Societies–because they’re made up of people–function a lot like people do as individuals. Just as you or I might bottle up our anger and then one day explode, so can a society bottle up its collective anger and then explode all at once. On an individual level, as well as a societal one, we can […]
Category: Essays
A collection of essays and thoughts
Trump Appears to be Flirting with Genocide
What seemed at first to have been a feckless and ignorant response to the spread of COVID-19 is starting to look more malicious over time. You can only bungle something for so long before the repeated missteps reach a point where they have to be more than just missteps. There is reporting out this morning […]
Five Reasons Americans Prefer a COVID-19 Death
I don’t understand why anyone is surprised that Americans are incapable of following “stay at home” orders. This is the country of “Honey Boo Boo,” anti-vaxxers, Joe Exotic, and Neo-Nazis holding public office. We aren’t exactly the cream of the crop, as countries go, even though we think we are. Here in New Jersey, while […]
The Final Hours of America, or How Trump is turning the U.S. into a Banana Republic
A few weeks ago, I laid out a detailed picture of the failures of Trump not only in his fecklessness to do what needs to be done to save human lives during a pandemic, but also detailing how those failures display gross, criminal negligence on the part of Trump and his Republican party. Just to […]
The Republican Promise of a Negligent Homicide against America
America believes, perhaps because of our history, that freedom is our most cherished quality. Maybe because of violent beginnings, our independence has long been interpreted to mean “freedom from tyranny,” as opposed to “freedom from want.” That is, when we obsess over the need to be free, we assume ourselves victims of some fast-approaching enemy […]
Quarantine, Day 27
My N-99 masks came–two of them with filters on the mask. They are black and make me look like Bane from the Batman series. To be honest, I’d feel guilty for having ordered them, knowing in hindsight they could’ve gone to someone in a hospital, except I ordered them back in February, before anyone was […]
The Lie of the ‘Great American Resurrection’
Last week when Trump said he wanted the country “open by Easter,” a Fox News anchor referred to it as the “great American resurrection.” The reference to the Easter tradition, celebrating the resurrection of Jesus, is an obvious attempt to signal to Trump’s evangelical base that this president really is a person of faith, a […]
From Quarantine to the Cemetery
Taking daily strolls in the cemetery, because it’s the closest thing to me that resembles a park, has become a pastime of sorts during this quarantine. In some ways, it’s more sacred to me than stepping into a house of worship. The names and numbers and epitaphs tell so many stories, while simultaneously leaving much […]
Quarantine, Day 18
I heard someone today reference the Church as one of the reasons the Black Death was able to kill off somewhere between 40% to 80% of Europe during the 14th century. When I started digging more into that claim, I had some trouble verifying it. The claim hinged on the belief that people packed themselves […]
Quarantine, Day 15
It feels like everyone I know right now has just enough of a sore throat to wonder. We just found out a day ago that we’re now one and two degrees away from fellow colleagues who have tested positive for covid-19. The creeping dread follows that knowledge. I check my temperature often. I shake off […]
