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I blog at "Left-Wing Tex" from beautiful Fort Worth, Texas. Here I am a retired English-as-a-Second Language teacher. I have had poems published in a number of venues, including California Quarterly, Borderlands, The Texas Observer, redriverreview.com, Illya's Honey, Oakbend Review, and two anthologies of Texas poetry. Besides that, my essays have appeared in The Texas Observer, San Antonio Express-News, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Dallas Peace Times,Still Crazy and Fort Worth Weekly. Finally, stories of mine have been published in Lynx Eye, Hardboiled, and the on-line literary journals: Verdad, Scrivener's Pen, SouthLit.com, Amarillo Bay, and The Write Room. My story, Fire in Galveston was one of four runner-ups for the 2013 Texas Observer Short Story Contest.
OpEd News Member for 739 week(s) and 4 day(s)
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Thursday, April 4, 2019
A Holiday from our Political Wars Take an hour, take an evening, hell, why not take a whole day off of the circus that is our modern media landscape? Here's something radical: take a Twitter Holiday. Do not speak of the current occupant of the White House, either positively or negatively. He's not going anywhere. Trust me, he'll still be there when you're ready to check back in.
Thursday, April 4, 2019A Holiday from our Political Wars Take an hour, take an evening, hell, why not take a whole day off of the circus that is our modern media landscape? Here's something radical: take a Twitter Holiday. Do not speak of the current occupant of the White House, either positively or negatively. He's not going anywhere. Trust me, he'll still be there when you're ready to check back in.
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Friday, January 18, 2019
Just Another Pretty Face No longer content to hide under our beds, Russians are everywhere these days from fake memes and online trolling to NRA galas, Trump Tower and, maybe, even the White House. It takes me back to my year in Moscow, 1988. Gorby and glasnost were in, as was rock, long hair, and dissent. I felt so at home.
Friday, January 18, 2019Just Another Pretty Face No longer content to hide under our beds, Russians are everywhere these days from fake memes and online trolling to NRA galas, Trump Tower and, maybe, even the White House. It takes me back to my year in Moscow, 1988. Gorby and glasnost were in, as was rock, long hair, and dissent. I felt so at home.
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Friday, April 6, 2018
Trump to Refugees: Drop Dead! In the Age of Trump, what has been our response to the refugee crisis? In one word, obscene. The Trump Administration had promised to take in 45,000 refugees during fiscal 2018, a paltry number. Even so, at the halfway mark, we've only admitted a little more than 10,000. So in this respect, the Trump Administration has gone all in for globalization,or, as Pope Francis called it "the globalization of indifference."
Friday, April 6, 2018Trump to Refugees: Drop Dead! In the Age of Trump, what has been our response to the refugee crisis? In one word, obscene. The Trump Administration had promised to take in 45,000 refugees during fiscal 2018, a paltry number. Even so, at the halfway mark, we've only admitted a little more than 10,000. So in this respect, the Trump Administration has gone all in for globalization,or, as Pope Francis called it "the globalization of indifference."
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Friday, March 2, 2018
Believe it or Not, Trump is Not Our Main Problem By the dizzying number of unforced errors, Trump has proven his worst detractors correct. He is spectacularly unsuited to be President. So it is with some sadness I have to admit that Trump is not our main problem. The proximate cause of Trump being in the White is not Russian bots, the mendacious Fox News, or, even, the unpropitious James Comey, but because of the out-dated, convoluted way we pick our Presidents.
Friday, March 2, 2018Believe it or Not, Trump is Not Our Main Problem By the dizzying number of unforced errors, Trump has proven his worst detractors correct. He is spectacularly unsuited to be President. So it is with some sadness I have to admit that Trump is not our main problem. The proximate cause of Trump being in the White is not Russian bots, the mendacious Fox News, or, even, the unpropitious James Comey, but because of the out-dated, convoluted way we pick our Presidents.
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Tuesday, September 12, 2017
My Southern Heritage I'm such a son of the south that my great grandfather, a Tennessee farmer, was named after not only one Confederate "hero" but two, Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee. Yes, I love my southern heritage, a phrase that's only besmirched, when you package it as an excuse to keep symbols of white supremacy, which in 2017 we should be long past defending.
Tuesday, September 12, 2017My Southern Heritage I'm such a son of the south that my great grandfather, a Tennessee farmer, was named after not only one Confederate "hero" but two, Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee. Yes, I love my southern heritage, a phrase that's only besmirched, when you package it as an excuse to keep symbols of white supremacy, which in 2017 we should be long past defending.
