Fucker

Darren Aronofsky wants there to be no confusion about the intent behind his new allegorical whatever-it-is, mother!.  (I use his preferred stylization of the title, even after everything he has done to me.)  Eschewing such aesthetic values as subtlety and ambiguity, Aronofsky has delivered a psychological horror film that he is …

How We Fight

Cards on the table time:  I am not a pacifist.  I don’t believe that violence is never an option.  I’m opposed to violence and cruelty on general principles, but I don’t think general principles really mean that much, especially when shit is starting to go down.  I always reject aggressive …

Human Too

“If you are neutral in situations of injustice,” Bishop Desmond Tutu told us in 1984, the year I first manifested what might be called a political consciousness, “you have chosen the side of injustice.” Injustice, cruelty, oppression, and inequality refuse the position of neutrality; they will not recognize a central …

People of Every Land, How Can You Not Be Roused?

Today was the first day of the Democratic Socialists of America’s national convention.  It’s taking place in my own city of Chicago, and it’s the first convention since the DSA experienced unprecedented growth in the wake of the Bernie Sanders campaign and the election of Donald Trump.  In addition, it’s …

Concession Stand

Ladies and gentlemen, my constituents, citizens of my lovely home town of Fleenerville, voters, and Platinum V.I.P. Brunch Club Super-Tee level donors; my beloved wife Plovis, and my two wonderful sons Coho and Spelt, who flew in to support me tonight right after their Offal Studies final at Klumner State …

Show of Force

It is giving no secrets away to say that, growing up, I was a huge nerd.  I am, let us be honest, still a huge nerd, which is why you are reading these words on the pages of a decade-old blog instead of the pages of Entertainment Weekly.  But in some fairly important …