Things aren’t quite as they should be around the country. Many of us are angry. Many of us are fearful for our safety, or that of our children. Many of us are worried about what the future will hold. Many of us are missing and mourning loved ones. Many of us are dead. I initially wrote …
Category Archives: living in the Polis
Running away from work to do your job
Even from far away across the great undefended frontier in Canada, I have for the past month been following the events in Wisconsin with more interest than I typically grant political matters. Partly this is curiosity, partly personal interest (my mother-in-law is a public school teacher in the state), and partly this story is more …
All Things Must End (Even This Year)
And so another year comes to a close, and with it the first decade of this much-vaunted third millennium. A lot has happened in these ten years. Some buildings got knocked down by hijacked airplanes in 2001: that was quite a dire start to the decade. As a result — or using that tragic event …
Electoral Malaise
I know I have said this before, but I’ll just go ahead and say it again: nothing decisively good (or decisive, period) can ever come out of the entrenched two-party system the American political process has settled into, seemingly immovably. The best that can ever be hoped for as it currently operates is this endless, …
Much Noise, To Little Effect
The value and importance of “social media” and “social networks” continue to be major topics in all sorts of discourse communities these days. Friend and fellow blogger Andrew Miller drew my attention today to a recent essay by Malcolm Gladwell (“Small Change: Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted,” The New Yorker, 4 October 2010) …
Nine Years
It was a beautiful day in September, a bright blue morning of promise and sunshine. At least it was in Saint Paul, Minnesota; from all the pictures it appeared to be just as gorgeous in Manhattan, too. A far-away city to which I had never been, the unexpected news from there that autumn morning cast …
Why Can’t Daniel Read?
I have been closely following the story of Daniel Hauser for the past few days, after ignoring it for at least a week of news cycles. What I initially dismissed as a sad story of no interest has become intensely emotional for me, as it became clear how very close to home this story was …
Happy Repeal Day!
It was seventy-five years ago today that the miserable experiment that was the Eighteenth Amendment came to an end, and the shuttered brewing industry was allowed to struggle back to life in this country. In recent years local watering holes have seized upon this date as their own Hallmark holiday, a snappy historical marketing opportunity, …
Election Day
It is no great secret (at least to those who have known me for many years) that I have not been a staunch believer in this theory of government called democracy. There was a time, not so long ago, when a more impetuous and pretentious younger version of my self made free with very provocative …
Well, that’s over
I feel so proud of myself. I realised this morning that I got through the whole day yesterday without once saying “Happy Patriot Day” to anyone. The certain knowledge that I could not have done so with any degree of sincerity probably aided my restraint; I don’t know that I want to go around my …
