Tag Archives: Donald Trump

Anita Hill 2.0

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Today is the “big day” on Capitol Hill. Brent Kavanaugh will have to answer to and about the allegations made against him. Several women have alleged that he at best, acted in an aggressive and sexualized manner towards them. At worst, he was/is a sexual predator.

Mark Peterson photo/Courtesy of The New Yorker

Since Mark was killed, I boomerang between days and weeks where life seems like it’s returned to “normal.” I go off and do one of my various freelance activities, or I’m working on one of the one or two articles I turn and get paid for by the auto trade magazine I’ve written for since the summer of 2015. The activity allows me to push aside the pain that comes with losing someone central to my life.

Inevitably, something becomes a trigger, and I can go from “nearly normal,” to freefalling into an angry funk. When this occurs, it’s hard to want to care about anything for a day, or longer. I’m angry at the woman who hit and killed my son. I’m angry at people who seem to be so self-centered and oblivious about others and their pain. I’m sick of thinking about how I’m going to scrounge up some additional income, and a host of other emotions related to grief and loss. This week, it was something that someone who I thought had my back, said. This person once again indicated what an absolute shit they are and have been since Mark’s death upended my life and Mary’s. But it’s always about them and always has been. I must remind myself of that and breathe. Continue reading →

Books and Reading: An Antidote

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I’ve written about subscribing to a “real American newspaper.” The paper that gets dropped at the end of my driveway every Saturday and Sunday is one of the “failing” papers that our always-aggrieved president regularly runs down for its “fake news.”

To call journalism “fake” exposes our bloviator-in-chief for the shallow huckster and carnival barker that he is at his essence. A man with small hands, a smaller heart, and who is totally clueless about the history of the nation he threatens to run into the ditch once and for all. For him, news is always “fake” when it’s not intended to flatter behaviors that are unflattering at best.

To malign reading and intellectual breadth and depth as “elitism,” is a solipsistic sleight-of-hand employed by lazy, shallow dolts who don’t, won’t, or can’t read. Bringing facts to these types is like arriving at a gunfight with a knife or worse: a sheet of paper.

But, to be well-read opens up a well-lit vista that is ever-expanding, rather than the world of the those striving at nothing. For the latter, their realm is a darkened square where the walls continue constricting, forcing out necessary oxygen.

I don’t expect every Saturday (or Sunday) to be a banner news day or one where The New York Times Book Review is bursting with books I want to run out and pick-up. Today, however, was a day when my book supplement had me jotting down notes and making plans to add to my ever-growing pile of “books to read.”

Saturday newspaper reading.

Continue reading →

Don’t Dissemble

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Certain words ring true at particular times in our lives. We might be living through something, or feeling under siege, and you come across a word that elicits that Charlie Brown response from one his infamous sessions with Lucy: “That’s It!!!” he shouts, bowling Lucy over, after she offers her diagnosis to poor ole’ Chuck.

The word this week (and perhaps this month) for me is “dissemble,” as in feigning, concealing, or tamping down one’s true feelings. This is often done for some gain: personal, financial, social. The dissembler might even experience dissonance in the midst of their dissembling. Continue reading →

Death of a Statesman

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Death is never simple proposition. It becomes immensely more complicated when the person who has died is a public figure, especially a politician. That would be the late John McCain.

I won’t wax hypocritical about McCain, or default to hagiographic bromides that have begun and are inevitable with the death of someone as universally-known as the senator was. He was not my favorite politician, or a leader I was particularly enamored with. Partly this is due to McCain’s politics—they certainly sat to the right of my own.

But given all of that, I have been paying attention to the past year or so of his life. Once he was diagnosed with glioblastoma last July, a particularly aggressive brain tumor, I knew that this day was inevitable. McCain would succumb to cancer, and the accolades and tributes would begin pouring in.

One of the marks of greatness is dying with dignity and grace. In that regard, I’d say anyone with a shred of humanity would agree that McCain’s final year of his life was worthy of admiration. Continue reading →

The Business of America

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Yesterday I saw an eagle. He was soaring over Route 1, along the Androscoggin River, between downtown Brunswick and Cook’s Corner. To see one is a rare gift.

When I was a pre-teen, you never saw eagles. They were near extinction.

This year, I’ve seen four eagles, including one night in April when I was sitting out on my deck overlooking Woodward Cove. Not more than 30 yards away from me was a large bald eagle, preening himself(?) in a tree. I watched  for nearly 15 minutes with binoculars ’til it was too dark to see him.

Don’t want to live in a world without bald eagles.

The reason that bald eagles have returned is that the Endangered Species Act did what it was intended to do—save the species under its care from extinction. It has done such a good job since being enacted—saving 99 percent of the species under its care from extinction that business interests in the U.S. want it relaxed and perhaps done away with: mainly so they can do what they do best—conduct America’s business, which is “bidness.”

Taxes on corporations continue to fall. (NY Times graph)

To talk with a businessman, you’d think that the “gooverment” was trying to put them out of business. The graph above shows something entirely different. Continue reading →

Dad Goes For a Drive

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I spent most of Sunday driving across the Allegheny Mountains, passing through rural villages and hollers. At times the sheer natural magnitude left me breathless. Mountains symbolize something bigger than ourselves. When I’m in their shadow, I’m left humbled. It helps me to realize how insignificant I am.

