I spent 9/11 not knowing or believing 9/11 had happened. Well, that’s only half true. But I hope you’ll pardon my phrasing, because this is the first time I’ve ever shared this half-truth. Maybe I never shared it because there are millions of 9/11 stories more important than mine. But hey, if you’d like to know how anyone living in America could have even half-missed it, read on. On September 11, 2001, I was living by myself in an apartment […]

December 8, 2020 Forty years ago today, John Lennon was assassinated. In two short months, John Lennon will have been slain dead longer than he was alive. Fifteen years ago, at my mother’s funeral service, all 100 of us sang “Imagine,” despite the opening line. I know Mom would have wanted that. She was always the only person I knew to blame Paul for breaking up the Beatles. Ten years ago, for my wedding ceremony’s only song, I asked my […]

I don’t tell people it’s the most important election of their lifetime. They’re tired of hearing that. I tell them that it’ll be the best-feeling vote they ever cast. Probably at no other point in your lifetime will you get to pull one lever one time and feel that you have rejected 20,000 lies with the probability of 20,000 more lies, 200,000 deaths with the probability of 200,000 more deaths, and absolute disregard for the law, the military, the Constitution, […]

Here’s a link to the same piece on Medium. The Trump administration surprised many liberals and Democrats by betting that whenever it “reopens” America, it will not be held responsible for any COVID-19 deaths that occur afterward. The White House seems to be betting that the executive branch can “play” the pandemic in much the same way that the rest of America’s institutions “play” any other society-wide problem – accepting credit for any success while denying blame for any failure. […]

This is a suggested Bill of Rights for anyone seeking or using services from a company like Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Netflix, Samsung, Twitter, Verizon, Xfinity, or similar. Much of this can also be applied to use of government resources. The need for this Bill of Rights comes from systematic violations of privacy. Tech companies often: say that they are improving their privacy, ask you to sign on to new privacy settings, ask you to opt out if you […]

Hi loyal blog readers! Have you ever wondered what I would be doing if Dar were neurotypical? Well, I have! Dar is not my 24/7 preoccupation. I also work, look for work, parent the other bambino, and make time for wifey. Like you, I also deal with a hundred other distractions regarding debt, creditors, licenses, city forms, paperwork, insurance, medical stuff, permissions, applications, approvals…et cetera. Still. I feel strongly that I could be doing more if Dar’s condition wasn’t sucking […]

Okay, Avengers Endgame. You want to keep talking time travel and Back to the Future? In that case, get ready to be Marty McFlyed. HERE THERE BE SPOILERS. Last time, and the only other time, I Marty McFlyed a movie was four years ago. Obviously, to “Marty McFly” means “to restore/change the past to create the glorious present that we always should have had.” It means not only assessing what went wrong (anyone on Twitter can do that), but also […]

I like the tributes to George H.W. Bush, the man. But I think there’s a lot missing in the tributes to his presidency. When I think of those four years, I see a rather astonishing, revelatory time in American life…that Bush probably should receive a little more credit for. I see Bush getting credit for “managing the end of the Cold War.” But that’s both too much and not enough. Weeks after the Berlin Wall fell, when Time magazine anointed […]

“I’m Not Black, I’m Kanye”, about Kanye West “lending his imprimatur…to the racist rhetoric of the conservative movement,” is yet another tour-de-force essay by America’s premier public intellectual. I deeply appreciate how Ta-Nehisi Coates offers so much more than he really needs to, how he opens windows and doors that shine profound light on seemingly ancillary subjects. In this case, those subjects include the pre-internet era of having to see something to believe it and Coates’ current, oddly alienating stardom that […]

Better version of this is here. SPOILERS, SPOILERS, SPOILERS First I’m a huge superhero geek, a mega-fan of both the comics growing up and the last ten years of movies. Guys, Avengers: Infinity War was…so close to greatness. It’s a terrific Guardians of the Galaxy movie. It’s a worthy Thor follow-up to Ragnarok. It’s a mostly splendid Iron Man-Doctor Strange-Spider-Man team-up (I would have given Spidey one or two more exuberant wisecracks in his scenes with Thanos, but that’s a […]