Category: politics and religion
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The State of the State
The year in politics, for me at least, has been largely a year of breathlessness and angst. I cancelled my subscription to the Atlantic because I couldn’t read One More Article about Donald Trump. At some point the endless drumbeat of the damage that he’s causing to the environment, to civil rights, to our international standing (with…
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Speaking Freely
Provocateur Alex Jones’ ongoing rampage across social media recently encountered at least a speed bump and perhaps a cliff as Spotify, Apple, Google, Facebook and – when he tried to use it as a last-ditch refuge, Vimeo – purged the bulk of his content from their sites (in addition, as I was writing this, Twitter…
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what you made me feel
the fortune teller On high school graduation day a teacher asked me to stay after class. He sat me down, and took my hand, and said, “I want to tell you your fortune.” I looked at him expectantly. “So high school is over, and you didn’t go to prom, and you weren’t a popular girl.…
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Back in Big Sur
On Friday the 13th, Big Sur rejoined the world. After a winter that saw the region drenched with over 100 inches of rain, massive slides along the always precarious Highway 1 blocked the road to the south just past Ragged Point and so severely destabilized the Pfeiffer Canyon Bridge to the north that it had…
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Unbelieving
I was about six the first time it dawned on me to ask my fifteen-year-old brother who the man on a stick he wore so conspicuously around his neck was. This was before the phrase “personal savior” had entered the public lexicon, so he explained to me the long way around that Jesus was a…
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What I Hate
This is a thing that has been making the rounds on Facebook among some people that I know: The Democrat [sic] Party is the world’s most successful hate group. It attracts poor people who hate rich people, black people who hate white people, gay people who hate straight people, feminists who hate men, environmentalists who hate the internal…
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How Phyllis Schlafly Made Me a Feminist
During my very brief stint just out of high school as an evangelical Christian, I tried with the committed desperation of the newly converted to coax my parents to church so they too could receive the Good News Of Jesus Christ. My father was immovable. My mother, who for years had attended seven a.m. Mass…
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A Primer on Persecution
Even as I type this presidential candidates Mike Huckabee and Ted Cruz are off to Kentucky to console jailed county clerk Kim Davis in her hour of despair, yet another victim in the relentless assault on religious liberty waged by unsavory political and judicial elements in the United States. For those who haven’t been following…
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Hit It with a Hammer
Bubble warning: Here There Be Liberal Sentiments. If the thought of drug-testing-free welfare turns you into a frothing rage monkey, you may wish to go elsewhere for today’s light political entertainment. A few weeks ago an elderly neighbor sent me an email entitled IF YOU CAN’T FIX IT WITH A HAMMER, YOU’VE GOT AN ELECTRICAL…
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