David Haldane, at The Blogs

David Haldane

View From the Diaspora

May 4, 2026, 12:06 AM

The message gladdened my heart. “Can you help us?” it began. “We received an email regarding San Benito, and would like to know more…” The sender was the press officer at the Israeli embassy in Manila, a Filipina named Rose, who–as...

Apr 20, 2026, 7:29 AM

Choosing Earth

I almost missed the first moon landing. It was 1969, and I was a 20-year-old college student more interested in being with my girlfriend than watching TV news. So on the fateful day that Neil Armstrong described his interplanetary touchdown...

Apr 6, 2026, 12:40 PM

Featured Post

Another political pope

The Vatican's antiwar message falters against a reality in which fanatics are bent on oppressing – or destroying – much of the world

Apr 5, 2026, 3:39 PM

Full Circle

For many years my mother refused to drive a Volkswagen. Though I was too young to understand it at the time, eventually I did. She was a Holocaust survivor from Germany, a woman whose entire family had been murdered by...

Mar 16, 2026, 6:39 AM

To Believe or Not to Believe

I have never been a staunch believer. Nor am I a confirmed atheist. Instead, I have consistently chosen the path of least resistance, i.e. the firm conviction that it is impossible to know whether God exists or not because both...

Mar 9, 2026, 4:47 AM

The Inevitability of a Righteous War!

Finally! That was my immediate reaction to last week’s news that the US and Israel had attacked Iran. And almost immediately the streets of that country and the world erupted with the cheering of Iranians dancing by the thousands to...

Mar 2, 2026, 1:47 AM

Another Journalist Bites the Dust: Tucker Carlson Slanders Israel

I promised to bring him a crucifix. He was my publicist in Manila, a devout Catholic with whom I’d become friends. I was a nominally observant Jew about to visit Israel with a delegation of Philippines-based journalists. “If you don’t mind,”...

Feb 8, 2026, 9:05 PM

Reporter or Protestor: Journalism at a Juncture?

I'm not a Don Lemon fan. As a correspondent and news anchor at CNN for 17 years, he never hesitated to put his own sometimes-radical leftist agenda ahead of any balanced coverage of world events. In fact, Lemon’s abhorrent insistence on...

Jan 20, 2026, 7:26 AM

Iran Then and Now: A Lifetime of Change

It was a moment in time that shaped my life’s trajectory. In 1976, at 27, I reached a crossroads. After years as a struggling journalist, I wanted to get married, settle down, and have kids. There was no way I...

Jan 1, 2026, 8:05 AM

Killing Your Parents: Rob Reiner and his Schizophrenic Son

I never favored his politics. Nor did I travel in his elite circles. Like most Americans of a certain age, however, I had fond memories of Rob Reiner as Meathead in the legendary 1970s sitcom “All in The Family.” And,...

About Me

David Haldane is an award-winning American journalist, author, and radio broadcaster with homes in Joshua Tree, California, and Northern Mindanao, Philippines, where he writes a weekly column for The Manila Times. The son of a Holocaust survivor, he is a former staff writer for the Los Angeles Times, where he contributed to two Pulitzer prize-winning stories. His latest book is Dark Skies: Tales of Turbulence in Paradise.

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