Jim Wright said it better than I will. He’s a powerful writer, and a credible guy. He is retired military; I’m not. 54,000 people shared his post. And since Jim said it better, I needn’t bother. But I’m going to say it anyway. Colin Kaepernick, the 49ers quarterback who may currently be the most hated man in America, has every right to do what he did, and if you are a true patriot you know that. Colin Kaepernick has the right…
Here’s what I mostly learned from my post on the EpiPen controversy and what it said about greed in health care: civil discourse is an endangered species, hovering on the edge of extinction. And it’s not just on the right. Left wing bigotry is alive and well. And dangerous. Facts are an endangered species As of last night the Facebook share on the EpiPen post reached over 19.5k people and got 319 reactions, 77 comments with a ton of replies, and 204 shares. Hardly a viral explosion, but bigger…
You should thank me. Really. You should thank me because today I applied the first rule of blogging: don’t publish crap. If you’ve read my blog, Awakened Moments, for the past couple of days, you know I’m participating in a Problogger challenge. In it, every day for a week I am given a style of post in which to write, and my job is to generate content in that style. So far, first there was a list post, then a…
It’s time to reintroduce this term: radical civility. By all things holy and otherwise, we need it. Desperately. Immediately. Please. I can’t read one more days’ worth of social media frothing full of half-truths, mostly lies, and the simple unwillingness to listen to one another, lest I go looking for the nearest bridge from which to leap. Not one more day of posting drivel that passes for well-researched argument, for repeating the deluge of argument from the internet without bothering…
The internet is full of funny memes and articles like the one on the right here. My favorite is still my beloved Maddie’s “just because I say ‘save the forests’ doesn’t mean I think ‘fuck the oceans.’” I shared the one pictured here on my social media feed, because I thought it was funny. But then I thought, what’s funny about apologizing for Black Lives Matter? Why do we have to explain racism? Here’s my question: why are we seeing so many…
E Pluribus Unum. Out of many, one. Our country’s motto. On our currency. Part of the Great Seal of the United States. I think maybe we’ve forgotten what the hell it means. I am in Washington, DC, a city with which I have a love-hate relationship. I love the rich history, the memories of coming here on one of our early Kertay Guy Trips, the pomp and circumstance. There is something deeply satisfying about seeing the original constitution in the…
Don’t waste your life – so said this article in The Good Men Project that floated across my Facebook feed this morning. The article is mostly a reposting of a letter that was apparently first seen on Reddit, written by a man of 46 who lamented the guy he’d become – working all the time, with a son who barely speaks to him and a wife he’d just found had been cheating on him for 10 years. The article is meant…
Every once in a while a moment of raw communication happens in such a way that it becomes clear there is a choice to be made – either we will rise to the occasion and speak the truth of where we stand, even at the risk that it might offend or have unforeseen consequences, or we will miss that moment and live with regret. Last week, teaching my Abnormal Psychology class, I had such a moment. It was a class…
Like many on this eve of a new year, I am stunned at the frenetic pace of time’s passing, especially as I say goodbye to the year in which I turned 60. Reflecting from this vantage point on the breathtaking changes in the world order, I decided to respond to a question that was posed to me very recently by a reader: “Why do kids these days feel they have such a right of entitlement?” As it turns out I’ve…
I am tired of being seen as a threat. Tired of being evaluated by women when they look at me to discern whether I am a potential rapist, abuser, or just an average sexist cad. Tired of seeing mistrust in the eyes of mothers when I smile at a child’s happiness or play peekaboo to calm one who is having a hard time being still on the plane. I’m tired of it, I tell you. Just maybe not for the…
