Even if you want to dismantle our democracy, do you want to look this inept? — It may be too obvious to say, but when Kevin McCarthy was occupying the chair as Speaker of the House wasn’t the seat already vacant? By all reports, McCarthy got zero support from Democrats in his bid to keep his position because he did nothing to negotiate with them. He…

In this era of dread and anxiety, as we resist the anti-intellectual forces of the far-right, might we turn back to a spirit guide from the flower-power era? — In the brilliant Hulu dramedy “Reservation Dogs” the lead male character, Bear Smallhill (D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai), is flummoxed about his life and purpose and grappling to find his, well, bearings (sorry), as a young man without a father to help guide him. In the course of the series, he is periodically…

The governor’s “anti-woke” campaign in Florida just keeps getting less enlightened. But, yeah, that’s the point. — With his state’s recently instituted educational mandate that the plays of Shakespeare must not be read in full but only in redacted excerpts — yet more classified documents on the loose in Florida — Governor Ron DeSantis has once again grabbed headlines for being, well, a total putz.

When the account of this dangerous period in U.S. history is written, historians should pick over the remains on the man-boy’s plate —

A one-man play running Off-Broadway reintroduces us to a moderate Republican president who today’s right would consider far too woke — The conceit of “Eisenhower: This Piece of Ground,” currently playing Off-Broadway in New York City, is smart: former President Dwight D. Eisenhower, two years retired to his farm at Gettysburg, Pa., and half-heartedly working on a memoir, reads a historians’ assessment of U.S. presidents in which he has been ranked…

Student loans are predatory capitalism at its most shamefully short-sighted — The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent 6–3 decision to not allow the student loan­ forgiveness program that Congress agreed to and President Joe Biden planned to sign once again throws into light not only the ideological fervor of the current hard-right court but also our woeful corporate, profit-driven system of higher…

Some thoughts while attending the Pride Parade in the home city of (uh-oh!) Bud Light — Our younger daughter invited me to accompany her to the Pride Parade this past Sunday, saying it was especially important to show support now. My wife prevailed upon me to drop my general stodgy khaki-ness and wear the colorful pair of shorts she had gotten as a gift to upgrade…

In a world full of Ronald Reagans (and worse), be a Jimmy Carter — Jimmy Carter was president of the United States in my college years, a seminal time in his life, the life of the country, and in my own life when I switched my major from biology to journalism, and then, upon graduation, went to study acting in New York City. There…

Work-life balance? Facing climate change, gun violence, and the idiocy of House Republicans, we need a workable disaster-life balance — After watching news coverage, day after day, week after week, of unrelenting rain across huge swaths of California, I texted a friend in Los Angeles to ask how he and his wife were faring. …