Blog
The political novel: 1
Writers write about political subjects all the time—Henry James wrote about the place of women in late nineteenth century England, and Charles Dickens wrote about the legal system and the poor in the nineteenth century, William Faulkner wrote about black people in the...
The truth comes out
We learn things. On October 26, 2016 researchers released the results of their study into the way that HIV/AIDS came to America. They find that it came from Africa by way of the Caribbean, it landed first in New York by 1970, and it spread to San Francisco by 1976....
The UK, dealing with the painful past
We will get to the place where the President, the Congress, the courts, and the people of the US will acknowledge the fact that the nation has abused gay people. They will apologize for it, and then they’ll pay reparations. Because this is what Americans do. But this...
Michelle Obama in New Hampshire today
If you haven’t seen or read it, here is where you can find Michelle Obama’s speech today in New Hampshire. Video here. Text here. I would suppose you already know what she said. It has been widely covered in the press. But there are some speeches so important that...
RIP Tom Britt
In 1957, when we were students at a school in Tennessee (I was eighteen), students understood that it was against the law to engage in same-sex sex. You could be arrested, tried, and convicted and sentenced to imprisonment for a felony. What I think we were more...
Staying and leaving
Rachel Maddow, last night: “Are the demonstrators free to leave [the area of confrontation]?” The NBC News reporter in Charlotte, NC, Tammy Leitner, “Absolutely. They are free to leave. They are choosing to stay here and engage with the riot police.” Well, no. If you...
9/11 The vast spaces of memory
Two things today. Esquire has re-published the article by Tom Junod, “The Falling Man,” which was originally published in Esquire on September 2003 about a photograph, also called “The Falling Man,” of a man falling from the North Tower of the World Trade Center...
Standing for the anthem
At the Olympic Games in 1968 in Mexico City Tommie Smith and John Carlos, who had won the gold and bronze medals in the 100 meter track event, raised their clenched fists during the US national anthem. Everybody understood them to be giving the Black Power salute....
Winter Rain (2)
Winter Rain is a story of kindness, of grief, of a person’s not being able to tell for certain what he or she is or what has happened, and yet it’s a story of a person’s need to go on. This is a book about people who live tough lives. Respect has to be paid. It is a...
Winter Rain
When he came up out of the ground, he hunched his shoulders and ran into the rain (it was all in his face) across the street to a bar. "A double.” He looked at his watch. He sat on the edge of the stool, more standing than sitting, took two quick sips, looked down...
It is with humility, determination, and boundless confidence
That's what she said. And so, my friends, it is with humility, determination, and boundless confidence in Ameria's promise, that I accept your nomination for president of the United States. —Hillary Clinton, Acceptance Speech, the Democratic National Convention,...
Beginning notes toward answering the question, “OK, where are we?”
Chris Hayes is said to have said, “Great political theatre,” just after Bernie Sanders proposed that the nomination of Hillary Rodham Clinton be accepted by the convention and just after the roll call of states was concluded. But it was much more than that. As Andrea...
It’s a new day!
I don’t know of anything so deeply moving as to be here, now, in front of the TV, at 5:46 in the afternoon on July 26, 2016, watching the roll call of states as the assembled delegates from the Democratic Party in the United States cast their votes, one state after...
Going down to the sea
When we’re in Provincetown, staying with our friend, Ed Stewart, we get into town by walking through the cemetery at Winslow Road and Jerome Smith Road, which holds mainly nineteenth century graves. Ed says it is “cemetery #2” because it is not the oldest one in town....
And I alone am escaped to tell thee
Elie Wiesel, who died this week, said in his Nobel Prize speech, “I have tried to keep memory alive […] I have tried to fight those who would forget. Because if we forget, we are guilty, we are accomplices.” But it’s worse than that. If we forget what has happened to...
Way down, way up, Pride
Monday, tomorrow, is the forty-seventh anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, and today is the forty-sixth Gay Pride Parade in New York. Two-and-a-half million people watched last year’s parade, and organizers expect at least that many today. Click here for information...
Two Men Kissing
#TwoMenKissing
Loving and fighting in Copley Square
It was one of those surpassingly beautiful scenes in late spring in New England—the sun gone now, the sky at dusk beyond the buildings still glowing white, and the people, residents of Boston, slowing down in crossing Copley Square and joining the group of men and...
Derek, on Pride Day 1984
Derek is an actor, in Maine for summer stock in the summer of 1984, when a young gay man named Bernie Mallett was murdered by three homophobic teenagers. Bernie’s murder changes the lives of LGBTQ people in Maine—the town is called Cardiff—and makes just about...
Present pride in Boston
Last night, Rachel Maddow interviewed Elizabeth Warren. Warren endorsed Hillary Clinton for the Presidency and, toward the end of her comments, spoke of Clinton’s character and what she has shown through the long primary fight. (counter 8:00) She won because she’s a...