Society
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Worrying About Brown People In Our Community
The angst I felt over the past few weeks as the UPS truck rumbled by our home and down the street is the reason I write this column tonight. It is a small thing in life. A truck with boxes, sometimes for me, is something I like to see. But in recent weeks, the truck… Continue reading
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Dolly’s Open Hand vs. Trump’s Closed Grifting Fist
A lesson in genuinely meaningful ethics. Two very different American stories are in focus this week: rich people and what they do with their wealth. One belongs to Dolly Parton, an iconic superstar who lived a life that treated success like a resource to be shared. The other belongs to Donald Trump, who treats financial… Continue reading
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How We Live Is What Endures
Several years ago, I sat through a funeral service that would have been comical had it not been about death. The person in the casket had been a philanderer of the first order, and his deeds had occurred over a long span of years. Much of the community knew about those deeds. But we were… Continue reading
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The Last Uncomplicated Boys: What A 1934 Magazine Cover Says To 2026
For many months, I have had a photo from a 1934 Saturday Evening Post in my ‘to do’ pile, as I wanted to add some commentary on the painting’s innocence and place it in context with our helicopter censors, who would deem this unacceptable on a cover of a best-selling magazine today. Somehow, it would… Continue reading
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Letter from Home: “Boy In Yellow Shirt, Uplift Of Talking To Strangers” 7/27/26
In these fraught, jangly‑edged times, the smallest conversations can remind us we’re still part of one another’s story. I write this column at a time of great angst in Madison following another police shooting (six blocks from where James and I live) and at a time when a series of hourly headlines from Washington alert… Continue reading
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Karma Won: The Lesson Of The Red Card
America didn’t just lose a soccer game this week; I would argue it has lost its sense of proportion. How Donald Trump came to feel that he must be involved in a referee call in a World Cup soccer match is breathtaking. He felt so empowered that he called FIFA president Gianni Infantino to review… Continue reading
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Letter From Home: 26th Anniversary For James Wilson And Gregory Humphrey, 5/24/26
James figured out how many minutes we have spent together as we celebrate our 26th anniversary today. We have spent most of the last 13,679,040 minutes together, and I wouldn’t trade that for anything in the world. When we met, he called me his Skinny Little Fat Man! (I weighed 132 pounds when we met… Continue reading
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Melanina Trump Is A “Working Mom”, I Call It Bunk
The latest insult to American women came from Donald Trump’s third wife. Melania Trump, who emphasized her experience as a “working mom” while serving as First Lady. It pays not to eat food and read the newspaper at the same time. Surely more than one person nearly choked when reading the Op-Ed column supposedly written… Continue reading
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Why N Word Has No Place In Janesville Bar
When I heard the following story for the first time, I blinked a few times and then asked it to be repeated. The story did not take place 30 years ago in Mississippi or 15 years ago in a redneck bar in Hayward. The story occurred just a couple of weeks ago in Janesville, Wisconsin.… Continue reading
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Eight Black Kids Are Murdered With A Gun, Nation Yawns
There’s a point in a nation’s decline when the extraordinary becomes ordinary, when the unthinkable becomes background noise. That line could have been written every day since Inauguration Day 2025. But I write to refer to this past Sunday. And I write regarding the way eight Black children were violently shot to death in Louisiana,… Continue reading
Caffeinated Politics 