“Hope,” I wrote recently in a Facebook post, “is raising its ugly head once again.”
This was in direct response to the results of Tuesday’s elections in Virginia and elsewhere which seemed to repudiate the election results of 2016. “Maybe,” I could hear Hope whisper, from the deep recess of my soul in which I had stuffed her a year ago. “Maybe there’s Hope.” Read more about Dash It All, Hope
Almost everything I can say about guns and gun safety issues has been said and is being said a thousand times over and a thousand times better. I offer only a couple of thoughts I haven't heard lately. Read more about About Them Guns
I never knew that Houston was built on bayous. That it is called the Bayou City. That when the rain came down like jets from a thousand fire hoses, there were so many banks to burst. That’s when Houston began to drown. Read more about Our Dunkirk Moment
The question that we liberals tend to ask of those who would deny healthcare to the most vulnerable of us is, Where is your compassion?
I’d like to ask them, Where is your common sense? Read more about Why Healthcare?
My housebuddy talks about why he always folds clothes when he empties a drier, even if it’s not his stuff. “You mean, there’s an option?” He grew up in foster homes and was well-trained. You don’t just throw other people’s stuff in a pile. You handle it with care. Read more about Brave New World
Lately I’ve been trying to figure out why folks seem to have a problem caring (i.e., paying) for the welfare of other people. As in health care. As in water quality. As in clean air. As in education and housing and transportation taking people to work, to school, to grocery stores and back home again.
I get why they want these things for themselves. We all want these things for ourselves. The problem comes when folks start thinking of our welfare as a good, and the welfare of others as, well, Welfare. Read more about House Buddies
I have never wanted to get a job.
I have needed a job, applied for a job, gotten a job, been fired from a job, walked off a job – even loved a job - but I have never ever wanted a job.
And up until two, maybe three hundred years ago, nobody had a job. Most people worked their fingers to the bone, but they didn’t have jobs. They had “stations in life.” Few, if any, people had ever gone out looking for a job.
The industrial revolution created jobs. Read more about Finishing the Job
I woke up to a little squib on Book TV this morning, wherein a thoughtful writer, Peter Hayes, speaking on the Impact of Power, contended that power enhances the ideas of those who hold it. Which does not bode well for the future.
The future landed with a thud on January 20th, with (President) DJT referring to our country as a place of carnage and sending the message throughout the land(s) that from now on it would be “America First.” Read more about What Now?
Remember when President Obama poked gentle fun at Mitt Romney for citing Russia as a serious threat? Remember how we all laughed?
I didn’t. I winced. Nothing good ever came from poking a bear. But the moment passed, and I couldn’t help but be happy that Obama had gotten another one over on Romney. Read more about To Russia with … It’s Complicated
Soon after the election, someone messaged me asking how I was doing in light of Trump’s triumph. After thinking about it for a while (I think there was a moment on election night when tears had threatened, but never materialized), I said that, to my horror, I was finding myself more comfortable with despair than I would have been with hope.
Despair, I said, has never let me down.
But don’t think despair has made me all mopey. In fact, it’s energized me. Politics has become a horror movie, an apocalyptic adventure, a zoo of fantastic beasts. Read more about The Monster Mash