Category: American cantos
-
On racism and candy
I originally wrote this in 2015 on Facebook, in response to a meme that ticked me off. (Since the original meme link has decayed, I’m appending a screenshot.) In light of Senate Majority Leader McConnell’s self-serving and tone-deaf comments on reparations, I thought it still a propos. At the least it serve as conclusive proof…
-
America is a Choice
It’s been two years since I woke up to a country I didn’t recognize, and I’ve spent a lot of time wrestling with what that means. I suspect that won’t be ending any time soon. Over the course of this administration, my social media feeds have been peppered with reactions to outrages that were virtually…
-
I woke up to a country I didn’t recognize
I am stunned. Although I spent the last week cautioning people from assuming a Clinton victory, although I told myself it’s never over until the ballots are cast, I realize now that I never actually entertained the possibility of a Trump victory. I had too much faith in the basic decency of the American people,…
-
In which Dinesh D’Souza proves he doesn’t know the difference between past tense and present tense.
(written in response to an insipid Facebook post by the — thankfully — inimitable Dinesh D’Souza, showing the idiotic comic copied above) “Is” is not the same as “was”. But, hey, what would you expect from a hack? I think it’s actually hilarious that defenders of the modern GOP think they can win…
-
Versailles on the Potomac
{Originally penned 2015 Apr 26 and recently rescued from the Drafts folder} So there have been police confrontations (and possibly even riots) in Baltimore over the past 12 hours, but apparently CNN didn’t feel compelled to cover them. Instead they kept with covering the White House Correspondents’ Dinner where various people, including the President, got to…
-
On riots, protests, and the legitimacy of violence (short)
For everyone who has counseled the citizens of Baltimore (and Ferguson and…) that “violence is not the answer” and that it would be better if everyone just protested peacefully: 1) As has now been documented extensively, the protests were by and large peaceful — and even more by and large, ignored by the national media.…
-
Happy Victory over the Confederacy Day
On this day one hundred fifty years ago, a scruffy, scrappy, but determined general accepted the surrender of his well-born, well-dressed, and traitorous counterpart, effectively ending a vast sedition launched in the name of slavery, orchestrated by cowardly politicians, and fought — like most wars are — by poor men dying at the behest of…
-
This is important: What we know about what happened in Boston
Nothing. We know nothing of import yet, and won’t for several hours, if not an entire day. That is the way of these things, and the truth of them. Nonetheless, the circus has begun. Each network has already offered its own (or its several own) opinions on who caused the bombing, who planted the bombs,…
-
Published in the Hun Review
This is just a list of things I’ve managed to get published in the Hun Review, my school’s literary annual: 2010: The Memory of Pain 2009: The Walking Man 2008: From Arizona to Missouri 2007: Somewhere Beyond the Bitter End 2006: Takings and Leavings 2005: The King Lies Dying; The Burning Moment 2004: A Tide…