50 BULLET POINTS CONCERNING AMERICA’S GUN PSYCHOSIS
Sean MurphyNote: It makes me physically ill that this piece, written in 2016, is still not only relevant, but --inconceivably-- a bit outdated. Don't overlook the pathetic fact that the (very)…
Just Say (N)Oprah or, Make Great American Again
All this breathless, borderline hysterical enthusiasm about Oprah running for president is, sadly, doing a great deal to help me understand how Trump became president. It's different demographics to be…
50 BULLET POINTS CONCERNING AMERICA’S GUN PSYCHOSIS
Let’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,…
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…