My parents are visiting me in Pennsylvania. That’s a good thing, given how long the pandemic took them from me. What came as a surprise, though, now that I’ve bought a house, it seems they decided to bring with them everything I owned from the time I was born. It turns out I was a […]
I Really Hate Fireworks
Listening to the fireworks, I don’t have a whole lot of love for July 4th, and I never have. It’s a holiday that admittedly means a lot of different things to a lot of different people, and I have every ounce of respect for that, the grandson of a World War II vet, an Eagle […]
Big moves, tiny mountains
The world of remote work, even if some eventual return means being in the office a few days a week, opened up the doors and possibilities to moving a little farther from the City, and we took the chance. It’s not that we were tired of the City. I will always need to keep one […]
A Theology of Journalism
Before there were “journalists”—even before there was writing—the world’s means of sharing “the news” was an oral and aural experience: stories by the fire intended to describe and explain the human condition; a voice shouting in a crowded marketplace, the agora, what’s come to pass—or what will—if the world continues down the path it’s on; […]
Vaccine.
I got my first vaccine shot today. That’s not really newsworthy; most of us are getting it and I had scheduled to get it a few weeks ago, before New Jersey had opened it up to everyone. Problem was, the only location available was in upstate New York, so rather than rescheduling once Jersey opened […]
One Year, Alive.
I told myself after a year of “quarantine,” of “surviving” a pandemic, after documenting the months and months of it, that it was only fitting to make sure, one year on, that I would document that too. It’s like a rite of passage, is it not? All the loss and all of the loneliness and […]
Against the ‘Mission Statement’
Couple of years back, I found myself in a heated discussion with the policy guru for the Holy See Mission to the United Nations. A major piece of “legislation” was going before the UN on the status of refugees, and the Church was negotiating protections for those who were fleeing harm. Given Pope Francis’ encyclical, […]
Charged with Terrorism for Speaking Truth to Power
One of my colleagues has been named a terrorist by the Egyptian government. Authoritarian regimes, it turns out, don’t like it when human rights organizations criticize their efforts to quell dissent. For now, my colleague is safe, as he lives in the United States, yet in retaliation, Egypt has jailed and tortured his cousin and […]
Reupp: “Trump Will Not Leave Office Alive”
Half the reason I write the stuff I do is because, while I’m not in the business of prediction, I am deeply interested in history–how it repeats or mirrors the past. Suffice to say, I wrote this piece titled “Trump will not leave office alive” one year ago. I didn’t get everything right, but I […]
Dissecting the Death Rattle of American Decline
I’ve been critical of “Hillbilly Elegy” and other theories that made the rise of Trump more the result of economic disparity than white supremacy. It’s the same argument that populism is a reaction to a dying Republican party, a “death rattle” as the party becomes smaller and has to resort to extremes to win. The […]
