Ella Fitzgerald used to sing a tune that said, “I’m putting all my eggs in one basket…I’m betting everything I’ve got on you.” This may be great advice for the love game, but it’s a lousy way to play politics. If you put everything in one political basket, as African Americans in this state have … Read more
I recently spent a sad evening in a basement in South Minneapolis. An acquaintance was seeking subsidised legal advice about the custody of his children. He had found it pretty difficult uncovering a voluntary agency able to offer advice to men on such matters. But now here he was with six other unfortunates waiting his … Read more
Forget road rage. I love my car. It is my pod of sanity. A micro-community I control. Yes, I understand when I slide behind the wheel and I survey all that is out in the great beyond through my windshield that I have no control of what goes on out there. Traffic jams, crazy drivers, … Read more
“Courage, friends,” said George Bernard Shaw. “We all hate Christmas.” These days there is a good deal more to hate about the festive season than there was in Edwardian England, particularly the annual crash-course in consumerism given to all our children by the manufacturers of worthless plastic gewgaws. No doubt the hairy Hibernian sophisticate disdained … Read more
After a couple of accidental clicks of the mouse the other day, I realized that I have officially seen enough naked people in my life. This does not mean that I never want to have sex again, or that I don’t want to see the person who I currently see naked all the time naked … Read more
If you mix blue paint with yellow paint, you get green paint. If a Finn and an Indonesian “get together,” as my teenage boys would say, a child produced by that union would be Finnish-Indonesian. However, in our race-warped culture, when a black person and a white person produce a baby, something different happens. The … Read more
A few weeks ago, central London saw the largest demonstration it has ever witnessed. A good-humored crowd of 407,791 people marched through the streets. These were not folk normally given to protest. For the most part, they were quiet country people, though to be sure they enjoyed their day out in the capital, cheering, singing, … Read more
According to African-American comedienne Moms Mabley, “If you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got.” Sounds like Moms could have been talking about conditions leading up to this past August melee in north Minneapolis. Once again, primarily white cops, who mostly live outside Minneapolis, confronted primarily black people … Read more
My grandfather’s grandfather invented kippers. The family tradition is that if he had not sold the patent for his method of making smoked herrings to Woodgers of Newcastle-upon-Tyne in northeastern England for 200 pounds, we might all have been rich beyond the dreams of creosote. Imagine a penny-a-fish royalty on every kipper consumed on the … Read more
I adore a good horror film. I love these flicks because within 90 minutes I have the satisfaction of seeing the heroine prevail, and the delight of watching the monster meet a grisly death. Real life, sadly, is not like this. Heroes don’t win all the time, and after they are done tormenting you, monsters … Read more