On Memorial Day

I struggle over what to post on holidays. Except for a few instances in which I’ve settled into a comfortable, easy pattern — a silly animated gif on Thanksgiving, a Calvin and Hobbes comic on Christmas Eve — I find I come to the most significant individual days on the U.S. calendar with a measure of uncertainty. I have no wistful memories to offer up, no strident calls to value the meaning of the day within me. Usually, I punt, tapping out some bit of simple nonsense in a minimum number of words, confident no one is much likely to … Continue reading On Memorial Day

My Writers: Charles P. Pierce

Given the endless procession of freshly minted atrocities on the front pages of credible newspapers, it’s tempting to invoke the apocryphal Chinese curse that bestowed the condemnation of “interesting times.” But we’ve crossed well beyond that battle-scarred region. We’ve moved on to a swirling abomination that can only be thought of as “exhausting times.” Being engaged in the current political stories that flash and pop with the frantic urgency of an overloading pinball machine is an invitation to madness, or at least a version of unwanted enlightening that is particularly soul-crushing. None of these examples of egregious abdication of sensible … Continue reading My Writers: Charles P. Pierce