As the Republicans take their place to defend this craven fraud, this criminal beyond all defense, I am reminded that JFK loved Dante as much as Dr. King. Both cite the poet to remind us that courage takes its stand and that there is no neutrality in the face of evil. This is lesson...
Continue readingRealism is Neither Pragmatic nor Revolutionary
I can’t condemn everything someone says just because I disagree with them nearly 100% of the time. It was George Will who reminded me once that to be an American means only to dedicate to the proposition—that it is not race, ethnicity, language, or any other criteria that frames the ideal. And it was...
Continue readingStar Trek and Trump* (*not even kidding)
I was poking around the web looking for signs of the new Star Trek series that’s coming called Picard. Yeah, that might sound silly for a man my age but there’s a history. On September 8th 1966 when I was 9 years old the first episode of Star Trek aired and everything about the...
Continue readingThe Moral Crisis of Incorrigibility
The time is upon us. It has been but with impeachment now, it seems to me we have run out of ways to avoid it, again. I’m of the view that when we face the hard truths in life we stand a better chance of living with ourselves. I refuse denial or any of...
Continue readingOn MLK Day Do We Have the Courage to be American?
I hope it’s appropriate to begin MLK Day celebrations by also making a connection to our American Founders and to Lincoln. We always need perspective to create a vision. To fathom what Dr. King was asking of us is to acknowledge the inexcusable failures of our American founding and yet to “conceive in liberty”...
Continue readingAfter the Same Rainbow’s End
I don’t know where to put this thought or exactly how I feel about this comment. It’s a few days before Christmas and I spent the day visiting with my daughter. We made food and laughed and told stories and, as always, played some music and watched some old movies. There was a fine...
Continue readingImpeachment Makes Democracy Possible
It’s being said again again that “impeachment is political” as if this somehow diminishes what is being done that must be done to be a democracy. Impeachment does not substitute for politics; it makes politics possible. Without the rule of law, we are nothing but capricious dictatorship. Like all autocrats, this is precisely what...
Continue readingThe Storm is Here, the Winter of Our Discontent is Upon Us
Impeachment is Imminent and Its Conclusion is Foregone Matters are moving closer by the day to Senate where we can expect no fair or serious assessment of the facts and as much to the Court, which Marbury vs. Madison made the final arbiter of the law. The law will be whatever the majority—Kavanaugh and...
Continue readingLawlessness is the Oldest Story of Power in America
Let us recount what happened on October 23rd, 2019, in the basement of the Capital Building, Washington, D.C. How could they get away with that? What just happened? What we saw yesterday and what we are seeing from Trump is as old as America. The Republicans storming the SCIF and Trump’s lawyers arguing that...
Continue readingOutrage Fatigue and the Edification of Self, What Are We to Do in Such a World?
One of the effects of outrage fatigue is our frustration with wanting to know, to keep up, to stay involved with the facts. We have a need to find some relief and engage the joy that we know is ours too. The assaults on decency, the vulgarity, the sheer venality cuts across every feature...
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