-
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…
-
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…
-
Oryctolagus Cuniculus
What do Cher, Madonna, Beyoncé, and Rihanna have in common? Besides all being mononymous? Ok, add Diana Ross and Lady Gaga. Girl singers? Well yah, thank you Captain Obvious. What if I add Elton John, Freddie Mercury, and Lil’ Nas X? Gay singers? Sure, but Cher’s not gay. I’ll throw in Divine and RuPaul. Gay…
-
Remember The Captain and Tennille?
I have always said I “grew up” in the 80s. But chronologically that’s not entirely true. I “came of age” in the 80s, but the boy to teenager progression – what we typically mean by “growing up” – took place in the 70s; in fact, I became a teenager just as the decade was changing:…
-
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…
-
Show me the money
To be honest, I begin this post in somewhat of a quandary. I know where I want to get with it, but as I gave that some thought, it occurred to me that many people do not understand the difference between a “head of state” and a “head of government,” and so I should touch…
-
Ice Ice Baby
Any cold war spy novel or movie worth your time will eventually mention East Germany’s secret police known as the Stasi, officially called the “Ministry for State Security” (Ministerium für Staatssicherheit in German), which operated from 1950 to 1990 and was among the most hated and feared institutions of any of the cold war communist…
-
State of Play
I think most of us for most of our lives have been mostly unaware of politics. By that I do not mean we’ve been ignorant, and obviously it doesn’t apply to people who live and work in that world. We all want lower grocery prices and charges at the gas pump, reasonable health care costs,…
-
The Test
80 years ago today, a man died. He has long been a hero of mine, though I know him only from history books. He was a disabled man who, at the age of 39, began experiencing symptoms of a paralytic illness that would confine him to a wheelchair for the rest of his life. At…
-
Bonhoeffer’s Theory of Stupidity
Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Theory of Stupidity offers us a way to understand the “hold” MAGA has over so many people. It is important to note at the outset that by “stupidity” he does not mean “dumb.” Rather than a lack of intelligence, he was describing a psychological state where facts don’t matter, where contradictions aren’t recognized,…
Your mileage may vary.