Politics
A Word In Edgewise: O Tempora, O Mores!
In August, 2010, I was delighted to write here that California U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker had ruled unconstitutional California’s ballot initiative Proposition 8 denying marriage rights to same-sex couples. “Proposition 8,” he declared, “fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license ……
Cleve Jones: ‘I’m not looking for allies; I’m looking for co-conspirators.’
“We’ve certainly achieved a number of really important victories that I was not certain I would see in my lifetime,” says Cleve Jones. “Of course, most obvious among them would be marriage equality. That was something that was really kind of unimaginable for my generation.” Jones (who self-identifies as a product of the anti-war, civil…
Skirting the Issues: Relentless
In mid-October, the Texas legislature passed HB25, a law that bans transgender students from competing in K-12 sports according to their gender identity. This was the fourth attempt to get the law voted in; the three previous attempts had failed after over-the-top resistance by transgender rights groups and their allies. Texas now joins nine other…
A Word In Edgewise: Butterfly Wings Beating Ever Louder
How did you prepare for Y2K? Did you know someone who could take “What if’s?” exponentially higher than a moon shot? Have you ever even seen a 50-lb sack of oatmeal? Did the deliveryman (no Amazon Prime, yet) trundle cases of ammo to your door on a weekly basis? “What’ll happen when everything goes down?” was a…
A Word In Edgewise: Another “Sorry” Situation
Some people can say egregious things and be remembered warmly for decades, quoted with a chuckle like Yogi Berra’s sage advice, “Always go to other people’s funerals, otherwise they won’t come to yours.” Others may be as egregious, but so obviously self-serving, so chilling as to stop one dead in one’s tracks. The soon-to-be former…
Minnesota Black History, Part II
Tracing back: Modern consequences of antiquated enactments The latest Census Bureau data shows that of Minnesota’s 5.6 million residents, about 400,000 or 7 percent are Black or African American. The Black population in Minnesota has been historically small. Population data from 1890 shows a total of 1,310,283 Minnesotans, with 3,683—only 0.3 percent of them identifying…
A Word In Edgewise: Ratiocination or Lizard Hind-Brain: What’s Your Pleasure?
Photo by BigStock/volodymyrscherbak In 1374, along the Rhine valley, hundreds of townsfolk danced compulsively–non-stop, for days–to exhaustion, even death. The mania spread to north-eastern France and the Netherlands, persisted for several months, subsided, then burst out again in 1518. In 1491, several nuns in the Spanish Netherlands became possessed, meowing and climbing trees like cats….
A Word In Edgewise: Freely-Given, or Gelt-Gaining?
Photo by Bigstock/TungCheung “Pardon me!” “I beg your pardon!” were phrases drilled into to me from childhood. Simple politeness. One asked another’s pardon after some breach of kindness or etiquette, for interrupting a parent, or stepping on a toe. It became a reflex, like covering one’s mouth before coughing. As we grew older, we were…
Skirting the Issues: The Common Good
Photo by Bigstock/PathDoc When I was a kid growing up in the 1960s and early ‘70s, I believed that who I was, and what I did, mattered and that I had value as a person. Much of this was tied into being taught that America was the greatest nation on Earth—we Americans were exceptional and…
Top 10 Cultural Moments of 2020
Listen, we all know that 2020 was awful. It was garbage, a dumpster fire; a trash heap…. whatever way you want to describe it, it sucked. It was not the year we had all hooped it would be. Regardless, there was certainly some history that was made and a lot of “firsts” that will help…
