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Chesterton’s Fence
Few things are easier to ridicule than a regulation. Republicans have made a meal out of this since Ronald Reagan mockingly said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.’” Nobody wakes up in the morning excited about fire codes. No one tells friends…
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Welcome to the gerontocracy
Mitch McConnell is alive! And heading back to work. See? There’s no conspiracy here, as some of the dim bulbs in Trump’s orbit were suggesting, like Laura Looney – um, sorry, my bad… I mean Loomer – who, amidst the four weeks of secrecy and cagey information released about the senator’s condition after being hospitalized,…
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Two Tribes
I have long wondered what makes contemporary Republicans tick. It is sophomoric to dismiss them outright because their leader is a vulgar half-wit, but, I’ll admit, Donald Trump’s Svengali-like hold over them confused me. After all, this is the party that has been banging on about family values ever since Dan Quayle launched a crusade…
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Remember Rome
The people around Donald Trump are dangerous. For them, he is a useful idiot. In him, they have found a vehicle to establish their vision of a grand, civilization redefining project. You’ve got your white nationalists engineering a country purged of those they deem racially inferior. You’ve got your Christian nationalists who imagine a future…
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The Choice
Even little Cindy in Mrs. Johnson’s 2nd Grade class at George Washington Elementary School in Some Town, California knows Gavin Newsom, whom President Trump has taken to calling Governor Newscum because the leader of our nation has the intellect and character of another child in Mrs. Johnson’s class resorting to petty name-calling on the playground…
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Pope Leo is the right man for the job
I was not paying attention in 1978 to the stage set in Rome for a showdown with the Soviet Union that would ultimately lead to its demise. I was 12. I was only mildly interested in the Catholic Church as an altar boy at my parish, but, if I’m honest, it was for the outfits…
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Are we justified?
As we’ve established, this month’s name – March – comes from Martius, the first month of the earliest Roman calendar, named after Mars, the Roman god of war, and an ancestor of the Roman people through his sons Romulus and Remus. His month Martius was the beginning of the season for warfare; ironic, yes, given…
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The cruelty is the point
In case you’ve forgotten, Donald Trump descended his golden elevator in Trump Tower to announce his first candidacy on June 16, 2015. His announcement was a masterpiece of the meandering Trump nonsense we’ve come to know so well that included a joke comparing ISIS to inadequate air conditioning, and this assessment of Mexican immigrants: When…
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At a Loss
I am at a loss. Not for words, obviously, as I have plenty for you this morning. No, when this year began with the inauguration of Donald Trump to a second term in office as our president I made a decision, and that was to stop trying to work out what motivates him and explains…
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No World AIDS Day in the US
There was a time, when to hear the words “your test results came back positive for HIV” meant “you are going to die – soon.” In the western world, those days are part of the history of the AIDS pandemic, a history so recent that many of us alive today living with HIV can recall…
Your mileage may vary.