50 BULLET POINTS CONCERNING AMERICA’S GUN PSYCHOSIS
Sean MurphyLet’s politicize these acts, if for no other reason because, in America, we politicize everything else. Of course it’s a mental health issue. For starters, the mental handicap of anyone…
Donald Trump: The Man in America’s Mirror
i. Orwell, Again (Obviously) Even before the Reality TV circus American politics and, by extension, American life, degenerated into late last year, George Orwell was the go-to guy for…
Life Imitating Art: The Russiagate Floodgates
Toward the end of Sydney Lumet’s ’70s classic Serpico there is an unnerving scene that encapsulates the conundrum faced by the eponymous cop: already persona non grata within the law…
Cruel DeVos
I. TRUE STORY. MY WIFE teaches grade school. In addition to the stories I can tell, and the ones my many friends who teach or are married to teachers can tell,…
On Health Care: George Carlin Called It
Nine years ago today we lost not only one of our better comics, but one of our most vital and intelligent voices. George Carlin was incendiary, he was hilarious, he…
Donald Trump and Participation Trophy Politics
I’VE BEEN THINKING A lot?—?since the election and particularly during the past two weeks?—?about the cliché (typically, in personal experience, uttered by my right-leaning friends) involving our so-called “participation trophy”…
Trump & Co.: The Great Deceivers
ALLOW ME TO BE contrary for a moment. That rambling, semi-coherent, solipsistic rant (half campaign speech; half cry for attention) Trump delivered at the CIA fills me with hope and…
Weird Scenes Inside the Gold Mine: 10 Songs of Righteous Protest
Ian Anderson called it, in '74: The ice-cream castles are refrigerated; The super-marketeers are on parade. There's a golden handshake hanging round your neck, As you light your cigarette on…
Cheer Up, Trump Haters: It’ll Get Worse!
WELL, THAT PRESS CONFERENCE was…something, huh? Predictably shambolic to the point of parody. Only more so. Satire and ridicule no longer register; we’re down the faux-golden rabbit hole, and it…
The Weeklings: Solutions for Oncoming Political Darkness
In the dark times Will there also be singing? Yes, there will also be singing. About the dark times. --Bertolt Brecht I --and my fellow editors and compatriots at The…