Rodney King, R.I.P.
Sean MurphySome people, like Rosa Parks, seem determined (if not destined) to make history. Some, like Parks, are successful. Others are not (many of them are appearing right now on reality…
2012: When Rhetoric Meets Reality
I read the news today. Oh boy. Looks like one of the worst-kept secrets in the industry is beginning to spring a rather unseemly leak. Sounds like art may have…
The Things They Carry, Continued…
Two stories from today's New York Times. What a coincidence. ON THIS DAY On March 16, 1968, during the Vietnam War, the My Lai Massacre was carried out by…
Rush Limbaugh: Don’t Hate the Player, Hate the Game (Revisited)
Beneath contempt? Of course. Shameless? Obviously. A ludicrous, cowardly ass clown? Clearly. A bullying blowhard? Yup. A self-aggrandizing huckster who sells snake piss to imbelices and laughs all the way…
Coal Mines, Unions, Big Business and (of course) George Orwell (Revisited)
Watching coal-miners at work, you realize momentarily what different universes people inhabit. --George Orwell Quite by chance (no, really), I saw an old classic that had been languishing in…
The Contraception Contretemps and the Siren Song of Sanity
Did you see Rick Santorum today? Did you hear him yesterday? A year ago? A decade ago? Look: I've had little to say about this recent (very manufactured, very cynical)…
Reagan & Dickens or, The Money Dread (Redux)
Did you know Reagan and Dickens almost share the same birthday? I didn't. One day apart: Dickens --and his readers-- celebrate his 200th birthday this week. Reagan --and his disciples--…
The Terror Card, Torture and You or, The Evil of Banality (6/09)
Anyone who happened to miss this piece by Lakhdar Boumediene, entitled My Guantánamo Nightmare should check it out, here. Here is a taste of the sickening, yet predictable torment this…
We Shall Overcome
“We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.” –Letter from a Birmingham Jail (1963) *This should be…
There’s Just A Meanness In This World (11/09)
As obstreperously opposed to the death penalty as I remain, it is nevertheless difficult to feel uncomplicated emotions regarding the execution of John Allen Muhammad. I --and any individual living…