fiction and musings from a gay black dude with delusions above his station
On the front page of my Saturday newspaper, I saw a photo of someone carrying this protest sign: “We are fighting for our freedom.” No you’re not. Not when you’re carrying signs like “Wealth is Health” and “The cure is worse than the disease.” As of this writing, 68,088 US residents have died from COVID-19…
A year ago, my country failed. The failure started quite early. Rather than reject a man who began his campaign with these fateful words: “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.” The media went out of its way to cover every belch and every fart this man uttered for a year and a half….
In “The Scouring of the Shire,” the penultimate chapter to The Lord of the Rings, Gandalf gives Frodo, Sam, Pip, and Merry a warning about Saruman. Though defeated, his powers diminished, his master Sauron vanquished for good, the old wizard is still capable of a little meanness in a cruel way. Such is often the case after…
Stellar evolution. Lately, the current trajectory of the Republican Party has me thinking of the lifecycle of massive stars. All stars go through the same general evolutionary pattern, but larger stars die more dramatically. If the GOP has entered its death throes, then it is doing so in the most dramatic way possible. Stars in the…
The Kim Davis fiasco continues the pattern of religious conservatives relying on more extreme and desperate measures to retain their image of how the world should work. Ms. Davis would have something of a leg to stand on if she personally refused to serve same-sex couples seeking marriage, but allow others in her office to…
True confessions. As a kid I watched the Go-Go Gophers cartoon. It was one of those “shorts” that was part of a serial cartoon series, in this case the Underdog Show. The Go-Go Gophers were buck-toothed, anthropomorphic gophers dressed in stereotypical Native American garb, replete with feathered headdress. They were the last of their tribe and lived…
In January 2005, Harvard President Larry Summers made some observations about the proportional lack of women in the upper echelons of academia. First, he stated that women are too busy being mommies to devote the 80-plus hours a week necessary to achieve standing in the academy. Second, he stated, in the most obtuse language possible,…
Those who use religion as a bludgeon to pummel anyone who fails to follow their dogma are getting desperate. Despite years of proselytizing, society Just Won’t Get It. States continue to grant marriage equality rights. Courts continue to overturn anti same-sex marriage laws. And to make matters worse, the dreaded Affordable Care Act had made…
Last year I wrote that I just wanted George Zimmerman to face trial for shooting Trayvon Martin. This was when a trial seemed doubtful because no one seemed willing to file charges against him. Mr. Zimmerman was allowed to remain free and unencumbered from February 26, 2012, the date of the shooting, to April 11, 2012,…
A pressure cooker loaded with nails and ball bearings. That’s what the FBI now says constituted one of the two bombs that went off at the finish line of the Boston Marathon. A pressure cooker. Seems sadly appropriate. Our world today is jam packed with imaginary demons and boogeymen. All of them can be described…
