Right now, I’m feeling like I’m in exile — sent there by the last election, sent there by the president’s actions these last seven weeks, driven there by the cruel antics of his sidekick, Elon Musk. Most readers of this…
Is this what you voted for?
On Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, 2025, President Donald Trump commuted the sentences of the paramilitary members who had been convicted of (or who had pled guilty to) seditious conspiracy for their part in the January 6 insurrection at the U.S….
Jimmy Carter and ‘the way things are’
Editor’s note: This column was published March 2, 2023, in the Pine Belt News of Hattiesburg, Miss., and is republished here with slight edits to fit the remembrance of Jimmy Carter. In Jimmy Carter’s boyhood autobiography, An Hour Before…
Rule No. 1
Rule No. 1 in Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny is “Do not obey in advance.” The subtitle of the Yale historian’s handbook on dictatorship is, “Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century.” And they are as relevant today as they were in…
Looking for America
Here it is, five weeks since the election, and I’m still looking for America. The new administration isn’t shaping up like any America I recognize. Principles of governance thousands of American soldiers fought and died for have been set aside…
Looking for America
Christopher Isherwood returned to Berlin in 1952, 19 years after he had left — fled actually — in 1933. In The Berlin Stories he recounts that return in photographic detail. The book was published in 1939 and is the basis…
This year, I’m a single-issue voter
I used to think single-issue voters were totally off-base. I mean, everything’s connected. Political issues never stand alone. The solution to whatever problem motivates the single-issue voter will always affect other problems and other citizens. A good example is an…
Running an operation
It’s not a political campaign the Republican Party is running; it’s an operation, a plan to put their candidate into office regardless of the vote. At least that’s what it looks like to me. The clues are many. As one…
Ghost actions
Much has been made of President Joe Biden’s stepping aside in favor of Vice President Harris as the Democratic Party candidate for president. It’s a clear example of how powerful not doing something can be. Tons of ink and hours…
Dissent and resistance
In my last column, I held up as a worthy example for us all, a textile worker in a small North Carolina town — the one in the floral shirt and white scarf, who chose to follow the urging of…
Be No. 2
I’m no movie buff, but there is this list of films in my head that I return to from time to time. One of them is African Queen (Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn, 1951). I saw it at Fair Park…
Authentic patriotism
Recently, my wife and I were glued to the TV, watching the return of the three U.S. citizens who had been falsely imprisoned in Russia. The hour was late, but we couldn’t pull ourselves away. It was a truly rare…