While having a drink with a friend in a neighborhood bar a few years ago, a distraught-looking woman approached us and started chatting. We engaged in typical barroom banter until she introduced herself as the mother of a guy I had met in the same bar almost two years before. […]
Thom Nickels: First-world diets
While traveling with fellow journalists several years ago in the Middle East, one thing became apparent to me: most of the writers on the trip had food issues. One writer claimed she could only eat gluten-free food; another writer ate only kosher foods while a third was an orthodox vegan. […]
Thom Nickels: A day at the polls
I’d been working the polls as a Republican committee person in my Old Richmond neighborhood for about four hours when a neighbor, a woman, walked up to me after she voted, looked me up and down — especially at my red Trump hat — and said without blinking, “Do you […]
Thom Nickels: Philadelphia’s grande dame of the essay
In the heart of Center City Philadelphia there is a small graveyard alongside the church of Saint John the Evangelist. A careful reading of the headstones there will reveal the tomb of the Repplier family. How many Repplier family members are buried in this vault is a mystery because on […]
Thom Nickels: Four years ago, Election Day in Philly was bizarre. Will it be crazy again in 2024?
On Election Day 2020, I entered my local polling place in Philadelphia expecting to cast my vote for President when I was informed that because I had received a mail-in ballot I could not vote at the facility but would have to fill out a form known as a provisional […]
Thom Nickels: UFOs — fact or fiction?
What is a UFO? In the New York Times bestseller, UFOs by Leslie Kean, many government officials and pilots go on the record with reports of sightings, but say that the sightings are not necessarily alien spaceships. While most sightings — nearly 95 percent — are explainable, Kean believes enough […]
Thom Nickels: A stand-out production at the Philly Fringe Festival
Ordinarily when one thinks of the Fringe Festival one thinks of amateur productions. “Without God As My Lover” breaks the mold.
By Thom Nickels
Thom Nickels: Harris and Walz would degrade free speech in America
‘Hate speech’ and ‘misinformation’ are smokescreens for a new regime of censorship.
By Thom Nickels