Ten years ago, my mother came from Cuba to visit me in New York. One day, she started describing the awful situation in Havana. Without noticing it, she lowered her voice to a whisper while criticizing the Cuban government.
Editor’s Space
Jorge I. Domínguez-López is the editor-in-chief of The Tablet and Nuestra Voz, the two-award winning newspapers of the Diocese of Brooklyn. Born in Havana, Cuba, Domínguez-López regularly appears on NET-TV’s Currents News and is the co-host of “Al Pan, Pan,” a talk show with Father Tomás del Valle on NET-TV.
The Virus of Violence
We are facing a public health crisis, an economic crisis, and a social crisis all at the same time. Our nation is shaken to its core. For anyone who loves America, this is one of the saddest springs of our lives.
One Hundred Thousand Deaths … and Then One More
Last week, the tally of coronavirus deaths in the U.S. reached 100,000. It is almost impossible to grasp the number of personal losses and the sum of the suffering of the victims, their families, and friends.
We Are All Responsible Now
In the midst of this dark spring of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has already killed more than 95,000 Americans and left 39 million without a job.
The Killing of Ahmaud Arbery
On a rainy afternoon in July 2009, the police department in Long Branch, New Jersey, received a call from a concerned citizen who said he saw a weird-looking guy, wearing a hoodie, walking through the quiet neighborhood in the rain. The strange man suddenly crossed the street and started peering into the windows of a house that was for sale.
Reading in the Times of Pandemic
During this painful spring, we have been unexpectedly forced to stay indoors. We have been dealing with the shelter-in-place spring season by cooking more elaorate meals, spending more time with the family — and watching TV. According to Nielsen, the average viewer spent 40 hours in front of a TV during the week of March 16, compared to 33 hours during
the same week a year before.
Back to the Future of the Pandemic
There is nothing older than yesterday’s newspapers — we know pretty much all that was said, and there is not much to discover there. But a newspaper from a century ago could be full of ‘breaking news’ for today’s readers. It allows us to access not just the events of yesteryear, but the way those events were perceived by the people living through them.
‘Your Rod and Your Staff Give Me Courage’
There is a poem by Argentinian poet Jorge Luis Borges that was one of my favorites since my youth. It says: “There
is a street nearby that is widowed of my footsteps, / there is a mirror that has seen me for the last time, / there is a door that I have closed until the end of the world.”
Then They Came for Us
In August 2018, a case of African porcine fever was reported in China. One year later, 40% of the pigs in China had disappeared. That epidemic killed one-quarter of the world’s pigs. It was an epidemiological debacle that disrupted the food industry in a country with 1.4 billion people.
The World of Tomorrow
New York State, with just under 20 million people, has more cases of COVID-19 than any country in the world. On Easter Sunday alone, 671 New Yorkers died from the disease. This has been the most painful Holy Week of our lives.