“The difference between genius and stupidity,” says an African proverb, “is that genius has limits.” I’m a country boy with limited imagination, so I thought the 1975 pictures of Vietnamese on the roof of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon fighting over seats on the last helicopters out, clinging to the skids while being kicked, was an all-time low point for my country’s reputation in the…

Yesterday, I entered hospice. There, I got it through my fingers and to the screen, and I know that this time I will finish and post it on Medium. I started three times yesterday and this morning. One turned into a rant about the twenty year war and how it looks like we got…

Wherein I attempt to argue that three current events in particular are better understood if you understand the relevant history. Is it sexist to address the incoming class as “freshmen?” The manifest clumsiness of “freshperson” might dispose of the question if you gave no thought to the term “co-ed,” which made sense only because higher education was thought to be a male pursuit. Sit right over there, little lady. Just…

Not everybody has signed on to the jihad against opioid drugs. There are dissenters, and I am one, although I’m absolutely on board with making those who lie about opioids pay for the resulting harm. We among the lucky — or unlucky — few who are allowed to contemplate the end of our lives spend a great deal of that limited time contemplating the beginning, remembering with varying degrees of accuracy, telling stories.

It was December 18, 1865, when the 13th Amendment — which banned most slavery in all of the nation became part of the U.S. Constitution. Lincoln, the film, was realistic enough to show that a lot of what was done to get it passed was not pretty. Ratification was even worse. The ratification of the 13th Amendment, the 14th Amendment (promising equal protection of the law), and the 15th Amendment (guaranteeing the right to vote)…

President Biden’s Memorial Day speech was a full-throated defense of democracy. Was it merely a string of safe applause lines? Didn’t the voters just reject the cheap patriotism of bone spurs on one side and an American flag lapel pin on the other? I rise to dissent from the view that the battle’s over. If our current situation is victory for democracy, I should hope to never taste defeat. Poor old Karl Marx. His name got attached to so much nonsense. Yet, he is one of those rare thinkers who left his mark…

Today marks a century from a wrong that some of us would like to excavate from the memory hole, but the R word often impedes even a frank discussion. A discussion about whether there was law in Oklahoma after it ceased being Indian Territory in 1907? Considering the facts on the ground, it might be fruitful to examine whether the white supremacists in our times running with the Adolf Hitler fan club is coincidence or just because the neo-Nazis…

I am about to spew forth a river of loosely-connected thoughts that have little to do with current events or each other. I have decided that if I’m not going to make money with my writing, I am at least going to enjoy it. Godwin’s law, for those who need a refresher, instructs us as follows: As an online discussion continues, the probability of a reference or comparison to Hitler or Nazis…

I first noticed what was going on during the debate over Obamacare, but it could be I’m just slow. The leader of the Republican Party in the senate had stated plainly the very top of his agenda was “making Barack Obama a one term president.” Taking him at his word would have saved me a lot of grief, but it was the kind of grief that comes with playing pundit. Errors come with the territory. …