Category: Politics
Anonymous NY Times Op-Ed Not Very Enlightening (BTW, is Mattis the writer?)
Today the NY Times has taken the extraordinary step of publishing an unsigned, anonymous opinion piece that is another appalling, damning inside-the-White House report on the unfitness of our president by “a senior official in the Trump administration.” Everyone wants to know: who wrote it? But is it the stroke of truth we need to begin to untangle the deceptive web of an unfit … Read More Anonymous NY Times Op-Ed Not Very Enlightening (BTW, is Mattis the writer?)
+ Politics
Congressional Republicans See No Evil
Given the serious legal difficulties involving President Trump and other Republican representatives as revealed yesterday, Axios reports that a “top GOP guru” offered this bit of political analysis: “The Republican Party looks like a criminal enterprise.” This dour view is not shared by Congressional Republicans, at least for the moment. Though former Trump lawyer and handyman, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty in federal court to, among … Read More Congressional Republicans See No Evil
Robinson Jeffers: “Be Angry at the Sun”
[JFK: Here’s a poetic perspective on politics some may call cynical, some may say stoic. Jeffers referred to his philosophical distance from people as “inhumanism.” This should not, however, be confused with inhumane-ism. Jeffers built a house of stone in Carmel, CA overlooking the Pacific in the days before Carmel was a haven for wealth and tourists. My favorite lines are “the cold passion … Read More Robinson Jeffers: “Be Angry at the Sun”
+ Politics
A Response to Rick Perlstein’s “I Thought I Understood the American Right . . .”
Writing recently in The New York Times Magazine, prominent historian Rick Perlstein attempts to figure out how exactly American conservatism could produce, as if out of nowhere, a candidate and a president of such “intellectual embarrassment” as Donald Trump. What had American historians, particularly those of conservative focus, failed to see since William F. Buckley, Jr. supposedly recreated respectable conservatism out of the ashes of … Read More A Response to Rick Perlstein’s “I Thought I Understood the American Right . . .”
A Poem: “Fists and Flags”
By John Frederick Kaufman Fists and Flags “America first!” the president cried and raised his fist to punch the sky while someone punched a fascist in the head: the fist is first of many lies, grip of welcome weaponized. In my hand I hold a pen to strike out the wall-like words that slam but do not move the mind. Truth first is … Read More A Poem: “Fists and Flags”
