. . . Those who live on the other Andaman Islands are engaged in modern life or are beginning to participate in modern life or are at least are aware of modern life. (Though, when I was on one of the other Andaman Islands, also a long time ago, one wild-haired, scantily-clad fellow did aim a bow and arrow at me—in jest, I assumed.)

       North Sentinel Island is different from the rest of the Andamans Islands.

       It is estimated that somewhere between 50 and 200 people now live there . . . And they will fight to keep others out.

      They want no intercourse with modern life—whatsoever. They have no understanding of modern life. They do not play nicely with others—modern or otherwise. . . .

And many anthropologists believe the inhabitants of North Sentinel Island have a remarkable distinction: they are the last surviving hunter-gatherers on earth.

It’s 3 a.m. and I’m wide awake. Given that we both have sleep problems, we try extra hard not to wake the other, knowing how difficult it is for either of us to fall back to sleep. But having to consider my every move naturally makes sleeping all the more difficult.

      What to do with the wet tissue in my right hand? I’m lying on my right side as usual, facing the outside of the bed. Slowly and awkwardly, I thrust my right arm out from under the covers and fling the tissue. It’s likely to miss the wastebasket in the darkness, but wherever it lands should be soundless on the carpet.

      The sneezes have passed, but that nagging allergic tickle at the back of my throat is threatening the serenity, not to mention my ability to breathe. The only thing that works in these situations is a throat lozenge. Fortunately, I’ve presciently positioned one within reach on the nightstand. It’s right next to the tissue box and plastic cup.

      Or at least it was. …

It’s been ten years since Trump came down the golden escalator and announced his 2016 bid for president. It would take me three months to bring myself to blog about Trump in any concentrated way—the main political science view was that the party would eventually decide, or the voters would move on, and Trump would go the way of Herman Cain, Ross Perot (who did have some staying power, I guess) or other outsider candidates who seemed fascinating initially but held little lasting appeal. I assured friends who were alarmed by Trump’s rhetoric about immigrants that his candidacy wouldn’t get very far.

      And a decade later, here we are. Not only is Trump serving his second term as president, he’s been the focal point of our politics for most of that decade. This is pretty astounding for a politician who has never been very popular or represented a lot of popular issue positions….

[This is an excerpt of a column by the Marquette University political science professor Julia Azari in the Substack GoodPolitics/BadPolitics.]

      So, here’s the question, really the essential question: How could our fellow Americans have done this? How could they have elected this man? This conniving psychopath?

      Because, they knew, didn’t they? They absolutely had to know. It was inescapable, wasn’t it?

      There was, after all:

      The botched pandemic response and the bleach recommendation. The outright bribing of foreign officials. The violent coup he provoked and watched placidly on TV. There were, of course, the endless obvious lies and then the photos of classified documents tossed around the toilet. And the felony convictions and the accumulation of other legal accusations.

      And so much, so much more.

      And yet 77 million of my fellow Americans voted him in, voted to install a seriously disturbed man, a sociopath, a psychopath, to the most powerful job in the world.

      I’ve heard and read a number of explanations. …

      I spent four summers right before and during college working either in or right outside the entrances of our national parks. At 18, a new high school graduate, I pumped gas at Flagg Ranch, located a few miles south of Yellowstone National Park and just north of the Grand Tetons. At 19 and 21, I worked as a bellhop and desk clerk at Grand Lake Lodge, on the western slope of Rocky Mountain National Park. And at 20, I worked at Many Glacier Hotel in the heart of Glacier National Park, rotating between day and night shifts as a desk clerk and night watchman.

      These were life-shaping experiences.

      For one thing, in 1968 in Colorado, I met the girl who would become my wife of nearly 54 years. During these summers I also climbed the Grand Teton and rafted on the Snake River in Wyoming, climbed Longs Peak and Snowmass Mountain in the high Colorado range and hiked miles of trails on multi-day treks in Glacier, making noise in wooded areas to let the bear know we were coming. There were steak rides, mini-golf soirees, poker games and trips to Frontier Days and the Calgary Stampede, rodeos where cowboys would hone their craft and show their skills.

      But what has stayed with me most so many decades later is the natural beauty of the parks, their lakes, forests, pristine streams and snow-covered mountains, all under big western skies that seem to stretch forever.

      Sadly, America’s National Parks are endangered these days…

      I don't share (at least any longer) Mitch Stephens' desire to "see" those many countries.

      I do, however, really cherish the extended time I was able to spend in the past (an academic year in France in 1966-67 (I missed being a part of the 1968 movement), two years in Latin America (1971-72 in Uruguay and 1972-1973 in Argentina where I was exposed to the Tupamaro movement and the return of Juan Perón, respectively) and Japan (Tokyo 1973-1976).

