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…
A game: Go around the circle: Name a high-profile figure (one without an inmate number) who’s less qualified to be attorney general than noted child connoisseur Matt Gaetz. George Santos? Kanye West? Beavis? Butthead? I know; it’s tough. The only person I can think of who is less suited to enforce our laws is he…
My little canine friend and I have a favorite walking place: the nearest college campus. It’s a place of great sensations for a dog, and I’m not just talking about goose droppings near the reflecting pond. Sure, any place we go, Penny’s nose will reward her. But the college, with its sprawling intramural fields, seems…
Is anything more in tune with our times than debating whether Brian Thompson had it coming? No, not the debate about how high health insurers rank on the blood-sucker scale. How pointless. Thompson, the slain CEO of UnitedHealthcare, didn’t invent medical indemnity. Profit-seekers did. He was one of them, OK? The American way. Right? No,…
I’ve seen this voter before. It was 1988 as the nation considered Michael Dukakis and George H.W. Bush for president. I don’t know how the conversation started, as it wasn’t the kind of topic I’d launch with a casual acquaintance. Nonetheless, the lady I barely knew, with no prompt from me, shared her choice for…
“I will destroy you.” When my kids were of cartoon age, this TV line often rang through the den weekday mornings – a lower-than-low voice from an ever-booming, dominantly villainous robot. I never knew which robot it was. The other day I asked a now-grown son to name that character and help me build an…