She lived a few miles from where I am writing this: Irondequoit, New York. A (reasonably) quiet suburb of Rochester, the kind of place with lawns and school pickup lines and absolutely nothing that looks like a terror cell. Federal prosecutors say Catherine Beth Washburn ran one anyway. On Tuesday, the FBI arrested the 37-year-old […]
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The Great American State Fair opened on June 25th on the National Mall. It was supposed to run sixteen days and celebrate the 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding. It was supposed to be a world’s fair, a unifying spectacle, a moment that transcended the noise. It lasted about forty minutes before the Ferris wheel […]
In Act 2 of Macbeth, the king lies murdered upstairs and a drunk man is laughing at the gate. Roused by knocking he can barely hear over his own hangover, the Porter imagines himself the doorman of hell, sorting souls before he lets anyone through. One arrival amuses him more than the rest. Knock, knock! […]
Freedom to Degrade
On June 14, the White House South Lawn hosted a UFC card, the first professional sporting event ever held on the grounds of the presidential residence. The marketing was thick. 250 years of America. Flag Day. The president’s 80th birthday. All stacked into one broadcast. Then heavyweight Josh Hokit beat Derrick Lewis by TKO in […]
Today, Donald Trump turns eighty. The White House marked the occasion this weekend the way it marks everything now: with spectacle, with a growing bill for We the People, and with no apparent awareness of how any of this looks to everyone not on the MAGA cult. Saturday night, the South Lawn hosted the U.S. […]
June arrives, and so does the annual conservative grievance convocation. They already scheduled their Festival of Snowflakes for the 14th. Dear Leader’s birthday. A fitting occasion. So just like every June, the flags go up. The rainbow flags, not only the American ones, though they will tell you it is the American ones they are […]
There is a man you should know. His name is Russell Ellis. He grew up in the mountains of North Carolina inside a home where racism was not a flaw to be corrected but a foundation to be built upon. He was raised, as he puts it plainly, not merely around racists, but by them. […]
There is a woman who wants to go to the gym. She wants to lift weights, run on a treadmill, take a yoga class, feel strong in her body. She also wears a hijab. She would like athletic gear that serves both needs. Lululemon would like to sell it to her. This, apparently, is a […]
On the mental servitude of MAGA There is a kind of slavery that leaves no marks on the body. No chains. No auction block. No overseer with a whip. The enslaved party moves freely, speaks freely, votes freely. They hold jobs and own property and even wave flags that say the word “freedom” in bold […]
On Laura Loomer and the Cruelty of Fake Concern Three people were murdered at the Islamic Center of San Diego. Shot while going about their lives. Investigators confirmed what was already obvious: hate rhetoric drove the killers through that door. Laura Loomer wanted you to know she is worried about the safety and well being […]