Mike Johnson appeared blasé over concerns that Donald Trump is using his presidential power to help line his pockets, arguing that, unlike Joe Biden, the president does ‘everything out in the open.’ —— The Independent, May 25, 2025 1 This
Crime
The Return of Trumplodyte
It is astonishing to watch how events during the past three weeks have conspired to make Donald Trump’s victory in November seem certain. But they say the darkest hour is just before dawn. On June 27, there was President Biden’s catastrophically
Gratitude for My Violent Act
1 From the age of four until around my tenth birthday, my commute from the suburbs to my London school was at least an hour and a half each way. The coach, meaning a single-deck bus, ground through stop-and-start traffic along the non-postcard
Sisyphus
Something terrible is always happening around the world. Many of us living in peaceful places can’t help but wonder at our good fortune while we seek to understand what has gone so wrong elsewhere. 1 Two mornings a week on my ninth floor terrace,
Neely and Penny: What Do We Know?
The other day, a friend was sitting in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park with a friend when a friend of the friend appeared. Somehow a recent incident came up. On May 1, a 24-year-old, white ex-marine named Daniel Penny put a thirty-year-old black man named
The Maligned City
Lately, members of my Zoom writing group, most of whom live in the western United States, have been dumping on New York City. One has created a character who deems New Yorkers rude and always insisting on having the last word. Another cited the Kitty