Original anecdotes, commentary, rumination, and occasional pontification.
MAY 21, 2021 – If you’ve been following even sporadically the Republican election “audit” in Maricopa County, Arizona or the Republican Congressional denial of the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol, you’ve been following nonsense. Any human experienced in reality knows that the foregoing examples of unreality are just that—nonsense. But behind the nonsense lies …
MAY 13, 2021 – The notion of a citizen-army or a citizen-government seems so right, so Norman Rockwellian. Why shouldn’t the gentleman farmer become a general, then president? Why shouldn’t a self-educated log-splitter become president—without first being a general? . . . And why shouldn’t a 29-year-old wait person from Queens—or a Q-Anon kook from …
MAY 11, 2021 – Lately I’ve been reading about the English Civil War. Through a modern lens, that episode offends modern sensibilities. Then I catch myself. Returning to the present, I check my newsfeed and wonder: Who’d be more shocked and awed—a person from England in 1649 (the year the king lost his head) viewing …
MAY 5, 2021 – Anyone who’s been following the news lately knows that the Republican Party is about to hang one of its own—Liz Cheney, Chairperson of the House Republican Conference. I’m speaking figuratively, of course, though the images of January 9 still haunt my thoughts. Somehow, I think the crazies who chanted “Hang Mike …
MAY 1, 2021 – Today, “May Day” (not to be confused with the pilot’s distress call, derived from “m’aidez!”), is when you were supposed to hang a homemade May basket, filled with candy, on the outside door handle of your girlfriend’s house, hit the doorbell, and run as the girl chased you down for a …
APRIL 29, 2021 – In his first 100 days as president, Biden’s proving to be more than a caretaker just bidin’ time. He’s an activist president with an ambitious policy agenda. So far, the wind’s been at his back, but given the clown act he follows, “looking good”—or at least “normal”—is a low threshold. I …
APRIL 26, 2021 – Besides “fixing” the electoral system, Republicans want to “fix” school curricula critical of American history. Both initiatives are inherently racist—the former because its intended effect is suppression of Democratic Black voters; the latter because it seeks to downplay our record of racial injustice. Republicans say it’s “unpatriotic” to criticize our history—a …
APRIL 16, 2021 – Yesterday I watched the clip of Dr. Fauci’s exchange with Congressman Jim Jordan (R-OH). My skepticism about our national beliefs crystalized into acute fear. After centuries in the making, our country has come down to this—a debate between crass wrestling coach vs. erudite science teacher. The wrestling coach is no stranger …
MARCH 27, 2021 – Current Republican efforts to adopt voter suppression legislation is a sweeping solution in search of a non-existent problem. Actually, it’s a white, racist solution to the white, racist problem of demographic decline. “If dark people, who go Democratic overwhelmingly, vote in droves,” say Republican strategists, “we gotta stop ’em.” The solution: …
MARCH 2, 2021 – Yesterday, while walking home from my skiing, I pondered material for today’s post. A fertile patch: news items I’d scrolled through an hour before, just before heading out the door. One story in particular was Sunday’s CPAC appearance by you-know-who and a statement by South Dakota Governor Noem that “We aren’t …
FEBRUARY 17, 2021 – Last December I watched a Russian TV series entitled Zhukov, the famous Red Army general who led Soviet forces to victory in WW II. Everything about the (Star Media) production—except the subtitling—was superb. (With a little imagination an Anglophone can interpret the fractured English.) Casting, acting, direction, cinematography, soundtrack—including whole-cloth musical …
FEBRUARY 16, 2021 – I have a dream that one day, every white person I’ve heard decry urban violence attributed to “Black Lives Matter” will read Taylor Branch’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Parting the Waters – America in the King Years 1954-63. Yesterday I read the 63-page chapter, “The Montgomery Bus Boycott,” a detailed account of the …
