(2 comments) SHARE        Saturday, June 12, 2010
It's amazing what decades of sh*t can do My whole life, to a certain age, I believed "Israelis good, Palestinians bad." That's because that's all I heard when I was growing up, either from my parents or from TV or from newspapers or from adults or from wherever. It was the meta-narrative: Israelis good, Palestinians bad.

(1 comments) SHARE        Friday, October 30, 2009
Even Dolts Deserve Healthcare, Too Normally, I avoid visiting my sister Apolitica at all costs. Not because of her, but because of her husband, Dolton, a dyed-in-the-fool right-winger. But they'd had a second child recently, so I visited their tiny apartment to offer congratulations. It was the polite thing to do. (That, and Mom threatened to cut me from the will if I didn't.)

(2 comments) SHARE        Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Here's one you can count on (unfortunately) It is time to admit publicly that some of my predictions of the recent past did not manifest. I believed at one time or another:

(2 comments) SHARE        Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Argentina confronts its past. Can America do the same to its present? President-elect Barack Obama's watchword is change. Well, as a U.S. citizen, here's some change I could believe in: a full and open airing of the current administration's militaristic misdeeds, followed by the appropriate prosecution of those responsible for same.

SHARE        Friday, October 10, 2008
You can cry for us, Argentina Having (regrettably) spent much of my life in jingoistic ignorance, I never imagined I'd one day set foot in Argentina. Then again, I never imagined I'd witness an American administration whose death-dealing militarism and breathtaking corruption would dwarf those perpetrated by even the worst Latin American dictatorship, so there you are.

(3 comments) SHARE        Friday, September 26, 2008
Boy, for a free market, it sure is expensive I'm afraid I just don't get this "free market" stuff. Recent government bailouts of private companies look to me like anything but adherence to free market principles, but then, what do I know? I'm just an average American, not someone economically savvy like George W. Bush who -- well, we'll just say I'm not economically savvy.

(1 comments) SHARE        Thursday, September 25, 2008
Boy, for a free market, it sure is expensive I'm afraid I just don't get this "free market" stuff. Recent government bailouts of private companies look to me like anything but adherence to free market principles, but then, what do I know? I'm just an average American, not someone economically savvy like George W. Bush who -- well, we'll just say I'm not economically savvy.

(2 comments) SHARE        Tuesday, September 16, 2008
You go, Hugo, and take your goody-goody goodie bags with you With the recent expulsion of the U.S. ambassador from Venezuela, thus greatly reducing the chances of promoting a coup, I mean, cooperation there, I see that the anti-American, thrice freely-elected dictator, Hugo Chávez, is at it again. His belligerent refusal to play fair-and-square by doing things the right way -- ours...

(5 comments) SHARE        Tuesday, September 9, 2008
9/11 a conspiracy? Ha! Well, OK, so it was, but not the weird kind As yet another September 11 approaches, like it does so often this time of year, I need to address an issue that makes my true-blue patriotic blood boil. (Even though it's red, really.) I'm talking about the 9/11 conspiracy nuts.

(3 comments) SHARE        Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Martial law's really only a problem when it's declared "Hey, Mark!" taunted my right-wing brother-in-law. "Who ya gonna vote for in the election?" Dolton was seated opposite me at my parents' golden wedding anniversary celebration. Why oh why hadn't they gotten divorced at some point? Teeth gritted, I plunged. "What makes you think there'll be one?"

(1 comments) SHARE        Wednesday, July 16, 2008
I'll write. All right? Then: 9/11. I bought an American flag and, like a true patriot, hung it proudly on my wall at work. When we bombed Afghanistan, I was all for it. But not long afterward, my head nearly spun from my neck when I heard Bush swear Saddam Hussein was the real problem. This was so monumentally absurd it vaporized my ennui. I began to dig.

SHARE        Friday, July 11, 2008
I'll bet there's just the slightest hint of burned flesh Before leaving the States (in April), I spotted the following bumper sticker on a big 4x4 (what else?): "FREEDOM HAS A TASTE THOSE WHO HAVEN'T FOUGHT FOR IT WILL NEVER KNOW." I had to guess: Butterscotch? Chocolate? Banana? (My favorite! Gimme two scoops of freedom, please, with liberal -- sorry -- lots of sprinkles.)

(11 comments) SHARE        Saturday, April 12, 2008
Leaving the States ain't as easy as it looks Passing rice fields and orchards on my way out of Sacramento, I flashed back to five years prior when my then-wife and I were traveling that same stretch of I-5, right around the time Bush attacked Iraq. Our impossible-to-miss bumper sticker, its big, black letters set against a screaming yellow background, proclaimed: "NO WAR ON IRAQ."

(3 comments) SHARE        Saturday, March 1, 2008
Homegrown terrorism: Keeping your eye on others isn't sneaky -- it's patriotic! I, too, believe in First Amendment rights, even for those whose stupid views I respectfully disagree with, but, jeez, can't they shut up about it already? These ingrates don't care that by using the civil liberties our brave soldiers and uncounted mercenaries are killing thousands in Iraq to protect, they're playing right into the terrorists' hands, the very ones who hate us for the freedoms we used to have.

SHARE        Sunday, December 2, 2007
Sir, would you like a scone with that revolution? or This crew would have made Gandhi ponder an exception Plus, can you imagine mad-as-hell lefties taking to the streets anyway, ill-shod for the task at hand, or foot, in their Birkenstocks, wildly waving firearms with which they were wildly unfamiliar? If they didn't fill themselves full of holes first, they'd be instant sitting ducks for those who actually know where a trigger is located, thereby providing an even easier score than a hummer in the men's room at a GOP convention.

SHARE        Tuesday, November 6, 2007
What the hell, it's only a goddamned piece of paper It's not often, in these dire days, I burst out laughing when the Bush administration, or one of its lackeys, makes yet another insane assertion. (Ed.: Mark, "insane" is superfluous here, given the source.) But I couldn't contain myself recently when I read this lead by Laurie Kellman of the Associated Press:

SHARE        Friday, October 5, 2007
For Iran, No Nukes Is Not Good News True, Ahmadinejad makes Borat look like Guest of the Year and does have particular difficulty with "H" words (e.g., "Holocaust"). and "homosexuals"), but, come now: this fool is America's biggest fear? Personally, I'm a lot more worried about the latest shipment of lead-based dishware from China.

(2 comments) SHARE        Monday, October 1, 2007
Or we could always just tow it out to sea, sink it, and it'd make a great artificial reef

(1 comments) SHARE        Sunday, September 16, 2007
Coming attractions: "The Constitution Was Getting Pretty Ratty Anyway" The scene: Late one night at a listening post, deep in the bowels of the Department of Homeland Security. Two agents, a veteran and a rookie, huddle over a wiretap monitor.

(1 comments) SHARE        Thursday, September 13, 2007
Insults at twenty paces: and may neither man miss So this is what it's come to, eh? The world's number two terrorist, Osama bin Laden, getting verbally bitch-slapped by the world's number one terrorist.