Why are some refugees terrorized by border patrol on horseback¹ while other refugees are welcomed into private homes with open arms? Syrian, Yemeni, Afghan, North African, Mexican, and Central American refugees were not and are not being globally welcomed, embraced, and championed as Ukrainian refugees are all over the world…

“The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.” — Isaac Asimov A foul-mouthed Montana farmboy very likely saved your life. What he grew up to do with chicken leukemia, monkey kidneys, and mouse brains in blenders is the reason millions of…

My dad is a drummer. Of course he has been the heartbeat of my life, a metronome keeping time, the metric against which all men are measured. Nothing is more important in this world to him than my little sister and me. That’s an extraordinary thing to be, to even…

But today I celebrate five years without a cigarette — I considered having a cigarette. To celebrate quitting. Like the vegetarian I know who eats bacon or steak or bacon-wrapped steak or some kind of decadent meat every year on the day he became a vegetarian. It makes an inverse kind of anniversary sense. The unexpected thing about radically changing…

Russell Simmons knew he had “made it” when he could procure and consume human beings like drugs — Russell Simmons isn’t the first celebrity to consume women like commodities or to equate that lifestyle with success. He’s definitely not the first man to laugh about it and remember it fondly. And he won’t be the last. When “Christmas Rappin’” propelled Kurtis Blow and Simmons to international success, Simmons…

Reading Tom Robbins makes me want to write less. Maybe even quit. I don’t know why he wears sunglasses all the time like an 80s actor or a 60s singer. Or why he seems to blithely delight in the #MenWritingWomen tropes, anachronisms, and deplorable underage sexualization that land even a…

The Economics of Consent vs. Opportunity — An estimated 31 million Americans are projected to bet $7.6 billion on the Super Bowl this weekend on anything from how long the national anthem will be sung to the color of the Gatorade dumped on the winning coach. Money and football are as red, white, and blue as the…

Vaccinations save lives, get your booster shot! — I was going to go to my first hockey game last Saturday. I couldn’t wait. Socially distanced seats were available and it was going to be a great night in Portland. I’m home for the holidays and this was also to be my family’s third attempt at celebrating Christmas together…

Every January 22nd, Catholics across America hold vigils and organize protests to defend the sanctity of life, to protect the not-yet-born, and to definitively oppose the 1973 Supreme Court Roe v. Wade ruling that access to abortion is a constitutional right. But instead of carpooling to state capitals or standing…