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Politics
We Were All Just Kids, Really
It was never wholly about music; it was also about being part of a community of like-minded misfits and broken dolls. I felt a responsibility to capture these bands and that world specifically because it seemed like nobody else was.
March 2022
Sunbeams
March 2022They argued about the weather, sports, sex, war, race, politics, and religion; neither of them knew much about the subjects they debated, but it seemed that the less they knew the better they could argue.
Sticks And Stones
Yascha Mounk On The Erosion Of Good-Faith Discourse In America
It’s hard to be optimistic about this country overcoming its current political challenges without some disaster happening.
March 2022
Sunbeams
February 2022It is a curious situation that the sea, from which life first arose, should now be threatened by the activities of one form of that life. But the sea, though changed in a sinister way, will continue to exist; the threat is rather to life itself.
Something In The Water
Robert Bilott On Corporate Greed And Chemical Contamination
The cows were getting sick and wasting away. They were developing tumors. Their teeth were turning black. Calves were stillborn or born with cloudy or deformed eyes.
February 2022
Sunbeams
November 2021Democracy disciplined and enlightened is the finest thing in the world. A democracy prejudiced, ignorant, superstitious will land itself in chaos and may be self-destroyed.
The Wedding Gift
From the moment Ashlee asked me to be a bridesmaid, / I understood what my wedding gift needed / to be. It wasn’t the set of tumblers / I shipped her from 14th Street, daffodils and dandelions / climbing the sides. It wasn’t helping her angel of a mother / practice her speech, making pencil marks for pauses / and every deep breath. No, my gift / to Ashlee started when she told me Cate from college / would be a bridesmaid, too.
November 2021Old Friend
I wasn’t good at sports, like he was, but when it was just the two of us, he liked to play pretend. That, I was good at. Whether we were knights or ninjas or mountain men or astronauts or soldiers in Vietnam, he listened with his whole self — intent, leaning in — to whatever story I was telling.
November 2021
America America
My granddaughter barely speaks. Her name is Effie, which in Greek means “well-spoken.” Maybe in Greece she would be. Names aren’t expected to match the person. If they were, we’d be named upon our death, when someone would have a stab in the dark at getting it right.
November 2021
The Elephant In The Room
Rick Perlstein On The Evolution Of The American Conservative Movement
In a lot of ways the start of the Civil War at Fort Sumter in 1861 found its modern parallel on January 6, 2021.
November 2021
