"The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter." —Mark Twain
Fighting for hearts and minds
My niece Rebecca takes National Novel Writing Month seriously. I think the world of her, so I’m taking it seriously too. She sent a Google Doc link to her work in progress. I reciprocated with a link to mine, a chapter of a planned memoir. I was happy with it when I finished it a couple of months ago, but am less […]
You Can’t Read That! is a periodic post featuring banned book reviews and news roundups. Many schools and school districts in the United States have adopted procedures to follow when parents or community members demand the removal of books from classrooms, school libraries, and reading lists. Challenged books are reviewed by committees, which recommend retention, removal, […]
As Trump and his court crank up the volume of their attacks on “fake news,” their actual agenda is increasingly clear: they want news that makes Trump look bad suppressed, possibly even outlawed, like they do for dictators and royalty in other countries.
A year after 9/11, the Justice Department obtained video surveillance tapes suggesting terrorists were targeting Las Vegas casinos. Local authorities were informed, but no alert was issued because the casinos didn’t want tourists scared away. I blogged about it at the time, and wondered afterward why such an obvious target for terrorism had never been attacked.
One thing I’m certain of, though, is that John McCain thinks of himself as a man of honor. He absolutely was during his imprisonment, say what you will about his later political career, and I honor him for it. It must sicken him to be disrespected by a shitweasel draft-dodging blowhard like Donald Trump. If I were him, I’d sabotage Trump at every opportunity, and I kind of suspect that’s what he’s doing with the time he has left.
Home-grown hostility toward immigrants goes back a long way. That hostility has been directed toward Southern and Eastern Europeans, Jews in general, Asians and Africans in particular, and most lately Mexicans and Central Americans. I’m going to focus on the latter in light of yesterday’s announcement about ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or […]
We have an old tri-motor freighter at Pima Air & Space Museum. It’s a YC-125 Raider, one of 23 built by Northrop for the US Air Force, which flew the type from 1950 to 1955. After they were declared surplus, most were purchased by bush operators in South America, Central America, and Mexico. Ours flew […]
Those assholes in khaki Dockers and white Polos we saw chanting “blood and soil” in Charlottesville? Had they spent a few years in the military, working alongside the rest of us, they never would have been carrying those torches in the first place.