The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

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Breaking: White man from Vermont dismisses claims of racism, sexism, homophobia, slams Democrats.

By armchair guerrilla on Sat, 04/01/2017 - 7:46pm |

This statement encapsulates my problems with Bernie.

"Some people think that the people who voted for Trump are racists and sexists and homophobes and deplorable folks. I don't agree, because I've been there. Let me tell you something else some of you might not agree with, it wasn't that Donald Trump won the election, it was that the Democratic Party lost the election," Sanders said.

Where to begin? First, it's a straw man. Nobody is saying everyone who voted for Trump is a racist, sexist, homophobe. More important, this minimizes the undeniable fact that Trump's "win" was premised on explicit appeals to white nationalism and overwhelming support from white men. Needless to say, tens of millions of women, people of color, immigrants and LGBTQ, the ones whose rights are threatened, feel differently, despite the self-serving statements of the octogenarian socialist from Vermont.

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Yet Another Reflection on Prince

By armchair guerrilla on Sun, 04/24/2016 - 9:29pm |

Lord knows, anyone who has come within range of social media has seen his or her share of reflections on the death of Prince. They run the gamut from heartfelt and poignant to nauseatingly narcissistic.  Here then is my first effort at the genre.

In 1981, I was a junior in high school.  I used to bring to school and carry around a portable cassette player to listen to music on the bus and in the woods smoking cigarettes and engaging in other prohibited activities.  I wasn't alone in this.  During breaks we'd run down to the smoking room (hard to imagine that now in HS!) or athletic fields and compete for selections.  We surely weren’t aware of it then, but our choices were about more than simply having a good time. It was a way of defining ourselves relative to our peers. The music you chose was a way of saying something about yourself, a statement of identity.  This is who I am because I listen to _____. 

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