*** 4 AM Wakeup. It’s 90 minutes to the trailhead and I’d like to start before daybreak, finding my way by the earliest signs of morning light. All three kids are asleep and the first thing to do is to move them inside the truck. The oldest wakes up, briefly. The other two are like […]
Not long ago, I was startled by a friend describing her afternoon of knocking down wasp nests. I would describe this person as left-of-center, concerned about climate change, and other issues regarding our inability to live within the earth’s carrying capacity. It didn’t compute that knocking down wasp nests would be part of the day’s […]
This is one of my favorite essays. It was written by Pat Conroy in 1973. I post it here for the purpose of social commentary in an upcoming book about a year-long trip around the country. Such publication is covered under Fair Use Doctrine and is not a copyright violation. The Horse is a sacred […]
This House Is Not Our Google Home I say that I married into a year-long trip around the country in a travel trailer. It was a second marriage for both of us. For each of us, our first marriages were with someone philosophically incompatible. When searching for a second spouse, each of us had checklists […]
Let’s be clear form the beginning. Martin Theroux was in no way responsible in the disappearance of Maryam Fadel. While his exoneration has been well documented in the news, it doesn’t change the fact that for six months he was harassed without end. The death threats rising to the point that he was pulled from […]
TLDR: The US passed some interesting legislation in the early 90s that would give victims of torture the ability to sue their torturers in US Courts. It is with some irony that the very first successful lawsuit under this law involved a US Citizen turned Roman Catholic nun suing a Guatemalan Defense Minister with ties […]
The Reasons Behind the Zimmerman Telegram TLDR: Only the United States is allowed to interfere in Mexican politics Anyone who went through a middle school history class probably remembers something about British decoding the “Zimmerman Telegram” which prompted the US to actively enter World War I. It was an attempt by the German government to […]
Feckless Negotiators TLDR: US policy or lack thereof in the early 1920s helped pave the way for Nazi Germany. Reparations after war were common in Europe, so it wasn’t unusual that Germany got stuck footing the bill for WWI in the 1919 Treaty of Versailles. After all, the Germans did the exact same thing to […]
Grady blinked. Noting that he was blinking was actually his first conscious thought. The light was bright and startling. “That’s probably why I’m blinking,” he thought. Then he spoke out loud but under his breath “What a silly thought. Who spends time thinking about their own blinking?” A young man in the corner sat […]
This is a short story in Just Comply, a collection of short stories published in July 2021. If you like this story, please consider buying the book using the link at the end of the story. Ava Canady sat in her office, nervously clicking the top of a ballpoint pen. She clicked it faster like an engine […]