This is to share and make a smallish comment about a jaw-droppingly powerful image that I have just seen, disseminated to my newsfeed today by Nation magazine. I’m not sure if I should directly feature the work of the Australian painter, lushsux, licensable by Getty images— but, after all, lushsux hopes go viral as a … Continue reading Dog! How F*cked Up Is You?
Republicans
P.S: Another Note to My Senators
Reading my news feeds today, two things struck me as noteworthy and somewhat related to this and this recent posts. First, amid the current stress on "When will Trump loyalists acknowledge that he lost?" -- and that refusing to acknowledge it means at minimum flirting with complicity in, if not actively fomenting, a literal fascist … Continue reading P.S: Another Note to My Senators
Attempting to Talk to My Republican Senator
Counting my home in East Tennessee and a small summer cabin in Wisconsin in an old pasture where my Mom grew up, I have four Senators and two Congressional Representatives. By extension I have skin in the game in one swing state (where I wish I could vote) and another state that one day might … Continue reading Attempting to Talk to My Republican Senator
12 (plus 1) Songs for Christmas: “When You Go Down” and “Starting Over”
"When you go down, all the children will sing. When you go down, the bells of freedom will ring. One two three four five six seven. John Lewis is gonna shout from heaven....When you go down." I've featured this before, but this is definitely the song we need for today. Thanks, grassroots Georgia organizers! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCKoNBDpPRk … Continue reading 12 (plus 1) Songs for Christmas: “When You Go Down” and “Starting Over”
A Lament for How We Live Now
Recently I asked my dentist—with whom I have made small talk about teeth and sports teams for years—how long he thought it would take his office to get back to normal in light of the COVID vaccines that are rolling out. He responded with a bitter tirade about how things might be OK fairly soon…. … Continue reading A Lament for How We Live Now
Hegemonic Half-Truths: Why 9/11 Did Not Necessarily Strengthen the Religious Right in the Long Run
(This post is cross-published here on Narrative Paths Journal) Last week I fielded a query from the University of Tennessee campus newspaper about legacies of 9/11/2001. Its reporter asked: “How did 9/11 strengthen or weaken the religious faith of Americans? How did it change the way people think about mortality, evil, and hope? In what … Continue reading Hegemonic Half-Truths: Why 9/11 Did Not Necessarily Strengthen the Religious Right in the Long Run
This Music Needs to Go Viral Right Now
Just heard this new music on Sirius Radio's Outlaw Country station. This is what music needs to be now. Thank you, Buddy and Julie! P.S. They also made this timely message which goes with my earlier post about drinking bleach. MBE standard notice: The time I spend on this blog is not in addition to a … Continue reading This Music Needs to Go Viral Right Now
Thoughts from a Culture War Turning Into a Shooting War
I went to my local farmer’s market here in the north woods of Wisconsin, feeling happy for the beautiful day and the chance to be a good local citizen—but the first words I heard were a guy saying “maybe they shouldn’t have shot seven times, but other than that I can't see that he didn’t … Continue reading Thoughts from a Culture War Turning Into a Shooting War
Injecting Bleach or Ingesting Beach—Inquiring Minds Want to Know
I’m writing this note after reading a New York Times piece and reader’s thread about Trump’s suggestion to combat coronavirus by “injecting” a form of bleach as a sort of "cleansing” (which he has now walked back to supposedly being “sarcastic,” although that seems worse than sincerity). I noticed on cable TV as the story … Continue reading Injecting Bleach or Ingesting Beach—Inquiring Minds Want to Know
The Death of My Old Hometown: Sucking Out the Wealth, Filling the Gap with Fecal Pollution
Last summer, on a road trip from Minneapolis to Kansas City, I passed through a town in Iowa where I lived from age two to five. Here is a picture. I have limited memories from these years, and most of them are filtered through home movies that I watched later or stories my father told … Continue reading The Death of My Old Hometown: Sucking Out the Wealth, Filling the Gap with Fecal Pollution
Coronavirus and the Shock Doctrine
Without strong Democratic leadership, without mass protest, and with the economy so disrupted that I become confused as to how strikes could work, how do we fight for what we need? I have been distracted lately, like many others I know. But my main anxiety is not about immediate effects of the coronavirus, in its … Continue reading Coronavirus and the Shock Doctrine
MBE: Mark's blogging experiment 