Say you had a gripe over a parking ticket. Say you had enough big-shot clout in town to resolve the matter by shutting down all parking enforcement. Say you thought your company’s water bill was too high. You had it dissolved. The water department, that is. In either scenario, that would make you Elon Musk.…
To mortified Americans everywhere — you who still cannot expel the hurt from your minds: This president has done many horrible things: conspiring to undermine a U.S. election; inciting a bloody insurrection; breaking the law and skating past felony indictments. As aghast as you’ve been at all that and about every stunning action since November,…
Her eyes were reddened by tears, a box of tissue in the crook of her arm, a pink slip in her pocket. There she was on the sidewalk, pictured in the Denver Post: the person who was going to help you on the phone the next time you had a tax question. This instead: “Elon…
Back when I ran a small-town paper, for a short time we had a feature popular in the era, the “man on the street” interview. Beside six pictures of locals, mouths agape, we’d have their takes — with very few words, and even less insight — on an issue of the day. Once as I…
They are seventh graders who’ve taken over the middle school. They are hooligans who, after looting the Glocks & Ammo outlet store, believe they now run the town. Team Musk, that is. There they are in broken glass and black-fabric faces. Stay calm. Hear and obey: “We are in charge, dudes.” The Musk administration is…
The reprise of all things Dylan (great movie; see it) raises the question: What happened to protest singing? Listen around. T’ain’t been heard for years, and we need it more than ever. Taylor Swift has the chops, but her tunes are tightly engineered around Taylor Swift. Chappell Roan has the guts, but “Pink Pony Club”…
Remarkably he still had his hair when the beginning came – the beginning of his afterlife. That powdered-egg pelt: still enough to comb combatively. That Caramelo face: oh, yeah. Remarkable for one not alive — and as identifiable as ever when St. Peter acknowledged him from atop a golden barrier. “Where’s the entrance?” he demanded,…
In recent weeks we’ve seen a new breed of first responders when disaster hits. Not the fire department. Not the EMTs. Not the cops. No, even faster are politicians misrepresenting facts and placing blame on whomever they can finger; facts be damned. Hence, while we see the very best of humanity in the public servants…
The executioner’s clock ticked. The felon-elect paced the floor. Surely the Supreme Court would deliver a reprieve. When only four of his man-servants – Alito, Thomas, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch — voted his way, he imagined a grim future that was already assured: no jail for his crime, no probation, no community service, not even 30 minutes…
You can’t ignore politics, no matter how much you’d like to. – Molly Ivins In the quest toward a wiser and more just society, my wife is on the front lines. Meaning she’s the first to read the words my fingers formulate here. Last week when, as usual, I asked her to read my weekly…