I Can't Breathe for 12/08/2023
However you vote, whichever lives you think matter, you may be forgiven for asking one question.When former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was stabbed 22 times in prison, did he say to his...
View ArticleIf You Ignore It, the Whackos Own It for 12/15/2023
When I was in high school, my late mother was a receptionist in a dentist's office.Over her desk was a poster that said, "If you ignore your teeth, they'll go away."It's true. You don't have to shoot...
View ArticleQuestioning the Bible for 12/22/2023
Luke 2: 8-14And there were in the same country (Which country? Open border or closed? Communist or Socialist?) shepherds (Agricultural laborers. Were they legal?) abiding in the field (In the field?...
View ArticleStatues Have Limitations for 12/29/2023
Being an American of working-class origins, I've lived most of my life among people who say "statue of limitations" instead of "statute of limitations." That's OK. I always know what they mean, and the...
View ArticleTrump Is Innocent for 01/05/2024
Former President Donald Trump is innocent of directing, fomenting, encouraging or concocting an insurrection.He is innocent of these things until he is found guilty. This is because, in America, you...
View ArticleLights at the End of Day for 01/12/2024
Understand. I live in an urban area full of old multifamily homes and Hyundai sedans with duct tape on the upholstery.This means that my small, northeastern city looks best at dusk. In the full black...
View ArticleThrowing Me at Donald Trump for 01/19/2024
I'm a reasonable man. I do not raise my voice to my wife. If you cut me off on the highway, I do not make rude hand gestures. I do not roll my eyes and sigh if there are other people in line at the...
View ArticleOoh That Smell for 01/26/2024
My wife, who worked at a desk 13 feet away from me in the newsroom, noticed it first."The parking lot of the Walmart reeks of weed," she said. "I mean all the time. In the afternoon, in the morning, at...
View ArticleManhood as a Game for 02/02/2024
So, let me get this straight. You DO want to see muscular men in tight pants play football. You do NOT want to look at Taylor Swift.This, you tell me, is manliness. You tell me that right before you...
View ArticleSexual Notes From the Debate Team for 02/09/2024
Like high school itself, high school sports are the unimportant masquerading as the hugely significant.Every time an adult told high school me that "these are the best years of your life," I used to...
View ArticleCrying Over Spilt Beer for 02/16/2024
There's probably still a bar that uses the old beer schooners. Maybe in Chicago or Topeka or Bemidji, one of those towns with a flair for the traditional, for ethnic sausages and casseroles and good...
View ArticleI Was Country Before Beyonce Was Country for 02/23/2024
The old man's idea of paradise is inertia.Right now, there's an old woman looking sadly out the window of her apartment, seeing the vacant store where the "good" bakery was, or the kosher deli, or the...
View ArticleWe're Getting the Band Back Together for 03/01/2024
I don't live in the kind of city that gets Lady Gaga live for one night, or Taylor Swift.I live in the kind of city that gets a Journey tribute band that sounds just like Journey if you're drunk....
View ArticleOn the Road for 03/08/2024
It's Newt Night. Frog Fest. Salamanderpalooza.The temperature is brushing up against 50 where I live, and it's been drizzling for a couple of days.And so, the amphibians, the goggle-eyed, slightly...
View ArticleToora Loora Loora for 03/15/2024
Sure, and it's a little St. Paddy's Day story from my grandmother.She was Irish American herself, and in her childhood, there were a great many people in her life who had come from Ireland."If you said...
View ArticleBlackfellas for 03/22/2024
Movie scene: A car pulls to the curb on a downtown street. Four men wait inside the vehicle. They're white. All of them have slicked-back hair, pinkie rings, shiny suits and shirts with long collars...
View ArticleThe Things I Used To Do, Lord, I Won't Do No More for 03/29/2024
My father spent the last 13 years of his work life at a sporting goods company, where he was an assistant department head.When he retired, 34 years ago, he had full and complete rights to a pension of...
View ArticleA Severe Absence of Rats for 04/05/2024
Sitting in courtrooms isn't an art. It is the process of hibernation, being asleep enough not to hear everything but awake enough to hear anything important. It is the light semisleep of a man whose...
View ArticleWhere Eagles Dare for 04/12/2024
Bald eagles. Big, feisty, fighting creatures. Lousy fathers sometimes.They're like your cousin Richie, is what they are. This is why you hope Richie isn't showing up for your aunt's wake. He'll show up...
View ArticleThe Last Sin We Have for 04/19/2024
Joe Biden. Donald Trump. Bill Clinton.According to always-reliable social media, these men are pedophiles.It doesn't stop with them, either. According to even foamier-at-the-mouth sources, nearly every...
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