Elise Sereni Patkotak

When I was young and vigorous – and I do faintly remember those days – I went out into the streets to protest for racial equality and the end of the Vietnam War. It was a heady time. I was young and totally caught up in the causes so dear to my heart. Marching in the streets just seemed like the right thing to do.

And now here we are, more than a lifetime later, and I’m wondering where I put my marching shoes. Because I am ready to go back into the streets if that’s what it takes to Continue reading →

I am so grateful to Mr. Dershowitz, for his cogent and convincing argument that so long as a president thinks it’s in the country’s best interest, it’s not illegal no matter what he does.

I’d like to get in on this logic as I find it quite helpful to my fulfilling my bucket list. So here goes.

I believe it’s in my best interest to have Bill Gates give me half his fortune and I will break into his bank account and get it myself if he doesn’t cooperate.

I believe it is in my best interest to star in Continue reading →

I’ve often felt that my generation – the Baby Boomers – had the best of all possible worlds. I grew up in a time when America had a strong middle class. Families survived on one income. Upward mobility was possible. College was affordable. Housing was available at a reasonable price. Jobs were available upon graduation.

And then Reagan came into office and it all changed. We are still waiting for his trickle down economics to work. So far the trickle hasn’t happened because all the money was put into third and fourth homes and yachts for the now super rich Continue reading →

And so the sun sets on another day in Sin City, home of the greatest patriots and the sleaziest politicians the world has ever produced. Still we are left to wonder – will they or won’t they? Will Mitch McConnell take his virginity out of the box and let it become dirtied with truth? Would Mitch even know truth if it gobsmacked him in the face? Given his clear fear of the truth, I think it’s safe to say that he will do everything except fall on his sword for Orange Peel to avoid it.

But maybe – and I Continue reading →

Yes, I am a diehard public broadcasting fan. Have been since the first day it was heard in Barrow back in the early 70s. Until then, if you wanted to listen to the radio, you went out to the end of Fresh Water Lake road and tried desperately to tune in AFRN out of the Fairbanks area. If you were very, very lucky, you heard the scratchy sounds of a song playing in the distance. It was not until public broadcasting became a reality that those trips became unnecessary.

Beyond that, I have always, ALWAYS, found the reporting to actually Continue reading →

I got a message from Netflix today about confirming my subscription. It started with the words, “Hello, dear”. I think it may not really be from Netflix. What do you think? Dears… Continue reading →

When I was growing up, my mother had a question that I heard a lot. It went like this. “Doesn’t he/she have a mirror in their house?” She was usually referring to someone in the news – or someone walking past our grocery store on a slow day. Either way, the meaning was clear. The way they were dressed was simply ugly or wild or stupid looking, i.e. tasteless. And now, here we have our very own militias embracing all three errors in one sweet look.

So like my mother, I must ask, do you people not have mirrors in Continue reading →

I know. I know. I should be impressed and grateful that we are even having a trial about just how corrupt and despicable the current administration is. There are so many countries where this would not be happening and the chief executive would continue criminal activity unabated. Is it terrible to wish that Trump would move there before we become them?

I admire the sheer guts of the Dems to even expend the energy to bring this to the senate. (And I do believe that from now on, given how the senate is acting, we no longer need to capitalize Continue reading →

Dear Olive Garden,

Came to see you again. Yep, I admit it. I’m addicted to your bread sticks and salad. What I’m not addicted to is your insistence on bringing your drinks out with a plastic straw already opened and stuck in them.

I can only think of two reasons a restaurant with any sense of anything remotely resembling civic responsibility would do this. One is that they are totally unaware of a Texas sized lump of plastic floating in the Pacific Ocean that will be there long after our planet has flamed out. The other is that the owners Continue reading →

I thought what I wrote about Mike Bloomberg would get me a lot of heated responses defending the other candidates who have been campaigning since Christ was a child. But I didn’t. In fact, what I mostly got were people interested in the idea or willing to consider a new candidate because, like me, they could not get any enthusiasm for the current crop of candidates.

For me, at least, the current crop of candidates seems old and tired, offering the same arguments over and over, just changing the words a bit so we won’t notice they are ultimately saying Continue reading →