      During those long term stays I was also able to see large parts of Europe, Latin America and Southeast Asia. However, those long term stays also made the idea of the "If this is Tuesday, we must be in Belgium" kind of travel not particularly compelling. . . .

      With Iran, our terroristic, mad fanatic nemesis for the past four decades, the sudden unilateral act of war by Donald Trump to destroy that country’s nuclear capability, and with that its current ruling regime, means only one thing: 

      The end game must be—and one hopes will be—the toppling of the current Iranian regime and its nuclear-weaponized belief in a radical Muslim hegemony over not just the middle east, but the entire world. 

      Imminent ceasefire or not, there’s no going back. We are all in. …

WANDERLUST: A Video in Two Voices

The insistent, uncontrollable, disturbing urge to travel. It’s glories and it’s discontents. Featuring scenes of Paris and efforts to go hither, yon and God knows where.

Click image above for video

This is an installment in our series on “What I Still Want to Accomplish” — see earlier essays on this subject by: Neil Offen and Melinda Moulton.

      In the immortal words of that great political philosopher, Yogi Berra, it’s déjà vu all over again.

      That is, our generation has seen this kind of preemptive military action before … and before … and before:

·       1962, the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the U.S. preemptively implemented a naval blockade of Cuba to prevent Soviet nuclear missiles from becoming operational. It may have been the closest we have come to full-on nuclear war.

·       1964, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, passed by Congress, authorized President Johnson to use military force in Southeast Asia without a formal declaration of war. It was a direct response to alleged attacks on U.S. destroyers by North Vietnamese forces in the Gulf of Tonkin. There is, however, some evidence suggesting the alleged attacks may not have happened and were simply a pretext for getting us more deeply involved in an internal civil war thousands of miles away. …

      I don’t have to tell you how bad it is. If you’re like me, you approach each day’s news with a knot in your stomach. The question I keep asking myself (and others) is how will this Trumpian daymare end? Where will we be, say, four years from now?

      Let me give you a few scenarios … of the likeliest outcome four years from now.

      1. America will have elected a strong, charismatic progressive. He or she will have ridden to major victory on the backlash against Trump’s disastrous economy and attacks on our democracy. Congress will also be progressive. … our system prevailed and we’re on the road to remedying years of bullying and cruelty, and coming out stronger for it.

      2. Trump will be gone and we’ll have a Democratic president, but the majority will continue to be angry and distrustful of most institutions. . . .

(This is an excerpt from the Substack of Robert Reich, a professor at UC Berkeley and a former secretary of labor.)

      The band did not look or sound like any other contemporary group. Live audiences were often shocked to see that the propulsive music, a mixture of rock and funk which some called “psychedelic soul,” was coming out of a band that featured women on trumpet and keyboards, white musicians on drums and sax, and four distinct singers who often traded vocals during the same song. Unlike other soul music groups, whose members usually wore matching suits, the members of Sly and the Family Stone each wore their own style of loud clothing. 

      Sly’s personal appearance was the most eye-catching, with his large Afro, sometimes covered by big hats, his clothes featuring spangles and sequins, and his jewelry including a gold Star of David around his neck. … 

This is the first work of fiction we have published on WritingAboutOurGeneration.com. We’re open to publishing more—if they shed light, as we believe this story does, on aging today after younging in an earlier century.

     . . . I hate bullshit.  Always have.  Yet, whether from loneliness or some unrecognized ache, here I was giving in to one of the most specious forms of bullshit.  The bumptious fantasy of some ditzy social director, conceived and printed in huge letters even my beclouded eyescould read—printed in ersatz, cheerful script on canvas tied to chain linkage walling the senior center off from the polluted inky river slinking off to the sea:

Seniors Dance the Night Away!

Every Saturday!

Live Music!

Golden Oldies for Goldens!

Senior Center—7 p.m. till Midnight . . . .

This week, Brad Lander, New York City’s top financial officer and a Democratic candidate for mayor, was roughed up, handcuffed and arrested by what appeared to be federal agents at an immigration court in lower Manhattan.

      Oh, and last week, Melissa Hortman, a Democratic Minnesota state legislator, was assassinated allegedly by a right-wing Christian zealot, and John Hoffman, also a Democratic state legislator in Minnesota, was shot by the same man.

      In case you’ve been wondering, this is indeed what fascism looks like. …

Here’s some of what we have seen recently that might be of particular interest to our generation. (Apologies for any pay walls.) Send us what you have seen at WritingAboutOurGeneration@gmail.com.

• “What I Learned About Getting a Hearing Aid,” Katherine Roth, AP News, June 4, 2025.

• “Can a robot help you age better?” The Conversation, Daniele Magistro, June 6, 2025.

• “How Old Is Too Old For Video Games?” Sam Hallahan, The Gamer, Apr 29, 2025.

• “You’re Retired. What’s the Best Way to Withdraw Your Savings?” Brian J. O’Connor, New York Times, Dec. 28, 2024.

