Israeli psychologist Zvi Rex was quoted as saying, “Europe will never forgive the Jews for Auschwitz.” It’s one of the most bitter, cynical comments I’ve ever heard about the Nazi madness. I’m reminded of that statement every time I see a white American bully a Black American, and it all amounts to, “How dare your very…

Every time I see news of the latest whistlestop on the Valerie Taylor Oh I Really Respect Sharks Now Pinky Swear tour, I am reminded of that thoroughly unsettling moment in Peter Matthiessen’s “Blue Meridian” where she offhandedly recounts Ron swimming among the great whites, casually eviscerating them from beneath…

I just finished reading Oliver Sacks’s book “Hallucinations” and found it enlightening. He and his patients mostly experienced their visions as a result of neurological misfires, accidents, illness, traumatic injury, sleep deprivation, or drug use. He was able to identify broad categories and intensity levels to the…

Finally! I sure was getting tired of that one-note not-a-racist-bone excuse. (Hint to racists: darling, it is not a bone.) Now we can have a multiplier for the excuses: “I apologize for creating a noose out of old whitebread-bag ties, saying ‘_____ _____, ___ _____ __ ___ ____,’ and voting Republican, but my blood…

You said it. In our year of grace 2021, being genetically or matrimonially related to a prominent figure is not the same as being a prominent figure. And it’s about time women put that dusty old method of achieving public attention to rest; build your own goddamn achievements, Sharon.

Not that this is super relevant, but the deal with that was that, well before Ms. Markle was supposed to be introduced to Grandma Betty, they kind of found out that she was unexpectedly going to be where they were going. So Harry asked Ms. Markle, “Say, how’s that curtsy coming along?” Ms. Markle had to practice a…

Dunno, they had the wherewithal to travel across the country in mid-pandemic and stay in hotels in and around the nation’s capital... to me, that tended to imply some resources unavailable to the rest of us. (To say nothing of their evident disposable income for weapons, flags, and ugly red ballcaps.)

Approximately eight gajillion years ago, my wife and I tripped over an amazing show on the International Channel. It was a Japanese miniseries, a crime drama called “Kira Kira Hikaru” (“Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”). Four women, Japanese pop crooners, starred as characters in and around the coroner’s office in…

Have you ever heard the story of Stetson Kennedy, a white Floridian who was so fed up with the KKK stinking up his country during World War II that he joined it so he could pass along its decoder-ring passwords, robe-shortening tips, and rhythmless secret knocks to the producers of the “Superman” radio show? By the…

I thought this was going to be about the World War I hospitals founded by Dr. Elsie Inglis and her colleagues in the European theater and am delighted to know that Dr. Inglis wasn’t the only one. Dr. Inglis almost certainly was a lesbian, and a terrific, well-researched biography of her life and work was most probably…

I don’t know that all but a tiny, tiny fraction of the MAGAts actually believes QAnon’s blatherings about international pedophilia rings. I don’t know that any slaveholders ever really believed that the Bible justified enslavement ‘cause of that whole slaves-be-subservient-unto-your-masters quote. It makes a…

[Nodding.] Two-thirds of the American economy is fueled by consumerism. We’re... not healthy.

‘Bout, and I cannot possibly overemphasize the ardent strength with which I agree with this statement, God damn time.

Thanks for this, Ms. Young, and for not giving the filmmakers a pass. Couple thoughts from someone who has been wondering, with vast irritation, when PopCult would just get over it already and start serving an underserved audience...

Grooming Children: It’s Not Just for Sexual Abuse Any More! (TM)

Well, yeah, if they’re 60 women accusing Donald Trump of sexual assault or sexual harassment! Damn, Rudy, didja drop your playbook in a vat of hair dye er somethin’? (/s, in case that wasn’t immediately apparent.)

[Nodding.]  It’ll be the Ted Nugent/Kirk Cameron ticket for 2024.

I was struck by something reading the recap/review. A classic time-travel trope in fiction is the notion of the historical atrocity that tempts the traveler to an unsuccessful attempt to reverse it. The most common examples are preventing the assassinations of Abraham Lincoln or JFK, and Hitler’s rise to power.

[Sigh.] It’s like, if they don’t have the bigotry (heterosexism, misogyny, transphobia, racism, xenophobia, pick one or more, mix and mingle), life isn’t worth living. To see that J.K. Rowling has gone full TERF isn’t surprising, judging by the lack of BIPOC/LGBTQIA characters in the Harry Potter books, to say nothing…

“We want AAAAAAALLL the privilege! We want to be admired for our dancing skills and we want to be able to cry at movies without being insulted for unmanliness and we want to be able to get away with knowing about art and we want the moral authority that only being part of a marginalized and oppressed minority can…