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It’s a hot, sticky, summer-won’t-let-go kind of September Sunday afternoon. Just the kind of day to mull over two topics I am passionate about: the politics of race and the politics of writing. I didn’t just read something about these two confluent issues in the New York Times Sunday Book Review. Nor was there anything [...]
Sometimes I feel like one of the few remaining leftist progressives in Philadelphia. The consensus for Democrats in the city regarding political candidates, be they local, state or federal, is to just accept whatever political candidate is proffered, regardless of how anti-progressive they might be. Each time I have criticized President Obama for his right-wing [...]
The past week has been filled with grief and remembrance for the nation as we commemorate the tenth anniversary of the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history. I, however, was also marking another anniversary of violence. Nine years ago, one week before the first anniversary of 9/11, I was raped outside my house in lower [...]
TV sears images into our heads on a daily basis. The fires in Texas with the victims standing in the ashes of their lives, fighting back tears, holding some small remnant in their hands. The floods in Pennsylvania with people being rescued by rowboats from the homes they’ve lived in for years, because the [...]
The irony was not lost on me. Hurricane Irene was scheduled to make a direct hit on Philadelphia on the sixth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, one of the worst disasters in American history. No one expected another Katrina on the East Coast, but then no one expected Katrina on the Gulf Coast. But every meteorological [...]
Last night someone stole my new trash can. It’s not a big thing in the greater scheme of things, of course. But the trash can was only two weeks old and had my address on it in stick-on numbers and letters. And it was raccoon-proof, which given we have raccoons, was important. Oh and [...]
Like many queer Americans I cried when the New York vote on marriage equality came in late Friday night. I spent years in New York, having worked at OutWeek, QW and POZ and free-lanced for the Village Voice and New York Times. New York remained my second home for many years. I’m thrilled for my [...]
It’s no longer political heresy to say it: No true progressive can vote for President Obama in 2012. The answers to the question “Why not?” are myriad. The answers are also acutely frustrating for those of us who waited eight years for a Democrat in the White House and worked hard to get one elected, [...]
Three things really bothered me today: John Edwards about to be indicted, Bill Clinton whispering to Paul Ryan about Medicare in Congress, and Obama nattering on in the UK while disaster reigns in Missouri and along the Mississippi. I’m past pretending that I could ever vote for Obama again. He would actually have to become the person he said he [...]
My father died May 22 after a brief illness. “Brief” is one of those end-of-life euphemisms that implies quick, painless and uneventful. But dying is almost never like that. Dying is long, painful and beset with one set-back after another. It also costs a fortune. Health care costs are the major reason for bankruptcies in [...]
