A metaphor for a nation: Terrified students hustle across a school parking lot, their hands in the air. It happened the other day at Umpqua Community College in Oregon: hands in the air. It happened at Columbine High School. It happened at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois and Central Arkansas. It has happened at 142 schools…
DetailsA lot of Republicans are hoping Donald Trump will go away, and here’s why he won’t: The Thirders aren’t going away, either. Understand, the Thirders aren’t a lot of us — just a third — but being the life force of the Republican Party, they are enough to run it. That’s a take-away from the…
Details“Ahmed” is every bit as American as “Joe.” “Hussein” is every bit as American as “Shaughnessy” or "Flannery" or "McGill." Need this be said? Now, of those bigots who consider Irish-Americans to be lesser forms of Americans: They are oafs and nincompoops. Worse, they are un-American. Irish-haters hate America. Oh, wait; you were expecting this…
DetailsIf Ben Carson reads one word of all the information he just got about climate change, he should immediately end his candidacy for the Republican nomination. Carson, who serenely floats through his campaign on clouds of hard-right truthiness, the other day said he’d seen “no overwhelming science” of man’s involvement in climate…
DetailsCNN does less news and more retrospectives these days. Hence, one would have been excused to assume it was showing another century in China the other day. Missiles nose to tail, soldiers goose-stepping, China was parading every ounce and centimeter of its military might. And for what? In observing the anniversary of World War II’s…
Details“This is going to be felt for years.” My politically prescient son had just watched Donald Trump toss Univision’s Jorge Ramos from his press conference and a Trump supporter tell Ramos, “Get out of my country.” Ramos is a U.S. citizen. And so it goes. You’ve heard of a charm offensive. What…
DetailsWhile many observed in horror as a mothballed high-country gold mine shared an egg-yolk yellow stream of poison with three states via the Animas River (and the San Juan River 100 miles downstream), I thought of another stream — a river of air. Years ago I flew with a…
DetailsIn the hyperbolic chariot race waged by Republican presidential candidates, we can report the first breastplated contestant to have thrown a spoke. That would be the supposed moral standard-bearer of the field (of mankind?), the estimably sainted Ben Carson. Carson can talk the talk of the GOP base, like saying the Affordable Care Act is…
DetailsDonald Trump is a misogynist. If not, he’s determined to win the title. This guy is gunning for the finals of American Chauvinist Ninja Warrior. The last obstacle will melt before him and his bare chest, and that obstacle will be a “she.” On the morning after his coming-out debate performance, Trump didn’t just double-down…
DetailsOne would say that the good outweighed the bad for Ted Cruz last week, and the bad was horrid. In the Senate, he was openly scorned by fellow Republicans for his routine and rash showboating. That included calling Majority Leader Mitch McConnell a liar. Cruz. blazing a culinary trail this week with "machine-gun bacon," was…
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