Along backcountry highways, I knew that here, many supported Donald Trump. It was also impossible not to notice numerous gun shops and signs trumpeting patriotism. Being on the road is a reminder that we are living in a collection of states where people hold contrary views, with little to bridge the divide. I’m not sure I see that story ending well.

This sign should read, “Trump Country.”

Passing through the land of guns, God, and glory.

Late in the afternoon, I found PA-641. This is the road where Mark began walking after crossing the river from Harrisburg. He stopped at The Healthy Grocer. Continue reading →

Dances With Bears

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I’d argue that books and reading (can) open us up to the wider world. While it’s counter-intuitive, social media seems to be making us smaller.

In a recent blog post, I shared about my subscribing to a real newspaper—in this case—The New York Times.

I am reading Witold Szablowski’s book about dancing bears after reading the review that appeared in last week’s Times’ Book Review section.

A fascinating book about how humans often hearken for things they shouldn’t, but do, because it supposedly makes their lives easier.

A book about “the good-ole days” of authoritarian rule.

The book’s introduction starts this way:

The guy with the wacky hair and the crazed look in his eyes did not appear out of nowhere. He was already known to them. Sometimes he said how great they were, and told them to go back to their roots: if need be, he threw in some highly unlikely but madly alluring conspiracy theory. Just to get them to listen. And to give them a fright. Because he’d noticed that if he scared them, they paid him more attention. Continue reading →

Newspaper Reading

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I have a vested interest in people’s ability to read—I’m a writer, for God’s sake! And while the model of books and publishing has been turned on it’s head by digital technology, print still offers us a route to the future, I think (at least, I hope it does).

A week ago Saturday, I drove into Portland for a book event. Author Steve Almond was in town at Longfellow Books. He was slated to be paired with local writing star, Ron Currie Jr. It promised to be an evening worth leaving the house for during a season when it felt (at least a week ago) that spring’s been detained somewhere else..

Unfortunately, Currie had a personal matter that kept him from facilitating the discussion, but a rising Maine legislative star, Ryan Fecteau, was pressed into action on short notice. He performed admirably. All this to say that Almond’s new book and provocative discussion around the idea that we’re telling each other the wrong or “bad stories” has been on my mind since.

People who once occupied prominent space in my life recognized the importance of stories and maybe better—reading. My son, Mark, comes immediately to mind. But unlike others who have dropped out of my orbit (by choice), he walked his talk. I’ll always remember the years we spent a fall Saturday in Copley Square at yet another Boston Book Festival, and the year he ended the day toting two overflowing canvas grocery bags that must have weighed about 75 pounds each, overflowing with books. We have a bookshelf in our house that’s filled with books he had at his Providence house. Mark had “de-cluttered” his life in a Marie Kondo-esque manner, but he still kept books. I’d say that 3/4 of the things we carted back to Maine when we emptied his room after he was killed were books. I still marvel at his reading lists.

Weekend reading.

Continue reading →

Media’s Cock Roach

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Living in Trump’s dystopian nation (if you haven’t ingested the Kool-Aid), sometimes you can forget that this American life sometimes delivers treats, too.

Last week, it was #InternationalClashDay. This afternoon, while listening to Maine Calling, hosted by Maine media vet, Jennifer Rooks, I found out it’s #WorldRadioDay. Hot damn! I love radio, so why not celebrate the hell out of the day? The verdict of Rooks and her guests was that radio’s still going strong and will continue to survive.

I grew up when you could still hear rock and roll on the AM dial. Now it’s the domain of conservative talk dirges and hosts positing an alternative version of America vastly different than the one I grew up in. Wanna’ make America great again? Flush Rush from the airwaves and play some music!

Happy families listen to the radio.

When I’m home and working, I stream music via several dial-based stations that I can’t pick up in Maine. This is one of the wonders of the internet and technology in my opinion. Here are my top four.

  • KEXP (Seattle, Washington)
  • WMFU (East Orange, New Jersey)
  • WMBR (Cambridge, Massachusetts)
  • WMPG (Portland, ME)

I can pull in WMPG’s signal on my stereo receiver and of course, in my car. I am a fan of their weekday afternoon “rock blocks,” especially Wednesday’s Radio Junk Drawer, with David Pence. More and more, I’m apt to be streaming KEXP most afternoons that aren’t Wednesday. Continue reading →

Combat Rock

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It’s difficult sitting here in 2018 Trumpworld, recalling how another hated politician spawned a musical revolution. But back in 1975, when Great Britain’s longest-serving post-WWII prime minister took office, the fury of the then-nascent punk scene hadn’t yet been funneled her way. Punks’ anger and rage found an able target in Margaret Thatcher just two years later.

Thatcher climbed atop her conservative perch, two years prior to the release of Never Mind the Bollocks, the Sex Pistols’ punk “shot heard round” the music world. Britain would never be the same, as Thatcher (much like Reagan in America), turned her attention to dismantling much of the country’s social infrastructure. And Trump seems hellbent on scrapping what remains of America’s.

While the Sex Pistols received the lion’s share of attention from the media for their outlandish “manners,” sneering frontman, Johnny Rotten, and McClaren-esque media savvy (not to mention their shot across the bow, “God Save the Queen”), it was a group of working class twenty-somethings from Brixton who embraced an incendiary ethic of rage, channeled through punk sensibilities and three-minute song structures, that would later evolve and incorporate reggae, rap, dub, and funk, demonstrating that punk could be more than three chords structures, played at breakneck speed. Continue reading →