Aug 21, 2021We Shouldn’t Have But We Did: In Defense of Having Gone and StayedNo, we did not invade Afghanistan to liberate women and girls from the Taliban. Yes, for much of the outlying rural population in particular, nothing much changed, and they bore the brunt of the long war. (Taliban fighters have wives and children, too.) Yes, the governments we installed and maintained…Afghanistan3 min read
Aug 12, 2021Hazardous to your HealthI was personally exposed in a harrowing way to medical paranoia and conspiracy theories around HIV in 2004, during my 9-month stint in prison. Among white inmates, the dominant fear was getting AIDS; among black inmates, there was a general confidence that it was a gay disease, and therefore exclusive…Anti Vaxxers4 min read
Jul 4, 2021In Deep End Dance Dayon the fourth of july you must tell me sweet lies like you put up the stars just for me. on the third or the sixth you can just take the fifth on the fourteenth you can take the bastille. if the glare of the rockets burns my eyes from their sockets, the dawn’s early light will reveal me. then point me due north cause tonight we’ll go forth and run ’til we’re gallantly streaming. oh say what you pleasePoetry1 min read
May 18, 2021A Job Nobody Wants: In Defense (gasp) of Drug DealersAs I listen to the North Carolina D.A. describe Andrew Brown Jr. as a dangerous target to be apprehended at all costs, I hear the same language used against so many suspects caught in the machinery of criminal justice. It starts with two words, “drug dealer.” After this label is…Andrew Brown5 min read
May 10, 2021Heartless MeYou took my breath away and so I thought it would be much the same for me to just give you my heart entirely. And such a grand gesture…Poetry1 min readThe authorHeartless Me----
May 7, 2021How Voter Fraud Works?For any voter fraud to work, there has to be a tortured supposition that tens of thousands of people would have the same thought: “I’m going to register to vote in three or four different precincts, plus request an absentee ballot for myself and a dead relative, then on Election…Voter Fraud2 min read
Mar 15, 2021Why I Give Meghan and Harry a BreakLike any thinking person, I find the concept of a monarchy at best silly, at worst fascistic. But as that same thinking person, I also have long concluded that human beings are evolutionarily wired to crave hierarchy. It’s no accident that our closest genetic relatives, (in fact almost all mammals)…Harry And Meghan5 min read
Mar 3, 2021EllipsisThe Germans must have a word for it. The sensation of missing someone whom you are with, anticipating the longing you will soon feel when they depart. “I miss you already,” we say, as if this makes any sense. We regularly steal from the future to feed our present tense, …Poetry1 min read
Mar 3, 2021The New WorldThe New World It is said that the native peoples of what was to become Virginia could not see for many days the anchored ships when they first appeared off shore, until their brains learned how to perceive what they had never before conceived. We, on the other hand, did…Poetry2 min read
Published in The Bad Influence·Jan 7, 2021AgapePoetry — Agape We have run out of adjectives. Deplorable, horrible, incoherent, incompetent, moronic, idiotic narcissistic, apocalyptic. We are always, now, “shocked but not surprised.” We debunk, refute, fight conspiracy with fact, watch the snake heads grow back, no matter how many times we slice them off. We label his perversions “unacceptable”, …Trump Outrages1 min read
