Colman McCarthy

Book review: A new book about Jesuit Fr. Daniel Berrigan presents writings that are both a literary treasure and a call to each reader to examine how they are using their gifts to increase peace and decrease violence.

"I'm hard put to think of any musician whose professional life onstage is as uplifting as her commitments to justice and peace are strong in her personal life offstage," I wrote, ending by recommending that Joan Baez is "perfect for a Kennedy Center award."

It's Happening: With the outgoing administration supporting a surge in federal executions, our attention and gratitude goes to the stories of families who have lost loved ones to homicide but publicly lobby against governmental vengeance.

It's Happening: "It's not a heavy load, but it's always with me, like a touchstone, as a reminder that everyone carries his or her own burdens," Biden has said. I, too, carry the speaking impediment.

It's Happening: I've never voted in any election, going back to when Kennedy and Nixon were offering their services to the country. Why? Because I'm a pacifist — and on my better days, a pacifist-anarchist.

It's Happening: For the first time in 38 years, I won't have the privilege of sharing time and ideas in a classroom with college students at American University and Georgetown University in courses about peace and social justice.

It's Happening: How many lives around the world would have been saved had Ambassador Power's anti-war and pro-diplomacy views prevailed on President Obama's National Security Council?

It's Happening: Amid triple crises (racism, coronavirus, economic duress), religion was used twice in two days by a president who did not offer prayers and whose proposed budget cuts say "get lost" to the struggling, poor and sick.

It's Happening: The call to Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx is clear: End the enabling of Trump. End standing behind him as he rants against reporters for asking "nasty questions." End listening to the shallowness of his vocabulary.

It's Happening: No question about it, Sanders has imperfections, but he wants the system overhauled, not just tinkered with. And his stance on war is solid.

It's Happening: Donna Rotunno is hardly the first lawyer who took on a despicable client like Harvey Weinstein. It is conscience that can and should come into play when a practice is chosen.

Book review: During World War II, villagers in France offered asylum to Jewish refugees. They continue to do so today with new generations migrants. In The Plateau, Maggie Paxon finds out why.

It's Happening: My appreciation for Iowa and its citizens goes far deeper than the quadrennial hoopla, of a kind that centers on bracing friendships with some of its standout heroes.

It's Happening: Have you heard of Impossible Foods or Beyond Meat? These products may be the key to ending our consumption of animals, which is healthier for us and for the planet.

It's Happening: I've made several visits, curiosity-driven, to the Georgetown medical school's anatomy labs during dissections. And one day, my own cadaver will be wheeled in to help future doctors learn.

It's Happening: The joy of the long-shot team's World Series victory came at a time when the city of Washington desperately needed a distraction from its festering woes.

It's Happening: A new biography tells a life story like no other, with turns that ultimately led "Father Dag" to Kenya, where he founded Nyumbani, said to be Africa's first orphanage for HIV-positive children.

It's Happening: I've long admired the Koch brothers for their decadeslong support of causes and non-profits that I also see as worthy. Let's start with their opposition to American militarism.

It's Happening: Since the late '70s, I've had a loving friendship with Joan Baez. Every semester that I've been teaching peace studies to high school and college students, I devote ample time to read Baez's essays on pacifism.

Book Review: In the final pages of this treasure, the author writes a letter to the sniper who shot him, words that bring to mind lines from Erich Maria Remarque's novel All Quiet on the Western Front, when the German soldier speaks to the dying French lad he has just knifed in the trench they share.