I do not much care for “The Star Spangled Banner”. I find it a somewhat hack song that has been used to fetishize one particular symbol the United States. Still, in light of the remarkable outcome of Tuesday’s midterm election, I feel it’s perfectly appropriate to quote that song’s line: Oh say, does that Star […]
It’s almost amusing how Donald Trump’s hardline approach to immigration suddenly and spectacularly goes soft when it comes to friends and friends of friends. The man who insists that mass deportations are needed to keep the United States free of criminals and dangerous people, when the opportunity presents itself, rolls out the red carpet for […]
It’s fitting that a man who never came by anything through hard work, honesty or through the strength of his character got a Nobel Peace Prize secondhand from a woman who actually put her life and freedom at risk to earn it. Whatever one’s thoughts on Maria Corina Machado’s politics, one cannot help but feel […]
Those lyrics come from Tim Fite’s powerful anti-establishment song “Getaway” from his 2015 album Resist. Although the specific circumstances surrounding that album’s origin were different, the words still ring true in light of what happened recently in Minneapolis. I can easily imagine a world where Kristi Noem, Kash Patel and Pam Bondi all got a […]
As one of the current darlings of MAGA’s upper echelons, my first impulse when I saw El Pais‘s interview with Curtis Yarvin was to immediately discount it as either a superficial piece of ego stroking or an extended game of cat and mouse where the mouse constantly hid behind thick panels of grandstanding and ad […]
In any other timeline, the storming of the United States Capital Building would have been a ‘snapshot moment’, one of those moments that people remember in a visceral and completely in-focus way. Historic examples of such events include the September 11 attacks, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the space shuttle Challenger explosion, the moon […]
I always find it amusing when capitalism apologists try to demonstrate their rhetorical maturity by acknowledging the anxieties of those (particularly younger people) who are “warm to socialism”. They make remarks such as those made by New York Post columnist Rikki Schlott: “. . . I also am sympathetic to my peers who came of […]
I would like to start by saying I am a parent and I am well aware of how much a distraction and, occasionally, disruption screens can be. I’m fully cognizant of how a teenager can be entranced for hours with a phone in one hand and a laptop in front of them and how difficult […]
The so-called opioid crisis (or epidemic, depending upon who you ask) has been a news story for many years now, although its roots go back much further than the political and media attention. Beth Macy’s 2018 book Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America traces the origins of this national catastrophe as […]
Riding high on the wave of reactionary politics quickly eroding both civil liberties and longstanding constitutional protections, the Republican dominated General Assembly in North Carolina has quietly decided to introduce its own submission for ‘America’s Most Repressive Abortion Legislation’. The heroically entitled “Human Life Protection Act of 2025” (hereafter referred to by its designation HB […]
