"The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter." —Mark Twain
Fighting for hearts and minds
You Can’t Read That! is a periodic post featuring banned book news and reviews. “The purpose of our elementary schools is to teach writing, reading and arithmetic, not to encourage boys to wear dresses.” “Jacob’s New Dress” pulled from 1st grade curriculum in North Carolina after teacher complains to state legislators. Arizona school district pulls “The […]
It’s Easter, and my thoughts turn to faith. My faith is humanism. We humans have had one great idea, a universal one that both pre-dates religion and is common to all faiths: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” That’s my religion, and it’s a fine one. Surprisingly, to me at least, […]
This article started making the rounds yesterday. One paragraph catches my eye: If you want to understand intra-GOP warfare, the decision-making process of our president, the implosion of the Republican healthcare plan, and the rest of the politics of the Trump era, you don’t need to know about Russian espionage tactics, the state of the white working class, […]
Between tram tours at the air museum, I sneak into a mostly-empty storeroom behind one of the exhibit galleries. It’s quiet and out of the way, a perfect place for a break. I thought I was the only one who knew about it. For at least the last two years, these two boxes have been sitting against one […]
Fending for myself: Donna drove to Palm Springs to spend a few days with her sister and niece. Right after she left I heard one of the dogs howling. And she thinks they love me more than her! Since I had the TV to myself last night, I turned on Netflix to watch what must be the […]
Dear President* Trump: here’s a bag of dicks. I picked ’em myself. You know, I’m starting to think the smarter course would be to forget about impeachment and just let Trump play the big boss, relying on the courts to clean up his messes and protect institutions and rights. That guy Pence, standing and smirking behind Trump in […]
“I found much that was alarming about being a citizen during the tenures of Richard Nixon and George W. Bush. But, whatever I may have seen as their limitations of character or intellect, neither was anything like as humanly impoverished as Trump is: ignorant of government, of history, of science, of philosophy, of art, incapable […]
I don’t know what having a sexual kink says about a person’s character. Probably nothing, and as long as it’s all worked out between like-minded, consenting adults, and no one gets hurt, ain’t no one’s business. Unless it’s Donald Trump, of course, and the kink is a juicy one. The floodgates opened yesterday and Twitter was drowning […]