The book is out. The title is Tomorrow as Tribute: The Politics of the Burnt Future. It is available in paperback, in Kindle, and as a free web edition through David Boles Books. The audiobook is in production with narrator selection underway. The web edition is free because I want the argument to circulate as widely as possible.
The commands arrive early. They arrive in childhood, in the voices of parents and teachers and coaches and older relatives, and they are delivered with the same authority as instructions about traffic and hot stoves. Cry later. Hold it in. Do not show your emotions. Do not embarrass us. Be strong. Be brave. Be a man. There will be time for that later. Not here. Not now. Not in front of people.
Content Note: This book contains accounts of suicide, suicidal crisis, and the deaths of family members, friends, and companion animals. Part Five includes detailed accounts of suicidal ideation and completed suicide. If you or someone you know is experiencing a mental health crisis, the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is available 24/7 by phone or text at 988. The Crisis Text Line is available by texting HOME to 741741.
Continue reading → Cry Later: The Culture That Taught You Not to Grieve
The American Great Plains have produced a literary tradition as vast and complex as the landscape itself. Nebraska, with its braided rivers and endless horizons, stands at the heart of this tradition, having shaped some of the nation’s most distinctive literary voices. From the rolling Sandhills to the fossil-rich badlands, from pioneer settlements to Native American territories, the state’s diverse geography has inspired equally diverse literary responses. This study examines six Nebraska authors who transformed their regional experiences into enduring art: Willa Cather, Mari Sandoz, John G. Neihardt, Loren Eiseley, Wright Morris, and Bess Streeter Aldrich. Each brought a unique perspective to bear on the Nebraska experience, from Cather’s lyrical immigrant sagas to Sandoz’s unflinching historical accounts, from Neihardt’s spiritual epics to Eiseley’s paleontological meditations, from Morris’s photographic existentialism to Aldrich’s domestic chronicles.
Continue reading → The Braided Prairie: Six Nebraskan Literary Voices on Land, Life, and Legacy
Today, let’s offer some friendly advice to the Democrat nominee nation based on the results of the first debate, and inspired by things to watch for in the upcoming second debate. First, I was born in the middle of the country surrounded by waves of Republicans. I currently work on the East Coast and on the West Coast — and a lot of Democrats pay me a lot of money. I have experience flipping on both sides of this national dime, and the Democrat Party has a long way to go to defeat an anachronistic, charismatic, President who feasts on the gruel of the worst in humanity.
Children are some of the most vulnerable in society. They are trusting by default and unaware by necessity of nature. Popular culture and the Arts are filled with the sexual exploitation of, and the aggrieved results of, unattended children in peril with no one to protect their best interests except, oftentimes, their grooming predators.
Continue reading → Predators, Children and Sexual Prevarication
Have you heard about “microaggressions” that come in the form of “microassaults” and “microinsults” and “microinvalidations?” You may not know those totems of pain by their formal names, but I’m certain, at times in your life, you’ve felt their sting and, perhaps, even employed a few of them.
Continue reading → Microaggressions: Microassaults, Microinsults and Microinvalidations
Sheryl Sandberg sure knows how to make a headline. First, she wanted young women to “LEAN IN” and now she wants us to all stop using the word “Bossy” to describe the behavior of some young women because that word somehow destroys their inner need to tell people what to do.
Continue reading → Little Miss Bossy Pants and the Incongruity of Expectation
Growing up in the Midwest, there was a yearly visit to the State Fair that — during my childhood, at least — was always tempered with a tremendous terror.
For many months, there was a story in the newspaper about a young boy who visited the Nebraska State Fair in Lincoln and then disappeared. He was continuously searched for on the Fairgrounds and communities in the area would get together and search other pockets of the city so the boy might be found.
A long while later, the boy’s decomposing body was discovered stuffed inside an empty train tank car in a faraway town. The thinking at the time was that the boy had run into a carnival worker — a Carny — and something horrible happened and the boy was killed and stuffed, and sealed, into the tank out of convenience since the railroad ran straight through the Fairgrounds.
Continue reading → The Modern Fairway Carny: Itinerant Street Vendors
We all like to belong — and when we are told we are no longer part of the core, there is concern that something grander has been lost in the translation between being being and living.
Our building Super recently told me that he’s surprised we’ve lived here so long — rented so long — because we “don’t fit” in the building or in our neighborhood.
I told him I found that an odd statement to make because we have never been late on the rent, we have lived here for over 12 years, and we have never made a single complaint about anyone or requested any sort of maintenance from the landlord.
I have been following the saga of Paula Deen as she tries to answer cries against her obvious, inbred, Racism, and her multiplicity of firings from many companies as spokesmodel for their brands. Do we want to punish Bigots and Racists by removing them from the public eye? Or do we want them to be heard, so they can be forced into public recantations and corrections? Slate magazine creates this interesting take on the problem of Paula Deen:
Paula Deen is America’s racist grandma, and we should treat her as such. Racist Grandma may be racist, but she’s also your grandma. You can’t just disown her.
And, contrary to what some might think, having a racist grandma isn’t entirely bad. No doubt there are many white families where racism is passed down generation to generation like some cancerous gene. But for others, seeing that gene and knowing you’re predisposed to it is a warning sign, a nagging reminder to take preventive measures for yourself. I say let’s push racist Grandma back to center stage and let her keep talking.
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