I hate to say this, because the last thing I ever want to sound like is a writer for Salon, but damn, this “debate” over school shootings is so very…white. I’ve mentioned before, and it bears repeating at the moment, that as a child I attended majority black L.A. public schools. Well, ...
When I think of The Avengers, what comes to mind is not the bloated comic-book franchise in which overpaid actors cavort in front of a greenscreen for the masturbatory pleasure of nerds. No, to me, there is and will always be only one Avengers, and that’s the 1960s British crime and espionage TV ...
I’ve often thought of Black History Month as a Valentine’s Day gift to those of us who are single. With the annual media barrage of images of black suffering past and present, Black History Month is a reminder to the unattached that things could always be worse. Unless, I suppose, you’re a ...
I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about Paul Nehlen. After all, why bother thinking about something that’s going to be gone in a matter of months? Nehlen, who’s challenging Paul Ryan in Wisconsin’s Aug. 8 primary, is not worth my time. To say that he will lose to Ryan is inaccurate, as ...
“If you’re black, we cannot be friends. Go fuckin’ die, you ugly-ass black people.” So begins a Snapchat video by a female California high school student. “Black people are trash, they need to die, like, I fuckin’ hate black people, they’re so annoying. So, when the police were ...
“What is it with you Jews, anyway?” asks Clint Eastwood’s shell-shocked Air Force pilot in the 1982 thriller Firefox. And damned if last week I didn’t find myself asking that exact same question. Now keep in mind—I am a Jew. A full-blooded descendant of a Brooklyn intellectual and a ...
Our most effective U.S. presidents—and keep in mind, I’m saying “most effective,” not “best”—possessed, to one degree or another, a certain measure of indifference to human life. Whether you’re preserving the Union, inciting a World War, incinerating a couple hundred thousand Japs, ...
When a witch doctor reads the leaves in a sucker’s, I mean customer’s, teacup (a process known as “tasseography”), it’s essential that the mark, I mean “sitter,” has actually handled the cup. Say what you will about tea-leaf readers—call them charlatans, call them lunatics—they ...
Her name was Nari and she was the tallest Korean girl I’d ever seen. Six foot, at least. It was 1996 and we were on our second date when she started talking politics. Naturally, I assumed she’d be leftist. She was a student at UCLA…’nuff said. But I wasn’t prepared for just how ...
In times of war, neutrality is rarely rewarded. And if you’re a citizen of a country smack in the middle of a war, it can often be dangerous. A little-known fact about World War II is that, in the nations occupied by Germany, especially (but not solely) in the East, the anti-Nazi partisans, ...
