Friday Because the Trump administration periodically attempts to redefine the Statue of Liberty and reframe Emma Lazarus’s accompanying lyric, I am reposting a very smart essay that a former colleague wrote about the statue and the poem. Donna Richardson establishes that the two together create a special synergy that has defined us as a nation. […]
Wednesday In recent years, conservatives have at least paid lip service to protecting the environment—after all, isn’t conservatism about conserving?—and Richard Nixon even signed the Endangered Species Act. Now, however, it appears that the Trump administration is unashamedly bent on squeezing every red cent it can out of the earth, consequences for future generations be […]
Tuesday Following Donald Trump’s latest racist tirade, this one targeting Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings and his “disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess” of a Baltimore district, I’m reposting an essay I wrote a year ago May. At the time, commentators had begun noticing that Trump frequently opts for images of infestation when talking about brown […]
Monday I’ve been reflecting upon a recent E.J. Dionne column about living in “an age of impunity.” Borrowing the phrase from International Rescue Committee head Dave Milland, Dionne looks at the horrors that arise when all moral inhibitions are swept away. Looking for an American author who depicts such a world, I settled upon Cormac […]
Tuesday I applaud Washington Post’s conservative Michael Gerson, architect of George W. Bush’s “compassionate conservatism,” for a recent column using Graham Greene to critique Trump-supporting rightwing evangelicals. Applying Greene’s Power and Glory, Gerson essentially accuses these so-called Christians of opting for piety over love. Since Graham’s distinction may be unclear to many, I’ll let Gerson […]
Thursday Today’s poem is a good response to our president’s non-stop lying, gaslighting, and “what you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening.” For that matter, it’s a sharp riposte to centuries of mansplaining. Sometimes we need a witty poetic rejoinder like Wendy Cope’s “Differences of Opinion” to retain a hold on reality. […]
Wednesday As Donald Trump will be doing his best tomorrow to transform our nation’s celebration of its founding ideas into a celebration of himself, I turn to another figure who is just as narcissistic. I’ve written in the past how both Satan and Trump are driven above all by spite. Today I focus on how […]
Wednesday As the Trump administration’s treatment of children at the border continues to horrify the nation, Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist comes to mind. There you have another child caught up in a nightmare where ideology overwhelms basic humanity. Whereas most of us see the death of a child as overwhelmingly tragic, it serves the agendas […]
