It just doesn’t stop. Day in, day out since the Mad Hatter-in-Chief reclaimed the White House, he’s buffeted our country with non-stop recklessness and cruelty. The despair I feel today, only one-tenth of the way into his second term, is as acute as my dread about what lies ahead. It’s a safe bet that ...
Of all the disparaging adjectives one could pick to describe the Trump administration, the one most under-used is cruel. Neither the media nor our political leaders are calling out the spectacular cruelty of the Trump/Musk cabal forcefully enough or often enough. Yes, we hear about their unconstitutional actions, but the public is ...
Like many of you, I suspect, a great weariness came over me after the events of Nov. 5. I sought nothing but distraction from a crushing defeat. Seeking refuge in books, sporting events, and somewhat mindless television, I was able to rest from the great disappointment of the election. No TV news was a great ...
I could have called this blog Reparations but I didn’t, fearing that even enlightened readers might click delete. Few subjects are more touchy in our country than talking about what might be owed to descendants of the formerly enslaved. Even liberals quake at the enormity and complexity of the issue. The usual reasons that ...
I’ve been having trouble making myself put pen to paper. My reluctance has nothing to do with a lack of things to write about. Options abound. But every possibility I turn over in my head threatens to take me down a very dark road. Not wanting to depress myself or put my readers in a ...
An opinion piece in The Guardian caught my eye recently. It was entitled “Why was there no water to fight the fire in Maui?” and written by Naomi Klein and a law professor at the Ka Huli Ao Native Hawaiian Law Center. They documented how powerful entities in Maui — plantation owners, developers, luxury resort ...
For the last 6-plus years, I have regularly railed against the evils of the plutocrats who rule this country. They include but are not limited to the following: Republicans, oil companies, the Koch coterie, spoiled athletes (think male professional golfers), arms merchants, gun lovers, white evangelical Christians (WECs), and anyone who has supported Trump for ...
Almost four years ago, on September 23, 2019, I posted a blog entitled My Southern Education: A Confession. It was prompted by a book I’d just read, Disunion, by historian Elizabeth Varon. I re-read my blog this spring and found it weak stuff indeed. It wasn’t much of a confession and it badly understated the ...
I’ve rarely come across anything more arresting than a sentence that caught my eye last week in The Guardian’s weekly environmental newsletter, Down to Earth: “Eating just one billionaire would do more to prevent climate change than going vegan or never driving a car for the rest of your life.” Who wouldn’t read on? ...
Louis Michael Seidman, Georgetown University law professor and former clerk for Justice Thurgood Marshall, wrote a compelling article for The Nation recently. I was particularly struck by the opening paragraphs of the article, The Long, Troubled History of the Supreme Court and How We Can Change It. They begin this way: “By ...
