I didn’t turn on Game 2 of the New York Knicks vs. Philadelphia Seventy Sixers playoff series Monday night until the 4th quarter, largely because it felt inappropriate watching the game during a Passover Seder. But like a lot of folks, I actually turned it off with less than a minute to go, I believe switching to House Hunters, or something like that. That’s because the Sixers went up four and heading to the free throw line with only 47 seconds left. So by all accounts, this game was over. The best of seven series would be tied at a game apiece heading to Philadelphia.

Though it grows mostly in the southeastern United States, the sweetgum strikes me as an All-American tree. It is, as it were, nature’s version of good old American ingenuity: a supremely versatile resource in the nation’s arboretum that has, over the generations, yielded easily to inventive people who transformed its botanical riches.

While returning from a trip to see family, my wife commented that we were driving through an almost never-ending stream of Civil War battlefields that reinforce the military losses of the Civil War without reinforcing the moral meaning of what happened.

It’s the season of plenty for sports fans – which others view as exhausting excess: Before we’ve recuperated from the NCAA basketball hoopla and golf’s Masters tournament, we’re launched into the Major League Baseball season even as the NHL and the NBA are just beginning playoffs.

April 22nd is “Earth Day,” the global celebration of the birth of the modern environmental movement in 1970. History shows that Earth Day was not intended to be about personal actions – planting a tree or recycling one’s garbage, although both are good ideas. Instead, the original Earth Day was a reaction to the enormous environmental damage done by the essentially unregulated discharging of pollution into the nation’s airways and waterways.

China’s exports are surging, and there is a strong likelihood that there will be a backlash on a worldwide basis. We are certainly hearing it from Mr. Trump who wants to increase tariffs but other countries including those in Europe and South Asia are all likely to lose jobs which will cause them to take action.

I assumed Jake Samascott had heard everything, at least everything related to apples, when I reported to his family’s sprawling Kinderhook, NY orchard last Saturday morning. The reason was a workshop on apple tree care sponsored by the Columbia Land Conservancy.

The day I recorded this commentary, the print edition of the New York Times published an OP ED by Michelle Cottle entitled “Inside the MAGAverse on the Eve of Trump’s Trial” (April 17, 2024: A20). In it, Ms Cottle captured the self-satisfaction of the cult-members she interviewed at a Trump rally Saturday, April 12 in rural Pennsylvania.

It's that time again! Here are this week's highlights from the WAMC Listener Comment Line.

Of all the differences between American soccer and the sport played around the world, perhaps the most notable is the concept of promotion and relegation. That’s a system where the highest finishing teams from one league move up to a higher division next season, and the lowest teams move down.