By Don C. Reed Wanting to earn money to buy a ring for my high school girlfriend, I got on the truck to the strawberry fields. “Dollar a row,” the foreman said, “Don’t bruise the fruit, or you don’t get paid.” The row before me was just a quarter mile long, but it seemed to stretch endlessly, under the increasing heat of the sun. I bent way over and started twisting off the huge berries, some so big they would not fit in the green plastic boxes . “Don’t eat too many,” said the man beside me, “make you sick”. I tried to take his advice, but I had never eaten strawberries so ..read more

By Don C. Reed Although  raised in a  Republican household,  I could  never vote  for Donald  Trump. This is  for a variety  of reasons, but  today I want to touch on only one: I consider Trump  an habitual   liar,  who will  say whatever suits his needs of the moment. Of course,  everyone tells  a  fib or  exaggeration occasionally.  But Trump  lies so frequently  that the  New York  Times set  up a board of reporters to keep track of them. They found Trump  lied  ..read more

By Don C. Reed All but unmentioned in the recent Republican attack on the In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) procedure is the devastating effect it might have on stem cell research. Consider: a young married couple hopes to have a child. Their doctor tells them about IVF, and they decide to try it. The man donates sperm; the woman’s eggs are extracted. The biological components are put in a dish of salt water, where some will join and become blastocysts. The most vigorous two or three of these will be implanted in the womb, to hopefully grow and become a child. The other blastocysts m ..read more

By Don C. Reed The Alabama Supreme Court recently declared that blastocysts (fertilized human eggs) were children. This decision may criminalize the In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) procedure. For many years virtually all conservative Republicans said: “ life begins at conception”. that a human being was formed, the instant when sperm meets egg. (1) Example: right now, one hundred twenty-five House Representatives (including Mike Johnson, current Speaker of the House) are co-sponsors for a bill stating that life’s legal rights begin at conception. (2) If this is accepted, then the In Vit ..read more

I VOTED THIS DAY By Don C. Reed February 9th, 2024. I looked in the mailbox and there it was , the official document: small but crucial. I took the letter to the kitchen, placed it on the table, stuck my right index finger in the upper left-hand corner of the envelope — and ripped it open. I had practiced both the physical procedure (be sure to sign the outside of the envelope) then filling in the dots beside the candidates and issues I supported. Above all, my choice for President, Joseph Biden… where are you? There! I filled in the little circle, neatly, in dark blue ..read more

By Don C. Reed “These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. — Thomas Payne, December 23, 1776 Famous words: written when America’s future hung in the balance, and shoeless patriots left bloody footprints in the snows of Valley Forge. We are more comfortable today, with our slippers on, in front of our TV sets, but the threat to our Democracy is no less. Some say, “this is the most important Pre ..read more

By Don  C. Reed “These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.—Thomas Payne, December  23, 1776 Famous words: written when America’s future hung in the balance, and shoeless patriots left bloody footprints in the snows of Valley Forge. We  are more comfortable  today, with our slippers on,  in front of our TV sets,  but the threat to our  Democracy is no less. Some say,  “this ..read more

By Don C. Reed What is the connection between  an  elephant and the national debt? Before  I get to that, I want to make  absolutely  clear that the financial expert  quoted in the  article  has  no connection with me  or my writing.   I just came across her testimony on  tax cuts  and thought  it  was  brilliant.  I shortened it,  and also provided a  URL  where you can read the whole thing. Any errors are my own. Now, on to the pachyderm! I was once  picked up   by a  ..read more

By Don C. Reed Remember that song from the classic musical, “PAJAMA GAME”? “Seven and a half cents doesn’t buy a hell of a lot. Seven and a half cents doesn’t mean a thing; but give it to me every hour, forty hours every week, and that’s enough for me to be living like a king!” ( 1) Voters with a disability are weak if we act alone, but irresistible if we combine our strength. During the pandemic, a lot of people did not want to leave their homes to vote. So, the mail-in vote procedure was expanded. That made it easier to vote — especially for the disability community. We voted ..read more

By Don C. Reed Consider the physical, moral and political attributes. A one -mile walk/run might reveal the physical fitness of the current leading candidates, former President Donald J. Trump and incumbent President Joe Biden. Let the candidates show up in gym shorts at their local high school, and do four laps around a quarter-mile track, walking or running as they choose. Their physical status should be recorded. If one of the candidates collapses, for example, that would be important to know. We should require a medical exam by a National Institutes of Health (NIH) committee ..read more