“In such a world of conflict, a world of victims and executioners, it is the job of thinking people, not to be on the side of the executioners.”- Camus
John McCain is dead and I miss him. We probably disagreed about 90% of the time on substantive issues, but I still miss him. He sacrificed his body for his fellow POW’s. After he refused to accept release, knowing it would be a propaganda victory for the North Vietnamese, and because he would not abandon his fellow prisoners, they went to work on him with beatings and rope torture. […]
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Have you ever thought that you might organize your slippery life by how often you have only just kept it? O’Farrell tells her mother, “I’m trying to write a life told only through near-death experiences.” In seventeen chapters variously titled Neck, Abdomen, Head, Cerebellum, Causes Unknown, she describes those moments when death glanced at her … and then moved past her. At 18, she talks her way away from […]
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If believed in portents and prophecies, which I do not, I might be worried, but I do believe in wonders, and so yesterday, pulling into the driveway, when I saw a fledgling black vulture hop from roadkill to our fence and not take off, I stopped every other vagrant thought in my head and just let the moment unfurl. Black vultures have a grayish small head whose feathers look […]
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After watching the full Montana rally, my chief conclusion is that Donald Trump is now the most effective American politician based on results. He has created a symbiotic relationship with his supporters that nothing seems able to crack. The Republican Party has now become Trumpian in its identity, but not tribal. Even tribes have factions. Trump has maintained a 90% approval rating through every scandal, every insult, every example […]
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