Settle Down

If you believe only G-d can judge you, but you blithely affirm that gays are sinners… If you believe every woman has the right to an abortion, but no man has the right to a gun… If you’re pretty sure the definition of terrorism turns more on egalitarian memes than on the motives of murdering … [more]

A Bug on the Windshield, Driving Home

This is where he might have gone, after I saw him. No idea which versions are the biggest lie. Maybe you’ll be able to tell. I saw him perfectly framed through the cracked windshield of our Subaru, slashed out in jagged chiaroscuro by the bladed beams of late October daylight. Like a digital exposure perfectly … [more]

Not even slightly about Harvey Weinstein

Decades ago, when I was younger and taller and faster and dumber, I found the big red Guzzi parked on a carpet of flattened beer cans and discarded condoms in the alcove under a staircase at our Mission-style barracks on Fort Sill, leaned down to the clubman bars, and rolled her out onto the wet … [more]

“Faceversary”…?

Today, Facebook treated me to an odd gift, a little movie about my “Faceversary.” Seems I’ve been on the thing for a solid decade, more than making good on my membership in (if this group even still exists) Creepy Old Guys On Facebook. It was an odd present to receive on the occasion of Daughtergirl’s … [more]

The Bill of Wrights

              Ten Commandments for Building an Authoritarian State (inspired by a true story) I. FREEDOM OF RELIGION, SPEECH, AND THE PRESS; RIGHTS OF ASSEMBLY AND PETITION Discredit the press until your populace accepts laws to outlaw criticism of the State. The people must accept information only from the Leader. … [more]

Born Country

Nicholas and Johnny Fax weren’t the best miners who ever dug into a claim. Ambitious fortune hunters locked into the boom and bust of the Klondike Stampede, they’d spike rails for a season or two in the dry dust of Wasco County, Oregon, get grubstakes together and head north to the Yukon. The first time they … [more]

Blood Moon

And what did you hear, my blue-eyed son? And what did you hear, my darling young one? I heard the sound of a thunder, it roared out a warnin’ I heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world I heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazin’ I heard ten thousand … [more]

American Literacy

In the bookstore today, I dutifully reported to the display shelf adjacent to U.S. History, where I regularly check to see if our well-written, scrupulously edited, glowingly reviewed and woefully undersold anthology Operation Homecoming is still on offer. I did not find it there. The display of writing on our military experiences in Iraq and … [more]