up, when my attention is diverted to ICE thugs kidnapping my brown-skinned [...]
Pat Taub
During Women’s History Month, the tendency is to celebrate famous women in the arts and politics, often ignoring those less famous women who have made an indelible impression on our lives. This year I’m celebrating Women’s History Month by sending love notes to family members, neighbors, teachers and others to whom I owe a debt [...]
Pat Taub
“The great challenge . . . is to keep awake the part of you that knows . . . what it means to be alive.” The Marginalian, February, 22, 2026 Trump’s devastating takeover of the federal government has awakened many here and abroad to the perils the U S faces. Authoritarianism merges with fascism at home. Injustice and inequality grow. [...]
Pat Taub
I’m always searching for a book that not only pulls me in, but whose well-drawn characters linger after the book is closed, hovering like ghostly spirits. Here are a few recent reads whose characters impacted me. The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, Kiran Desai Desai took almost 20 years to write this sweeping story which moves back and forth [...]
Pat Taub
GUEST POST by TOM SANTULLI Lord of the Flies, William Golding’s 1954 novel, was required reading for many of us growing into adolescence. It’s the story of a group of young boys, educated and known to one another, on a plane that crashes, landing them stranded on a desert island. They make desperate attempts to maintain civilization and [...]
Pat Taub
The 1975 Sci-fi cinematic thriller,” The Stepford Wives,” bears an eerie resemblance to the women in Trump’s cabinet. The film depicts the upscale suburban community of Stepford, Connecticut where the women are carbon copies of one another. On every sighting, even at the grocery store, they are fashionably attired and perfectly made-up. [...]
Pat Taub
“What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness.” —George Saunders, acclaimed novelist, in his 2013 Syracuse University commencement address. In a New York Times interview, referring to his commencement address, Saunders confessed that, looking back on his life, he wished he had been kinder. His Buddhist teachings frame [...]
Pat Taub
GUEST POST by TOM SANTULLI “We make meaning most readily in times of confusion and despair when life as we know it has ceased to make sense.” ~ Oliver Sacks Watching the chaos and suffering unleashed in this country and abroad by Trump – maniacal narcissistic amoral bullying – and his toadies, despair is my first reaction… fear, [...]
Pat Taub