Why Can a Cop Shoot Someone in the Back Seven Times If I Could Be Fired Just for Losing My Temper?
I went to my local farmer’s market here in the north woods of Wisconsin, feeling happy for the beautiful day and the chance to be support...
Sep 1, 20202 min read


Roll Call for Those Absent
Click and think of all the extra names to add since this came out: (And of course please support the fantastic work of Ambrose Akinmusere.)
Jun 5, 20201 min read
Experiments in Defining the ”Spiritual But Not Religious”
Like all too many aspects of polling about religions and secularisms, the discourse about "spiritual" is largely broken. It registers...
Apr 30, 20209 min read
Injecting Beach or Ingesting It?—Trump as Prosperity Gospel Quack
Although we've already gone with Alice through the looking glass by pursuing this question [that is, ingest or inject bleach] at all, I will explain why the distinction matters and what it may teach us about Trumpism. And I think I have the answer for you if you read on! You're welcome!
Apr 25, 20204 min read


The Death of My Old Hometown: Sucking Out the Wealth, Filling the Gap with Fecal Pollution
Last summer, on a road trip from Minneapolis to Kansas City, I passed through a town in Iowa where I lived from age two to five. Here is a picture. I have limited memories from these years, and most of these are filtered through home movies that I watched later or stories my father told me about his first job there as a Lutheran minister. But I have a strong impression that the town, named Williams, was intact and reasonably thriving—not unlike a nearby town named Kanawha wh
Apr 21, 20206 min read


Coronavirus, the Shock Doctrine, and Four Questions About Where We Go From Here
Without strong Democratic leadership, without mass protest, and with the economy so disrupted that I become confused as to how strikes...
Apr 19, 20205 min read