Strange feelings on the night of July 16, the last show of the Dead & Co. Final Tour in San Francisco. I did not stream the final performance, nor attend a single show on the tour, but it was still weird knowing that the world’s collection of half the surviving…

This Independence Day was a struggle. The Supreme Court really knows how to take the wind out of any enthusiasm for celebration, too. But we can celebrate those great occasional and seemingly fleeting victories among all the historic social and civil struggles, so far, should we somehow be lucky enough…

The last time we were in Muncie, Indiana, I was rooting for Barbed Wire Roller Derby (née the Barbed Wire Betties) of DeKalb, Illinois. This time it was Chicago-Style Roller Derby (née the DuPage Derby Dames + Chicago Outfit). So much has changed over the last three years that it…

States are banning books to appease the complaints of sad, narrow-minded and perverted bigots. The perverted bigots are losing their sad and narrow little minds because they are losing the future and they know it. …

Washington Post, May 9, 2023: ‘The Allen Fairview Chamber of Commerce in Texas [where a gunman killed eight people, including three children, at a shopping mall less than 24 hours earlier] published a Facebook post Sunday welcoming Pulling Triggers and Pulling Corks — a business that hosts events for people…

Among the various civic issues of our times, We the People are dealing with typically awful reporting on the whole Republican House majority’s debt ceiling drama. Like this ridiculously desperate “both-sides” headline from Scripps, screaming “Lawmakers on Capitol Hill continue blame game as debt ceiling looms.” Because god forbid that…

I ran out of patience a long time ago with a bruised and battered News business trying desperately to cover American politics as if it were an honest game between two perspectives about public policy priorities, on face value and in all good faith. No, our national struggle has long…

Among the four teams of Chicago’s Windy City Rollers, the Fury has held the WFTDA affiliate league’s home season trophy since 2020. The WCR home season trophy is named for Ivy King, a star who wore the number 1 in what was the first Transcontinental Roller Derby event at the…

“Woke!,” “wokeness!,” “wokeism!,” cry Putin’s little American fascists…. This is all we need to know about how Republicans will try to get us to vote for them. The GQP has nothing to offer but fear itself. Which does not mean, however, that their policy priorities, such as they are, aren’t…