‘Commentary’ Archives
The Spirit of Marv Davidov
from the series Raise Your Voice... By PETER MOLENAAR Peter Molenaar The stately apartment complex at 2615 Park Avenue was Marv’s home for a spell before his final passing in the year 2012. As a member of the War Resisters League, he had famously given leadership to the Honeywell Project, which exposed the corporate war profiteering of the day. Note: My generation still recalls the image of Vietnamese children running naked beneath clouds of napalm… their skin melting away. June 7, 2025… Beneath the banner of Women Against Military Madness, we marched upon the headquarters of Lockheed Martin, Inc., an outfit which profits from precision guided Hellfire missiles, deployed to take out journalists in Gaza. A few days ago… ‘False flags’ were waving in LA. 1970 something, Honeywell… Marvin admonished the crowd: “We will deem anyone who commits property damage an agent provocateur.” Now… In keeping with the spirit: “the moment [...]
Smiling Helps
by MARTI MALTBY Smiling helps. Marti Maltby That’s it. I have nothing more profound than that. I have been reminded lately how important it is to give and receive smiles, so I thought I would remind everyone else. We have one community member at Peace House Community who I mentally associate with smiling. He and I rarely speak to each other, but any day that he comes in, he gives me a smile and a nod. Several times, when I have been dealing with a stressful situation or a combative individual, I will see him looking at me. When he knows he’s caught my eye, he will give me a smile of understanding. He still doesn’t say anything, but the smile lets me know that someone else sees what I’m dealing with and appreciates what I’m going through. That sort of interaction has affected how I do my job. When Peace House Community opens in the morning, I try to greet our community members with a smile to make them feel welcome and at home. Many of our members have told [...]
I Bet Trump is a Bad Cook
from the series Peace House Community Journal... Marti Maltby By MARTI MALTBY One of the worst pieces of advice I ever followed was that I should throw a piece of spaghetti at a wall to test whether it was done. Looking back, I realized the person who told me this was either playing a practical joke or was the victim of someone else’s joke. Too busy trying to decide what to look at to do anything else! All that throwing spaghetti at the wall accomplishes is a waste of food and a mess on the wall. It is so much easier to just bite a piece of spaghetti to see if it is as soft as you want it. Whether spaghetti sticks to the wall has nothing to do with its consistency or flavor. Of course, this is where we get the expression “throw it at the wall and see what sticks”. It means trying every option all at once and seeing what works. So far, that seems to be a pretty good description of Donald Trump’s Presidency. I’m sure that Trump (or at least the people who [...]
