A pandemic diary: Fear and loathing and more loathing

November 21, 2020 Thanksgiving my ass. Square one and ground zero is where we are, for the third bloody time. We've ridden the roller coaster of pain and poverty, death and despair for nine months, but there's no delivery, no blessed event in sight. As I've written before, my wife and I are among the…

One man, one vote

October 14, 2020 My voting is done. It felt almost anticlimactic, filling out my ballot at the dining room table, signing it, and slipping it into the dropbox, which I'm sure is secure. Many years ago I was young and dumb enough to sit out an election. But if I had to, I'd stand in…

A pandemic diary: Blue’s gone

August 13, 2020 One Saturday in 1972 I walked out of the dorm where I’d lived for a couple of weeks, joining some new friends and what seemed like the whole town on the way to my first college football game. It was a clear, bright September day, nippy enough for a jacket, but even…

A pandemic diary: The view from the cheap seats

June 7, 2020 Back in 1974, during the first impeachment crisis of the modern era, I rode a bus all night from Ann Arbor, Michigan to Washington. We arrived just as the sun rose over the National Mall, where many thousands of us gathered to demand that President Nixon be thrown out of office. Several…

How many more?

Fifty years ago (May 4, 1970) I was a sophomore in high school. Everyone was stunned, the atmosphere in the building hushed, uncomprehending. That day or the next, we had an assembly, about which I remember nothing except a girl singing, “Blowin’ In the Wind.” The song below still sends chills up my spine. Too…

This post might be a failure

Stop the presses! No: stop the world, right now. Physics be damned. Not kidding. If we turn all our missiles and SpaceX vehicles upside down and fire the engines at once, it might work like a supersize retro-rocket and stop this poor planet before the humans get any more cuckoo. How bad is it? Well,…

A statesman speaks

When you're a reporter covering Congress, you listen to an awful lot of speeches. Many of these breathless bulletins concern vital issues like National Cub Scout Month and the renaming of post offices. Speeches can be pompous, sanctimonious, badly reasoned, highly partisan, dull, hypocritical, long-winded, or all of the above. They're sometimes thoughtful or heartfelt.…

Moving on

On the road from Birmingham to the beach there’s a town called Lockhart a mile or so north of the Florida state line. In the early 1900s, it was home to a rich pine forest and what was then the biggest lumber mill in the country. Today the only thing a visitor might notice is…

I approved this message. Please listen.

A polarizing Republican, both loved and reviled for his views and his record, widely suspected of dark misdeeds. A game but weakened Democrat, lacking the passion and charisma of other Democrats and struggling to overcome campaign blunders. A young voter unhappy with those choices. I know this sounds too familiar. But I'm not talking about…

Reds

Author's note: This is the first time I've posted fiction here. None of the characters are based on real people, the setting is not a particular place in Atlanta, and the story is not based on actual events. **************** Brianna was afraid she wouldn’t get to see the president. The principal confirmed the rumor right…