FEBRUARY 14, 2021 – During a break in the impeachment trial, I received a call from Jeff Klenk, a close college friend of mine. We’d both been observing the proceedings closely and talked earnestly about them. As a government major during our undergraduate days, and ever since, as a serious student of political science, Jeff …
FEBRUARY 13, 2021 – After watching three days of the impeachment trial, I needed to reduce the process to a its procedural and substantive essence. Impeachment is a purely political process, not a legal one. The right to impeach resides exclusively with the House, and the Senate alone holds the right to “try” and “convict” …
FEBRUARY 12, 2021 – Yesterday afternoon I took a personal biz call I’ll call “Mark.” It started off cordially with his, “How ya doin’?” This simple question was a match aflame. The fuse: my response, “I’ve been watching the impeachment trial.” Match to fuse: my question, “Have you watched any of it?” When Mark said, …
FEBRUARY 11, 2021 – If on Tuesday House impeachment managers laid down the law, yesterday they presented an open-and-shut evidentiary case. As top-gun trial lawyers, managers connected the dots to prove irrefutably the direct link between Trump’s mouth and the mob attack on the capitol. As the evidence unfolded, I realized how close democracy’s death …
FEBRUARY 10, 2021 – I’ll not forget yesterday’s opening of Trump’s second impeachment trial. Managers Jamie Raskin (MD), Joe Neguse (CO), and David Cicilline (RI) exhibited what’s best about our representative democracy. These genuine, well-grounded, well-educated spokesmen for accountability gave us all—irrespective of political persuasion—hope that perhaps the nation can save itself. As to the …
FEBRUARY 9, 2021 – Yesterday I had a long phone conversation with a West Coast lawyer-friend with whom I’d long been out of touch. We caught up on personal news, talked about land conservation—the subject over which we’d met years ago—and inevitably, politics. He shared my relief that normalcy, decency, and rationality have returned to …
FEBRUARY 2, 2021 – When I saw images of the goons invading the Capitol on January 6, I couldn’t imagine having anything in common with them. Ditto the man on whose account and upon whose instigation they’d staged their rage. (I don’t even golf.) My disdain for them is cut and dried. Hold them fully …
FEBRUARY 1, 2021 – On Saturday I enjoyed an overdue telephone conversation with my good friend Derek, a 35-year old graphic designer from L.A. By the close of our talk, enrichment outweighed regret for not having talked since May. I met Derek two years ago at our co-working space in downtown Minneapolis. He worked for …
JANUARY 29, 2021 – I remember old times when The National Enquirer was standard fare at the check-out counter of every grocery store. Above the candy, the tabloid’s front page screamed something crazy like, ALIENS INVADE CHURCH IN TULSA or GRANDMOTHER GIVES BIRTH TO TWO-HEADED ARMADILLO. My reaction was never, “Really?” It was, “How does …
JANUARY 26, 2021 – Okay, here I am on a cold Tuesday morning in January, minding my own business, meaning, “working furiously on client matter,” when I catch a break—having just slammed the tennis ball over the net and forcing my opponent (Paul) to chase after the now runaway spheroid. In the few spare seconds …
JANUARY 24, 2021 – With our month-long house guests’ (son/daughter-in-law) departure Friday, so went nightly card games, lively banter, and scintillating conversation. “We’ll have to find a show to watch,” I said to my wife. Yesterday evening we designated . . . Designated Survivor and binge-watched four episodes. For story line(s), writing, acting, directing, casting, …
JANUARY 23, 2021 – Interpreting history—or current events—is dicey. You can’t approach past or present wholly free of your own bias complex, constructed from your upbringing, education, disposition, intelligence, personal experiences, religious beliefs (or absence thereof), and cultural influences. Nor, of course, can the historian or journalist be free of her or his bias complex. …
JANUARY 21, 2021 – Yesterday with you I watched President Biden’s inaugural speech and the stellar performances that followed, most notably, Amanda Gorman’s recitation of her poem, The Hill We Climb. Not to be moved by such heart and soul is to be bereft of both. As I observed the proceedings, I felt as though …