Every once in a while, I find myself engrossed in a book that suddenly delivers my ignorance to me on a silver platter.

On Thursday, June 13, 2024, David Crane, author, scholar and international prosecutor, will provide insights on the implications of the war in Ukraine on our national security and world safety.

A little over three years ago, a stranger in a coffee shop with whom I’d struck up a conversation excused himself from the table, walked to his car and returned with a copy of Steven Pressfield’s “Gates of Fire.”

It was another ordinary day when I swung by the public library on my way to town. I picked out a couple of DVDs I needed — “Groundhog Day” and “Ghosts” — and then drifted along the “New Arrivals” bookshelves, browsing the authors and titles.

“Stand your ground! Don’t fire unless fired upon! But if they want to have a war, let it begin here.” 

— Captain Parker, Lexington Green, 1775 

To the Editor:

Why are Israeli warlords bombing children’s hospitals and killing hundreds of children and babies? 

As the war between Israel and Hamas continues, folks around the world have become more divided in their support for one side or the other as misinformation fuels the fires of confusion. 

I never pretend to be an expert on current events. In fact, I mostly avoid the news because so much of it is doom and gloom or the same old political rhetoric.

Sometimes we read certain histories — Scott’s expedition to Antarctica, for example, or Washington’s troops at Valley Forge, or the prisoners in the Soviet gulag — and are stunned by the endurance and courage of the human spirit.

Leaning against a wall in the basement of the train station right about midnight, they were cold and tired and broken, and it quickly became clear that they wished to go no further.