• “90-Something Women Share the Secrets for a Long, Happy Life,” Laura Sturza, The Ethel, Sept. 26, 2024.

• “Why Do Women Live Longer Than Men?” Mohana Ravindranath, New York Times, Feb. 25, 2025.

Click for more

      In a victory for constitutional rights, due process and community action, Milford, Mass., teenager Marcelo Gomes da Silva was released from ICE detention after spending five days in captivity, first in Burlington in a bedless cell, the Boston Globe reports.

      During his bail hearing, more than 100 people gathered outside, including dozens of his teammates on the school’s volleyball team. Gomes spoke to reporters after his release and said he had been kept in handcuffs the entire time he was detained, The Globe reported. He is an 18-year-old junior in high school with no criminal record.

      Below describes what happened to Gomes, but centers on the importance of community action in the face of arbitrary ICE arrests across the country and other civil liberties infractions by the Trump Administration. . . .

           . . . And knowing that work has its place, but it is a limited place is one more crucial ingredient in Paris’ secret sauce. They mostly don’t rush. They don’t work late. They don’t work weekends. They do not work too much. One little owner-operated café we frequented not only was closed on Saturdays and Sundays; it was closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. That meant Le Monsieur made less money. Yeah.

     You can imagine how hard this is to write for a New Yorker.

     And they take the time to be polite. My wife forget once to preface a request with, “S’il vous plait.” She was sternly rebuked. And you don’t want to neglect your “bonjour”s. . . .

      So, yeah, many of the people at the No Kings demonstration in the small southern town were older, around our age. Maybe most of them. And most of them were definitely white. So, yeah, pretty much just like all the previous anti-Trump demonstrations.

      But this time, this No Kings demonstration, seemed different. There were lots of young people there as well, more than a sprinkling. There were families. There were teens and people in their twenties.

There were some—not many, but some—people of color. And most of all, in this small southern town, where there were half a dozen similar demonstrations on No Kings Day within a half hour or so drive, the demonstration was huge—more than 1,200 people in a town of fewer than 5,000 residents...

      Since opening in 2018, Chicago’s Wrightwood 659 museum has presented an eclectic array of exhibitions and programs. It’s newest offering, The First Homosexuals: The Birth of a New Identity, 1869–1939 and curated by Jonathan D. Katz is on view through July 26.

      In 1869 the term “homosexual” was first coined. Katz’s exhibition examines how this new concept impacted societal perceptions and artistic representations in the ensuing decades. It also explores the lives of these artists whose works have been overlooked or “straightwashed” by art critics and curators. I got a preview from the curator in a conversation on Zoom as well as seeing the catalogue. *

      Seven years in the making, the scope of the exhibition is exhilarating: more than 300 works by more than 125 LGBTQ artists from 40 countries on loan from over 100 museums and collections including the Tate, Musée d’Orsay, the Met and Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts . . .

Image by Alice Austen, The Darned Club, 1891, Original glass plate negative, 4 x 5 in, Collection of Historic Richmond Town.

I have to admit that the poppy, preppy and clean-cut persona of the early Beach Boys and their songs about surf and cars didn’t hold much appeal to me; the topical and socially conscious folk singers of the early-to-mid-‘60s, the British Invasion bands and Chicago blues artists were far more affecting and meaningful. (Ironically, Brian Wilson once admitted that he didn’t like to surf—The New York Times’ obit quoted him saying, “I tried it once and got conked on the head.”) 

      But even from the beginning of the Beach Boys’ career, one could hear something almost magical in the melodies and harmonies Brian was creating on songs like “In My Room,” “Please Let Me Wonder” and “Don’t Worry Baby.” …

Brian Wilson’s legacy is vast. In a literal sense, he left behind Wilson Phillips, a popular vocal trio made up of his daughters Carnie and Wendy Wilson (from his first marriage to Marilyn Rovell), along with Chynna Phillips (the daughter of Michelle and John Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas). 

      But he will be best remembered for his bouncy and beautiful 1960s recordings with the Beach Boys, a body of work that stands alongside the most enjoyable rock music ever made in this country. I can’t imagine anyone listening to “Good Vibrations” and not feeling … good.

      . . . More than 1,000 rallies and events are teed up for June 14 … The idea is to show off the great mass of Americans who oppose Trump and his policies, but not to give him a confrontation that the White House might use to its advantage, and also not to appear that demonstrators have any quarrel with the rank-and-file soldiers who’ll be marching that day.

      Rallies and marches in more than 1,000 cities and towns will get local media coverage from downsized smaller news outlets that can’t send a journalist to D.C. On the other hand, the reality of many news people is that they crave conflict, which might explain why a large day of peaceful protests on April 19 didn’t get as much hoopla as the one two weeks earlier. . . .

This is an excerpt from Will Bunch’s column in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Click here to read the full column.