I still have many excellent books from my study of European history as a young man and the doctorate I eventually completed at Boston College much later in life. Some of them came up in a conversation the other night with Scott Van Doren, one of my BC mentors during Read more…
Millions of Americans know what it is like to experience so much loss and death from COVID-19, another great depression in the making, and the pervasive killing of African Americans by police and vigilantes dedicated to the upholding of white supremacy. Together they have taken us closer to fascism and Read more…
I am glad to be back from cataract surgery and am extremely grateful to Al Brilliant and Nate Roberto for their superlative contributions to “This Week in Black and White.” Al is my great friend who lives and works a few doors down from THE PROJECT and a daily source Read more…
I come from a line of barbers on my mother’s side of the family. Her older brother, Michael Fasano, spent his whole adult life in Madison, New Jersey, where he was known as “Mike the Barber.” His son Frank has told me many stories about his dad who was a Read more…
A week ago I thought it would be easy to write a tribute to my mother, Ethel Fasano Roberto, who turned 91 in January and is struggling with advanced COPD which she, a non-smoker, contracted from my father Joe, whose addiction to tobacco and alcohol eventually brought his life to Read more…
This past week, I asked Mayor Nancy Barakat Vaughan if she was willing to take some time to answer a few questions for “This Week in Black and White.” They were submitted and answered just as they appear here verbatim. The same is true for Mayor Vaughan’s responses. Nothing has Read more…
My friend Justin Harmon, a highly intelligent and much younger man whose ability to work by his own clock with fierce determination is both admirable and tiring to an older fellow like me, makes sure I get three or four magazines he reads diligently before passing them on to me, Read more…
I confess that I have never read “The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner” by the British writer Alan Stilltoe though I knew something about the story as a teenager who did a fair share of running, and not always on a cross-country course or gravel track. The story was published Read more…
Greensboro, NC – The pandemic continues to kill Americans at an alarming pace as the unemployment rate climbs quicker than it did during the Great Depression of the 1930s. As of Friday afternoon, the confirmed death toll from the virus was 36,118 while unemployment claims stood at 22 million. Some Read more…
We are bracing ourselves for what could be the worst two weeks of suffering and death from COVID-19. As the infection rate climbs in parts of the country and the death toll mounts – the national numbers of confirmed cases and virus-related deaths according to the CDC as of Friday, Read more…