What Would Grandmother’s Job Be?
What would my grandmother’s career have been if she’d had the educational opportunities I did.
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Ancestry DNA Results and My Mystery Grandmother
Fascinating. To me, anyway… I just got the results back on my Ancestry DNA test.* I suppose mine are like everybody’s: they confirmed a lot of what I already knew and also threw a couple little curves at me. A slight preface: My family has always been working folks and while official records exist, our oral history was longer on
Read moreJane is gone
My mother could be … difficult.
Read moreThe only way to defeat Trump and his supporters
It’s about tribalism. You cannot work with Trumpists. Period. You must defeat them and then fix the problems that handed them control. It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into. – Jonathan Swift Since the moment of Campaign 2016 when it became clear that Donald Trump actually had a chance,
Read moreThe twisting, capricious nature of “blessings”
Yesterday was … unsettling. Any time you’re meeting with your physician and the words “brain tumor” come out of her mouth, it’s going to make you sit up a little straighter, even if she’s mostly dismissing it as a possibility. Mostly. As I have noted before, I suffer from a disorder that causes significant vertigo issues and, commencing in the
Read moreAdrian Peterson and the glacial pace of cultural evolution
Reach out and touch me now Aphrodite said You aren’t the only one with armies in your head I guess I take the Adrian Peterson story personally, for reasons I wrote about back in 2011. To this day I remember the pain that was inflicted on me by those I loved, and who loved me. Pain inflicted because they loved me, so
Read moreRoger Goodell, Kabuki journalism and #StandYourGround
I rarely criticize people for overthinking. I mean, this is #Merica. How often do I get a chance? This nation has its problems, but we’re not prone to overthinking. Still, every once in a while we do wander further down the rabbit hole than is necessary. Take this whole fire Roger Goodell thing. Should he be fired because he lied?
Read moreAn open letter to Janay Rice
Dear Janay, The last few weeks have undoubtedly been difficult ones for you, and the last couple of days have probably been among the most trying of your life. I can imagine that you’re torn so many ways, and since I have never been in the position you’re in – have never experienced anything remotely like it – imagine is about
Read moreCan we get Donald Sterling and Rochelle Sterling and V Stiviano on The Jerry Springer Show?
Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote this: Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in
Read moreOnline dating tips: tell OK Cupid you’re looking for the opposite of what you really want
Childless in Seattle? Not for long. Jim, let’s meet those bachelorettes. If you were to review my OK Cupid profile, you’d find this: And, just to be clear, this: So today, OK Cupid e-mailed me this:
Read moreBrendan Eich case raises free speech issues for people who don’t understand how free speech works
No, Virginia. Intolerance of intolerance isn’t the same as intolerance of human beings. When it became public that recently appointed Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich had donated to the controversial anti-gay rights Prop 8 initiative in California back in 2008, things – as we used to say back home – blowed up. Rarebit yanked an app from the Mozilla marketplace and
Read moreNaPoWriMo 2014: write like nobody’s reading
National Poetry Writing Month begins today. Will you write 30 poems in 30 days? Well, no. I won’t, not me personally. I retired from writing poetry a couple years ago. But before I did I wrote four books and am currently looking to publish them, so I definitely salute the annual celebration of the art. Here at S&R we have
Read moreShould your son join a fraternity? Read this. Right now.
Dear Parents: if your son goes to college, joins a fraternity and screws up, you could lose your home. Do I have your attention yet? How many times in my adult life have I heard this? YOU were in a fraternity? Yes I was. Theta Chi, Gamma Omicron chapter, Wake Forest University. I know, I don’t fit the stereotype. Neither
Read moreDear women of Match.com and OK Cupid: WTF is wrong with you?
Women – and men – in online dating communities are acting like goddamned sociopaths. This needs to stop. Okay, not all of you. But some of you. Men, too – I’m guessing this isn’t just women. See if you recognize yourselves below. On multiple occasions I’ve been talking to women I met through OK Cupid. Things going great, we really
Read moreThanksgiving is now Black Thursday and Black Friday is upon us: what should America not be thankful for?
The nation gives thanks … for what? I was never a William Burroughs fan, but I nonetheless find myself thinking about his 1986 “Thanksgiving Prayer,” surely one of the most caustic (and insightful) takes on our great American holiday. I’m in this sort of mood for a reason. Or two, or three. First off, you may have noticed all the
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lullaby pit 