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Friday, June 9, 2017
Dating in Your Sixties or Beware of Crazy Greek Psychotherapists! Remember how awful junior high was? Well, dating in your sixties is worse. Women complain of hoped-for princes turning out to be frogs, mansplainers, or pervs, but, let me tell you, it's not so easy for men either. After my wife of 30 years died almost 2 years ago, I thought having a long successful marriage, plus still having my hair and being in good shape would bode well for me in the dating world. World-class wrong!
Friday, June 9, 2017Dating in Your Sixties or Beware of Crazy Greek Psychotherapists! Remember how awful junior high was? Well, dating in your sixties is worse. Women complain of hoped-for princes turning out to be frogs, mansplainers, or pervs, but, let me tell you, it's not so easy for men either. After my wife of 30 years died almost 2 years ago, I thought having a long successful marriage, plus still having my hair and being in good shape would bode well for me in the dating world. World-class wrong!
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Friday, December 16, 2016
The G(OP)rinch that Stole Democracy Reasons abound for the election of Trump, from Russian hacking to FBI Director Comey's unprecedented meddling in the election process, but one reason should really get more attention. That the Republican Party has been involved in a long-term, well-funded project, not to steal Christmas like the Grinch -- that would be small potatoes -- but American democracy, itself.
Friday, December 16, 2016The G(OP)rinch that Stole Democracy Reasons abound for the election of Trump, from Russian hacking to FBI Director Comey's unprecedented meddling in the election process, but one reason should really get more attention. That the Republican Party has been involved in a long-term, well-funded project, not to steal Christmas like the Grinch -- that would be small potatoes -- but American democracy, itself.
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Friday, September 16, 2016
2020: Welcome to Dystopian America: Like Us, But Only Worse It's 2020, and even the most jejune commentators are bored to death of the constant belaboring of the utter irony of 20/20 vision in the American dystopia of 2020. Hillary is facing an impeachment trial in the Senate, while Sean Hannity and Anne Coulter are leading a yuge field of Republican presidential hopefuls. And all because of a computer program called Maptitude.
Friday, September 16, 20162020: Welcome to Dystopian America: Like Us, But Only Worse It's 2020, and even the most jejune commentators are bored to death of the constant belaboring of the utter irony of 20/20 vision in the American dystopia of 2020. Hillary is facing an impeachment trial in the Senate, while Sean Hannity and Anne Coulter are leading a yuge field of Republican presidential hopefuls. And all because of a computer program called Maptitude.
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Wednesday, August 17, 2016
A Husband's Case for Physician-assisted Suicide Before she died last July, my wife and I were blessed to live for 30 years our own goofy, old-movies, cheap-date life. She was one of the sweetest, most loving and giving people I've ever known. She certainly didn't deserve to suffer as she did her last six months. If my wife had had access to physician-assisted suicide, she'd have used it without hesitation. In Texas she never had that option, but she should have.
Wednesday, August 17, 2016A Husband's Case for Physician-assisted Suicide Before she died last July, my wife and I were blessed to live for 30 years our own goofy, old-movies, cheap-date life. She was one of the sweetest, most loving and giving people I've ever known. She certainly didn't deserve to suffer as she did her last six months. If my wife had had access to physician-assisted suicide, she'd have used it without hesitation. In Texas she never had that option, but she should have.
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Friday, July 22, 2016
Beware the Coming Zombie Republican Apocalypse! After a primary season historical in its tumult, easily the most chaotic convention since 1968, and a smarmy conman, light on specifics and posing as a strong man who can single-handily solve all our problems, as its standard bearer, a real danger exists now that the Republican Party will become a zombie party, the party of the living dead -- too weak to win the presidency but strong enough at the state level and in the House
Friday, July 22, 2016Beware the Coming Zombie Republican Apocalypse! After a primary season historical in its tumult, easily the most chaotic convention since 1968, and a smarmy conman, light on specifics and posing as a strong man who can single-handily solve all our problems, as its standard bearer, a real danger exists now that the Republican Party will become a zombie party, the party of the living dead -- too weak to win the presidency but strong enough at the state level and in the House
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Saturday, July 2, 2016
An Open-Letter to Speaker Ryan: The People's House, Really? After the Democrats staged a sit-in for gun safety, Speaker Ryan had the gall to lecture them, calling his bought-and-paid-for House "The People's House." The fact is Republican control of the House is a national scandal that involves tons of dark money and is obscenely undemocratic. Since the Republican House is very opposite of "The People's House," Ryan has no right to use the phrase.
Saturday, July 2, 2016An Open-Letter to Speaker Ryan: The People's House, Really? After the Democrats staged a sit-in for gun safety, Speaker Ryan had the gall to lecture them, calling his bought-and-paid-for House "The People's House." The fact is Republican control of the House is a national scandal that involves tons of dark money and is obscenely undemocratic. Since the Republican House is very opposite of "The People's House," Ryan has no right to use the phrase.
