I wrote this the day after the IDF (read: Israeli army) demolished a building in Gaza that housed several news agencies, including the Associated Press. It's currently running in our local alternative paper, the Shepherd Express, but I'm posting it here, too. Click here if you want to read the magazine version. It came about … Continue reading ‘What would you tell a friend?’ Bare facts on Israel/Palestine
Category: Society
Once upon a time in Cincinnati, I got to hang out on a witness stand for 10 minutes getting cross-examined by an attorney. He was trying to undermine the credibility of someone on whose behalf I was testifying. The attorney wondered whether this person, a student at Large Midwestern Technical College, where I was an … Continue reading Confessions of an Election Worker: ‘I didn’t steal anything. I counted votes.’ Part 1
What a ride! Collective whiplash is everywhere and trying to slow it down only does so much. We careen along, shedding whatever we can to lighten our emotional loads as we’re continously hit more and harder. It’s exhausting. The police shoot a man in the back seven times in front of his children, which becomes … Continue reading Civilization on the endangered list: a brief meditation
Last night, I had two different sets of anxiety dreams. These days, you don’t even have to be asleep to have anxiety dreams. Between COVID-19, a critical mass of people finally starting to think about what it really means to come to terms with the US’s legacy of institutionalized racism, despite very real pushback from … Continue reading Art for an anxious moment: remembering a childhood ‘friend’
For Wisconsin voters, shit didn’t just get real this past week. It rolled downhill, thanks to the cabal of legislators and judges who insisted the April 7 election run in business-as-usual fashion - in the midst of a pandemic. That meant registered voters who hadn’t receieved absentee ballots in time to return them postmarked by … Continue reading Anger tinged with hope: a WI election story from the bottom of the hill
There’s a lot of noise out here right now, as everyone screams silently from wherever they’re holed up. Sweetheart and I are holed up at home and beyond grateful. Our jobs haven’t been dramatically affected. Having previously weathered extended periods of under- and unemployment, we fully understand and appreciate how lucky we are. The last … Continue reading Pandemic musings from a virtual reference librarian
The night our father went missing, my sister hung out in her bedroom, reading “The Boys of Summer” by Roger Kahn. Dad had given her the book, and she figured reading it might help bring him home. That was 46 years ago (or will be, this coming Saturday). This morning, in an email, she told … Continue reading Long-dead hypochondriac & sports fan’s life lessons on managing COVID-19
Wednesday, while listening to Gordon Sondland’s testimony in the Impeachment Inquiry as I drove to a doctor’s appointment for which I turned out to be five minutes and 24 hours late, I called my sister. She picked up, 100 percent “That Annoyed Person Interrupted by an Unwanted Phone Call.” “I’m trying to watch the Impeachment … Continue reading Keep your eyes on the road & know your limits: An Impeachment Inquiry Vignette
On Halloween, Sweetheart and I saw “Hamilton,” which is finally touring. It would probably be more accurate to say that I finally saw “Hamilton” and Sweetheart came along for the ride. He knows I wouldn’t have spent gobs of money and dragged him out on a work night if I hadn’t been pretty certain he’d … Continue reading ‘Hamilton’ lyrics hit home for me & my sister: who tells our cousin’s story?
Note: I took a couple of weeks off to hang out with out-of-town family and work a lot, but will be back next Sunday with some sort of story....here's a brief and entertaining (thanks to John Forster) take on the college admissions debacle. Wait!? You got a Ph.D. and an MD, you took all your … Continue reading John Forster’s pitch-perfect musical response to Admissions Scandal… 26 years before it happened
the sentence factory 