Rev. Rick Scarborough, a Christian preacher, organized a conference called “The War on Christians and the Values Voter in 2006” to rile up Christians and get them out to the polls in November. But Christians should beware of these so called “values.” Republicans have masterfully used devout Christians to further their politics of fear and […]

i hung an inverted american flag in my window a few months ago. it was fall and the leaves fell off the tree in front of my window and i noticed i was looking into a window across the street. so i put this flag up in my window, i didn’t want to be looking […]

This pot tastes kind of strange. Like a hospital, or a whorehouse. A stale rosy taste far back on the tongue and nose. I wash it down with a swig of beer. Walk out the door. “Where are you going?” Heather asks as the door swings closed. I walk down the long hallway–the worn red […]

Today is the third anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq War. Three years. What happened to that cake walk I was promised? Where are the throngs of flower throwers and flag wavers? Large numbers of Iraqis are being killed everyday in sectarian violence. This wave of death started some weeks ago when a shrine […]

Writers have always been tricksters. Through their words they suck readers into a contrived world. They use tricks such as flashback, simile, unreliable narrators, and subtle episodes to shape a story and its message. The feudal society of the 12th century was rigid. If one was born a peasant, they would die as a peasant […]

The sun slips slowly into the trees as the bullet proof vest Henry wears traps hot, musty air next to his skin. Henry’s heavy duty belt—bullets, cell phone, radio, flashlight, surgical gloves, handcuffs, retractable baton, weapon, pepper spray—is a constricting black nylon snake and a painful heat rash tears at his hips and moves slowly […]

Pay follows the others off the bus into the muggy Alabama night. The air, more water than air, Pay thinks, is hard to breathe and he opens his mouth to gulp it in. The line in which he is a part snakes into a small white building adorned with the flags of America and its […]

America is so innocent. We went into Iraq to free the people from the oppressive and brutal Saddam Hussein. Our troops are spreading democracy and freedom all through the land. We’re not an occupier, we hold no imperialist plans, all the United States cares about is freedom and bringing that freedom to all the people […]

It is easy to forget, when reading about historical events, that everyday life goes on being lived during wars or times of social and political upheaval. In history books, these complex events are reduced to a series of facts—names and dates and locations—and it can seem as if whole nations hold their collective breath, exhaling […]

Pay is drinking alone in his room as he does every night. Sitting on a nylon chair, he drains beer after beer down his bottomless hole. The TV the only light in the room and bright orange explosions of napalm, oxygen and trees make shadows flicker and dance across the walls. Finishing the last beer, […]