Why I’m Glad Obama Is Not Gay

But although bigotry took a hard kick to the gut on November 4, 2008, it caught its breath quickly and assuredly in America that day when voters banned gay marriage in California, Florida, and Arizona and banned adoptions and foster parenting by unmarried couples in Arkansas. So, while I’m glad Obama happens to be black, I’m grateful he is not gay because he would not be our President (-elect) if he were.

Clean Coal’s Dirty Little Secret

The mining process generates liquid waste called slurry, a mix of carcinogenic compounds and heavy metals. The slurry is stored in open lagoons that, of course, sometimes break and flood. This is even more likely during periods of heavy rainfall and flooding (such as during global warming).

What Comes First

What I heard didn’t make me wave cardboard signs or toss confetti. It made me feel sad. And angry. I started talking back to the radio.

Declaration of Independence

Having come to the precipice of our own demise, we can if we so choose see before us the terrible chasm of the tyrant’s vast and awesome power. This is a call for us to stand together, defiant of our common oppressors.

SarChasm

I had not realized that being a fiction writer disqualified one from being able to write with authority on any real topic, as in the sense that

a fiction writer = a liar; someone who just makes crazy stuff up.

This was news to me, and my mind argumentatively ran through a random list of folks who had, despite their membership among the suspect fiction writer gang, managed to have a profound impact on the politics and society of their time and also to write worthwhile nonfiction (LeGuin, Swift, Defoe, Camus, Sartre, Zola, Cervantes, Dreiser, Hawthorne, Huxley, Koestler, Walker, and on and on; some of these people were likewise slammed for their work).

Guns ‘n’ Bread ‘n’ Roses

Because our culture delights and trades in images of violence, even as real people with malicious intent delight and trade in real tools of violence, it should come as no surprise that right in front of our eyes, guns are being pointed between our eyes. But meanwhile, a different kind of attack is happening behind our backs, out of view, where a gun can have no defensive effect.

Guns ‘n’ Bread ‘n’ Roses

Because our culture delights and trades in images of violence, even as real people with malicious intent delight and trade in real tools of violence, it should come as no surprise that right in front of our eyes, guns are being pointed between our eyes. But meanwhile, a different kind of attack is happening behind our backs, out of view, where a gun can have no defensive effect.

Pinkish Green

It hadn’t occurred to me that these seven values might be considered liberally kooky and socialist. I even believed that some of them at least were rather conservative, such as “act on principle.”