by Alison Bass | Dec 6, 2022 | Uncategorized
One of the reasons I love living in Washington, D.C. is because it reminds me of home, or more precisely, the community that I grew up in. Bryn Gweled was (and still is) an intentional community founded by Quakers with the twin ideals of diversity and sustainability....
by Alison Bass | Nov 22, 2022 | Uncategorized
Within weeks of moving to Washington, D.C., I received not one but two notices of speeding violations in the mail. I was flummoxed, having never been pulled over speeding in the city. It turns out that both speeding violations were on the same stretch of road —...
by Alison Bass | Nov 9, 2022 | Uncategorized
A few days ago, I drove back to Morgantown, West Virginia to visit friends and family and pick up a lamp that had been left behind when I moved in August to Washington, D.C. It felt good to be back for a visit — almost as if I had never left, like slipping on a...
by Alison Bass | Nov 1, 2022 | Uncategorized
In her new book, The View from Third Street, long-time journalist Anita Harris writes about the trial in 1972 of the Harrisburg Eight, a group of anti-Vietnam war activists including the priest Philip Berrigan who stood accused of planning to kidnap Henry Kissinger...
by Alison Bass | Oct 25, 2022 | Uncategorized
I was in Santa Cruz this weekend for a family occasion and we had to walk past a large homeless encampment on the way to the hotel. Like many cities (especially those in warmer climes), Santa Cruz has a significant homeless problem. And like many cities, it tries to...
by Alison Bass | Sep 27, 2022 | Uncategorized
What might the actress Constance Wu, the fictional character Tracy Flick and the mother of Emmett Till, the 14-year-old lynched in 1955, have in common, other than the fact they were all featured on the Atlantic Festival’s Ideas Stage last week in DC? You...
by Alison Bass | Sep 23, 2022 | Uncategorized
At an event organized by the Atlantic magazine in D.C. yesterday, I attended two back to back panels on seemingly disparate topics: the impact of social media on teenagers’ mental health and America’s gun crisis. In the first panel, a mental health...
by Alison Bass | Sep 16, 2022 | Uncategorized
A few days ago, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis flew two planeloads of migrants from Texas to the Massachusetts island of Martha’s Vineyard, the latest political stunt by GOP officials to draw attention to the political live wire of immigration. DeSantis, who is...
by Alison Bass | Sep 8, 2022 | Uncategorized
Last night I attended a preview of the latest Ken Burns documentary about the U.S. response to the Holocaust and the discussion afterwards with Burns and his two co-directors Sara Botstein and Lynn Novick, moderated by Jeffrey Goldberg, editor of The Atlantic...
by Alison Bass | Aug 31, 2022 | Uncategorized
Moving is hard work! My move to Washington, D.C. went extraordinarily well in large part because my movers (Helix Transfer and Storage, a Maryland company) were quite professional and went beyond the call of duty in assembling a new bed frame for me (I could never...
