January 5 — Torture is now solidly installed in America’s repressive arsenal, not in the shadows where it has always lurked, but up front and central, vigorously applauded by prominent politicians. Rituals of coercion and…
Posts published in “Essays”
It was my very first sixth-grade faculty meeting at Little Lake Valley Middle School. There were just four of us, all men, but we were waiting for one more teacher before we could proceed. That…
The possum baby slashed and jerked its way around Joanna’s uterus in a river of milky white mucus and blood. “Ya muthafuckin’ beast!” she wailed at it, her back grindin’ into the bed while she…
Before the Judicial Council was voted in by the people of the State in California, the local judge was a Justice of the Peace and was known to the people as a J.P. He would…
The Turks were so patient for putting up with me this fall as I cycled around the western half of Turkey. I cringe now when I recall the many times, while in conversation with strangers,…
“To study music, we must learn the rules. To create music, we must break them.” — Nadia Boulanger During the four years in the early 1990’s when I ran the Creative Writing program for the…
It’s been a triumphant month for Big Oil. First, the Obama administration teamed with the Chinese delegation to scuttle the timid climate agenda at the Durban summit. Then recidivist offender British Petroleum won the rights…
Too bad Kim Jong-il kicked the bucket last weekend. If the divine hand that laid low the North Korean leader had held off for a week or so, Kim would have been sustained by the…
I can’t count the times, down the years, that after some new outrage friends would call me and ask, “What happened to Christopher Hitchens?” — the inquiry premised on some supposed change in Hitchens, often…