IMPORTANT READS

THE COHEN COLUMN--There is so much wrong with trump's big Afghanistan speech last week, where to begin?

THE MYTH OF SCARCITY-Looking at the most recent examples of our longstanding and endemic confrontations over race, ethnicity, and equal rights, we should examine the ancient and primitive roots of this continuing problem – one that causes the human species to continue underachieving its potential – yet remains intact and unaddressed. 

VOICE FROM THE CENTER--This is a somewhat extreme title. This is also an extreme situation. I've always been an advocate for liberal causes, but have pivoted as of last year. 

THE EPPERHART EXPRESS--The most famous Afghan war veteran is fictional. He is known worldwide through the stories of one of history’s best-selling authors. A former army doctor, John H. Watson was introduced to readers in A Study in Scarlet, Arthur Conan Doyle’s first work featuring detective Sherlock Holmes. 

LAYING ODDS-When I called my Vegas bookie, Vinny Baumstein, this morning to place a bet on whether Trump would finish his term, he laughingly replied, “No one is taking that debt.” The only bets are how he leaves and the date and time that Trump’s outta there. 

PERSPECTIVE--This past Tuesday, well over one hundred and fifty years since the end of the Civil War, a powerful, well-connected, well-to-do Southern white man, Missouri Governor Eric Greitens, exercised his law-given authority to stay the execution of Marcellus Williams (booking photo above), a poor black man. The reprieve was issued hours before the scheduled pumping of caustic chemicals by state officials into Williams’s body. 

OTHER WORDS-I hate to say this, but I’m starting to feel sorry for Donald Trump. He’s only been in office for half a year, and already he’s running out of Americans to attack. 

AT RANDOM-Who would have thought that a Civil War statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee would become the violent focus of hatred and the rallying point for white supremacists and neo-Nazis at this point in American history? Didn’t we bury the last of that conflict decades ago, along with the last living veteran of our bloodiest war? Not really. As William Faulkner wrote, “The past is not dead, it’s not even past.” 

RACISM REVEALED-Donald Trump is trying hard to put a pretty face on racism. But the racists, openly embracing the label, won’t let him. 

PERSPECTIVE--The American Civil War essentially ended with the retreat by General Lee’s Confederate forces from Richmond, Virginia on April 3, 1865.  Lee’s surrender at Appomattox came six days later.  The intervening week was characterized by a series of battles and skirmishes along the 90-mile route of retreat, but it was evident that effective resistance against Union forces would not be possible for much longer once the defenses of the capitol were abandoned.

GUEST WORDS—Late night’s Jimmy Kimmel makes the case …

REJECTING GROUP RIGHTS-There is a specific reason that Nazis are un-American which goes far beyond their being evil. Other countries have their own reasons for rejecting Nazism, but America has something special. Our foundational document, the Declaration of Independence, states that all men have certain inalienable rights including Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.   

PROPUBLICA REPORT--The white supremacist forces arrayed in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend — the largest gathering of its sort in at least a generation — represented a new incarnation of the white supremacy movement. Old-guard groups like the Ku Klux Klan, the Aryan Nations and the Nazi skinheads, which had long stood at the center of racist politics in America, were largely absent.

PROFILE OF A RACIST--The act of terrorism that killed one person and injured others in Charlottesville, Virginia was horrific. There will be more days like these.

FROM CHARLOTTESVILLE TO OUR OWN BACKYARDS-To address the latest act of senseless racist violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, people of good will across the country came together on Sunday, August 13 to show solidarity, trying to formulate positive actions to stop these senseless acts from occurring in the future. 

LEANING RIGHT--And to think I wanted to discuss my favorite topic--transportation and infrastructure!  But even as President Trump made a push the other day for a sweeping infrastructure executive bill, the horrific events at Charlottesville dominated his ongoing war with the press. 

The Unite the Right gathering in Charlottesville, Virginia, sputtered out because its attendees were not just racists, but because they were violent racists.  Nevertheless, their cancelled rally, and the reactions to what happened, tells us a great deal about the prospects for fascism in the United States. 

GUEST WORDS--“The bombing was long, leisurely and merciless . . .”

WE OWN THIS MAN-Friends, citizens, educators: we own this man. He is our failure. The politicians who ran on American (read: white) exceptionalism and the people who voted for them ― and his kindergarten teacher, his granny and Mr. Rogers ― all told him he was special. And then failed to tell him he was no more special than the kids on either side of him. 

VIEW FROM THE RIGHT--There are so many uncertain stories, so many unanswered questions, and so many confusing narratives after the nightmarish civil unrest in Charlottesville that it will take weeks or months to figure them all out...but two things are for certain:

One thing this past weekend's horrors in Charlottesville showed us is that that concerns about polarization and divisiveness can sometimes be a dodge from the real problems.