Fallout – Chapter 1

Category: Blog

February 23, 2017

Fallout – Chapter 1

“The police say it was drug related, ma’am. They think August was stealing to deal.” Angela Creedy spoke so softly I had to lean forward to hear her.
“That is a bêtise—a—a lie, a stupidity.” Bernie Fouchard stomped her foot for emphasis.

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January 29, 2017

Weeping

My grandmother was a young teenager in 1911 when she sailed, alone, past the Statue of Liberty into New York harbor. She was fleeing her homeland at her mother’s insistence: her father had been murdered in his bed, in front of his family, by an angry mob — murdering Jews was a frequent public sport in eastern Europe, as lynching African-Americans was in the southern U.S.

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January 22, 2017

Grant Park, Chicago, January 21, 2017

I am almost 70. I have been an activist for Civil Rights and Reproductive Rights since I was 19, and there are days when I am weary with the struggle, but not today, not here, with 250,000 other Americans ready to work together to protect our rights.

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November 28, 2016

This Constitution Stays Alive

Trump “is going to do to you Muslims what Hitler did to the Jews,” reads the handwritten letters delivered to California mosques. “You Muslims would be wise to pack your bags and get out of Dodge.”

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July 22, 2016

SubGroups

In our Sunday School class, we learned about the many contributions to medicine, science, philosophy and the the arts which members of our subgroup had made; we cheered Sandy Koufax, for refusing to pitch in the World Series on one of our important holidays.

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February 19, 2016

Life and Death and Crime Novels

Like all crime writers, I explore death daily, in what I read and what I write. It’s a game, of course. Some of my brother/sister writers love every graphic detail of dismemberment. I’m too squeamish for that, but still, VI Warshawski has just encountered a dead body in a rural kitchen, where there’s plenty of scope for gruesome description.

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December 15, 2015

Dirty Deeds in the Cornfield

Dead End   The sun was setting when Peppy and I drove east of town, looking for Doris McKinnon’s farm. I’d spent a tense two hours at the hospital, but […]

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December 6, 2015

Happy Hanukkah

Hanukkah starts at sundown on December 6. It’s sometimes called the Festival of Lights because we light candles every night for eight nights–starting with one, ending with eight.

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June 11, 2015

Boom-Boom Warshawski Makes his Chicago Blackhawk debut

Stanley Cup playoffs, Blackhawks and Lightning tied at two games each. How Boom-Boom Warshawski, Blackhawk star as well as VI’s cousin and closest childhood friend, would have loved to be […]

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May 20, 2015

KU Commencement Address, May 17 2015

  I was privileged to receive the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters and to address the graduates at the University of Kansas on their May 17 2015 Commencement. Remarks […]

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