Have you learned nothing? Yes, sorry. Why not? The brain is a hard thing to undo. I’m trying my best. But you still cling. I know, I know; but I feel it melting away. Really? Yes. Do you still cling? A little. Do you feel better than you did? Yes. Why do you keep turning […]

“In peace, sons bury their fathers; in war, fathers bury their sons.” —Herodotus The American flag flies all day everyday over Fort Knox, Kentucky. On most military installations the flag is raised every morning at reveille and lowered every evening at retreat. So it was strange to me when one night, shortly after having arrived […]

I still feel it today—the quick panic as I travel down the road at night and catch a brief reflection from the median. Pushing the brakes, already too late, I pass a jet black car camouflaged by the night, its headlights on now, as it comes out onto the road and disturbs the darkness with […]

President Bush owes his election to Christians. Karl Rove, the president’s chief political adviser, has proven masterful at shaping a message that appeals to Christians, especially evangelical Christians. Rove has had Bush show up at numerous prayer meetings, this administration’s agenda is the same as the Christian right’s. Bush is often in church, and unlike […]

I woke up late in the morning, my brain banging against my head, and looked around a room I couldn’t recognize. Dark bar, hazy car ride, strange apartment—these things came back slowly. She was sitting on a plush red chair on the other side of the room under a very large window. Reclined in a […]

“Don’t you believe in Jesus?” “Sure I believe in Jesus. It sounds like he was one hell of a guy. Preaching peace and love and acceptance of everyone from the wealthly and powerful to the dejected and worthless. What happened?” “Do you accept Jesus as your personal Saviour?” “Saviour? No.” “Why?” “Save us? Nobody is […]

After 9/11, President Bush named the axis of evil and put Iraq, Iran, and North Korea on notice for invasion and regime change. Iraq was first because they were an easy target–during the first gulf war Iraqis surrendered to anything they could find. I’m sure that Bush and his advisers thought Gulf War II would […]

I had been driving up and down empty roads for two hours and thought I’d head back to the station. As Nick Cave says, “This is a mistake I sometimes make.” I walk into the harshly lit lobby with its dull yellow walls and walk up to the desk. “What’s going on, Riley?” Marion asks […]

It would seem that Flannery O’Connor and T.C. Boyle have nothing in common. O’Connor was born in Savannah, Georgia, in 1925 and spent all but five of her thirty nine years in Georgia. She wrote about the Deep South during the 1950s and ’60s and her stories are filled with complicated themes and messages that […]

Freedom is a seemingly straight forward word. It conjures up images of people being able to do what they want when they want. When one thinks of freedom, one usually thinks of free elections, a government representative of the people it serves, safety, justice under a set of rules and laws, and freedom of speech. […]