A lot of white people who support Black Lives Matter have been using a slogan lately. They use it on signs, in posts, in memes, and in tweets. It is, “I understand that I will never understand, but I stand with you.” I get it. I know what it’s trying to say, that as someone…
As of January 20, 2017, Donald Trump is the President of the United States of America. To say I’m scared is an understatement. I’m terrified. Our country has had stupid presidents. We’ve had incompetent presidents. We’ve had evil presidents. This is the first time we’ve had all three in one president. That would be bad enough,…
A few days ago, someone on Twitter posted a question. They asked if putting Donald Trump in prison would help begin the healing process for our country. I don’t know why, but I decided to answer the question and said, “No. It will just fire up his base.” (Don’t worry, I’ve learned my lesson. I…
I’ve been hearing it my whole life, television rots your brain. Video games are worse. And now that we have screens, we’re doomed. Thanks to these technologies, people no longer have attention spans. People are lazy. The ability to memorize is gone. Actually, all learning and thinking is in danger. At least that’s what they…
Today is Thanksgiving, and in the interest of faking it until I make it, I want to come out of my wallow to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving. I think I can speak for Jamil when I say that we are truly grateful for everyone who has come by to read some of our work. …
This is another short chapter, but it has a lot of action in it. It starts with the thirteen dwarves, Bilbo and Gandalf climbing the Misty Mountains. It is slow going, but they start off confident and cheery. The good mood doesn’t last long. The main action of the chapter starts when they are caught…
This is the July story for the 12 stories in 12 months challenge. You may have noticed that I haven’t published one of these in a few months. Between the pandemic and starting a new job, life has just been too crazy. But, hopefully, I’m back in the groove now. This month’s prompt was “red…
First of all, I can’t quite believe my title. Impeachments should be vanishingly rare. The fact that there have been two in my lifetime is extraordinary. I was twenty-three when the House of Representatives impeached Bill Clinton. I’m forty-four as they impeach Donald Trump. It’s crazy how different the two situations feel. I know that…
You’ve probably heard people say things like the sun isn’t really yellow or the sky and ocean are not really blue. You might have heard that polar bears aren’t really white. Heck, pink doesn’t even exist. Oh, and the night sky isn’t black. There are probably more examples that I can’t think of right now….
I have a weird relationship with satire. I love the idea of it, but I rarely like satire anymore when I read it or watch it. I think there are a couple of reasons why it leaves me cold. First, it gets dated too quickly. If you watch a 20-year-old Saturday Night Live sketch about…
