I was inspired to write this piece by Roger Cohen’s OpEd in the New York Times entitled Why ISIS Trumps Freedom. And then I woke up one morning this week to the news that Julian Bond had died. Read more about The Burden of Freedom

For some time now, I’ve harbored a suspicion that much of the black experience in America, indeed much of African-American behavior patterns, can be traced to a history of what amounts to child abuse, rooted in the core experience of slavery. That is, Africans were brought to this continent as slaves and their descendants continued to be abused, from childhood up, until abuse and the expectation of abuse became endemic. We have a pretty good idea of how abuse as a child expresses itself in self-hatred and abusive behavior as an adult. Read more about American PTSD

On June 17th, Dylann Storm Roof, 21, sat with a bible study group at a church in Charleston, SC, called Mother Emmanuel, before standing up and shooting down nine of the people gathered there.

On June 26th, Saifeddine Rezgui, 23, concealed a Kalashnikov assault rifle in a beach parasol and opened fire at the Imperial Marhaba resort hotel beach in Sousse, Tunisia. At present, the death toll is 39. Read more about The Myth of the Lone Wolf

It's been 48 years since the Long Hot Summer of 1967. A year later, the same cities reignited in the King assassination riots. Read more about Summers of Our Discontent

A little fantasy: Yes, indeed, Iran is lying her head off about her nuclear capability so far and actually has a couple of little bombs stashed away in the cupboard. So now she can pretend to accede to the demands (without making it sound too easy), get all the sanctions removed, and then proceed to behave like a reasonable country with an educated and prosperous citizenry, including women, and we'll just never know. Read more about My Take

Politicians and pundits throw the words American Dream around like a brand name, like it’s something akin to Nike or Amazon or Apple. Like it’s something people come here to “get.” And if the streets are no longer paved with gold, if there isn’t any more gold in them thar hills, maybe it’s somewhere on e-bay. Read more about American Dreaming

I have a problematic relationship with the concept of Political Correctness. Problematic because I rebel against the exclusion of certain words or ideas from the national conversation, and even more from literature and history, while at the same time recognizing that very often what we call something determines our relationship to that very thing. Read more about PC ‘r’ Me

2014

1. Russia snaps up the Crimea and messes with Ukraine, includes collateral damage of Malaysian Flight #MH17. Read more about What Were We Thinking?

Homer, The Iliad, Book I, ll 26-32.

Never let me find you again, old sir, near our hollow
Ships, neither lingering now nor coming again hereafter,
For fear your staff and the god’s ribbons help you no longer.
The girl I will not give back; sooner will old age come upon her
In my own house, in Argos, far from her own land, going
Up and down by the loom and being in my bed as my companion.

What do the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, the Cuban Revolution with its spinoff, Che Guevera, and even Lord Byron have in common with ISIS?

They all embody the romance of revolution, they all offer the young a shot at immortality, a deep meaning for their lives, a chance to become, in time, a hero - or heroine - of the people. Read more about Romancing the Young