From the Left
/Politics
The Water of Life
My wife and I just bought a house. The house we sold is in a city, just a three-minute drive from District Court. If you beat the murder rap, you can walk to my house in about 20 minutes. There's a methadone clinic a 10-minute walk away, too. Many clients of the court are also customers at the methadone clinic. We live in between the two. It's...Read more
Cabinetwork
I hadn't done much sanding in my life, but my wife and I bought a new house, and she asked me to sand the kitchen cabinets so she could paint. She likes to paint. I got a handheld electric sander and went to work.
Turns out I'm not a bad sander. She is mid-paint right now.
That's one of the things to remember in life. You don't know if you ...Read more
Playin' It Safe: One Writer's Guide to Cowardice
As an enemy of the people, or "journalist" as we were called in the pre-Trumpian eras of light, I am at some risk of being silenced. How soon? Well, that depends on how many Fox News commentators Trump appoints to his new administration.
But writers, like cockroaches, can survive nearly every adverse condition. In fact, if cockroaches could ...Read more
Remembering Democracy
Someday, someone's going to have to remember.
If it's not too many years, it might not be that hard to remember, but if it's longer, it's going to be harder.
Someone will have to remember the old words, the words of The Constitution and Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr. and all those old rusty amendments that let people vote.
And ...Read more
Tequila and America
I used to drink tequila.
I drank it when I was a lot younger. I only drank it seriously for about six months, then I stopped, which is one of the reasons I got to be a lot older.
It had some romance, tequila did.
I drank it straight, out of a shot glass, with the salt and the lemon in the non-shot glass hand.
Drinking tequila that way, in ...Read more
We Gotta Redefine This Mass Shooting Thing
The fake news and the corrupt Deep State FBI have convinced Americans that we have a lot of mass killings in this America. The fake figures are backed up by some communist university where the most popular course is taught by a drag queen. The course is called "God Sucks Let's Burn the Flag 101."
According to those very bad, deranged liars, ...Read more
Will Trump Round Me Up?
Will they come at night? When I'm asleep next to my wife? When my cat Jack is curled up next to my ankles? Or in the daytime? When my wife is at work? When I'm at home reading and eating a bagel? Will I be gone when she gets home, and will she think I'm at the gym? Or will there be "signs of a struggle," as the newspapers say?
Presidential ...Read more
If You Work It Right ...
If you work it right, you might be able to kill freedom in America and in the Ukraine with just one vote.
You might also be able to kill abortion freedom, drag queen freedom, gay freedom, freedom to read any book you want and a bunch of other freedoms no one uses much. Read much? Then the hell with it!
You will keep your freedom to own 67 ...Read more
A Night in Understaffed America
I haven't been in any kind of medical facility that wasn't understaffed by at least 20%, not for 15 years, and that 15 years includes my knee surgery, the death of my mother- and father-in-law, the death of my mother, and my wife's hysterectomy. I figure it's just a matter of time until your loved one goes in the hospital, and you have to ...Read more
Cats and Self-Interest
In America's ongoing effort to separate the properly gendered from you freak jobs who are just making it up as you go along, we've finally struck on felines and fertility as the true measure of properly gendered patriotism.
You got cats? You got cats, there's some chance that you're not as male as the guy with a dog, particularly when ...Read more
The Amish Are Better Than You
The Amish are better than you. They're better than me, too.
This is because the Amish make furniture.
For the last couple years, every time I turn the television on, there's a commercial from a local retailer telling me they sell "Amish furniture."
"Experience the craftsmanship of the Amish," the announcer's deep voice says. Then the ad ...Read more
Old Girlfriends and Donald Trump
The funniest, or the saddest, thing about this week's presidential debate is that it occurred the night before Sept. 11, a holy holiday of death that's been forgotten by everyone except politicians looking to be seen at the remembrance ceremony, firefighters, unindicted police officers and the families of the dead, whose aching sadness cannot ...Read more
The Noble Dead
There's been a mini-flap about former President Donald Trump's recently reprehensible conduct at Arlington National Cemetery.
First of all, what the hell did you expect?
Secondly, when is Trump gonna stop with that cheesy "thumbs up" hand sign? No one does that anymore. It makes him look old and out of touch. I grew up with the thumbs up, ...Read more