Initial note, before the letter: It has been a long time since I last updated the site. August, as far as I can tell, is not a good month for writing. August is a month to be in motion, almost perpetually. There is little time for the contemplation and heavy mental processing required to maintain […]

I generally consider myself immune to advertising. It’s a pretentious assumption, sure. And yes, I understand that the glut of ads confronting my every day here in America likely acts on my subconscious. Maybe if I lived in the woods of Montana, writing poetry and avoiding all forms of media I wouldn’t have […]

Normally these naturally disaster stories just wash over me. They happen in faraway places and while, intellectually, I can process the tragedy, it normally fails to register viscerally. Coastal Florida, terrible, but I’ll probably never go there. I don’t know anyone there. Bangladesh, well, same story. This was different. I visited New Orleans last April […]

A few weeks back I was at a birthday barbecue for a friend of an ex-girlfriend when two 18 year-olds tried to challenge my authority on Wu-Tang. I don’t quite remember how the conversation got started, but these two sprites got themselves all worked up trying to convince me that “The W” was the Wu’s […]

The last few days I have watched the hearings, intermittently between episodes of Laguna Beach (What the hell is Jason’s problem and if I was Stephen, I would just go for L.C., Kristen is way too manipulative) and to be honest, I’ve been impressed with Roberts. He’s unflappable and very intelligent. And, he manages to […]

The way the Democrats pounced on the failed response to one of the worst catastrophes in our nation’s history spoke volumes about their desperate disposition. Certainly there was plenty of blame to be strewn about and the administration deserves a great deal of it. Everyone knew this was going to happen eventually, that the […]

During the coverage of Hurricane Katrina Iraq has understandably vanished from the front pages. America’s emotional capacity runs about one disaster at a time and the destruction of one of our finest cities certainly takes precedence. But as the flood water recede and the rebuilding effort picks up steam, Katrina too will shift to the […]