My father liked to say that no one ever buries a son-of-a-bitch. What he meant was that no matter how awful someone is in life, people will praise him when he dies. It’s generally true, but the world is a weird place right now. Roger Stone recently took to Twitter and Instagram to air his noxious opinions upon the death of Barbara Bush. Look, however you feel about the Bush family, Barbara is hardly the villain. And yet, here’s Stone just…
Fox News host Laura Ingraham is all about the First Amendment these days. It’s kind of refreshing to see her shift her attentions from the Second Amendment, which was all she could talk about a couple of weeks ago when she lashed out at survivors of a mass shooting. Ingraham lobbed a vicious and irrelevant personal attack on high school student David Hogg. Hogg responded by calling for a boycott of Ingraham’s advertisers. After about a dozen companies pulled their…
Roseanne and Jesus Christ Superstar I was a college student in Cleveland, Mississippi when Roseanne premiered in 1988. My friends and I watched it most weeks. We thought it was funny and irreverent. I particularly loved Jackie, played by the talented Laurie Metcalf. Jackie was always searching for something better—a better job, a better boyfriend, a better life. We were supposed to see Roseanne as the more well-adjusted sibling. After all, she owned a home and she was married with…
What if Trump had married a woman like Stormy Daniels? I don’t mean to suggest he should have married a porn star, but what if he’d married a woman who would sit beside him and watch a Shark Week marathon on television? Can you imagine Melania watching Sharknado? I can’t. Trump marries models and actresses, but he seems to prefer the company of porn stars and Playboy bunnies. No wonder he’s so angry and frustrated. No wonder he is such a…
I spent the past week traveling through my home state of Mississippi. I read from my latest novel at bookstores in Oxford, Greenwood, and Jackson, before heading to New Orleans for the Tennessee Williams Festival. My mother and my husband stuck with me through Mississippi, but I am on my own in New Orleans. I don’t mind traveling alone. When you explore a city on your own, you can do it any way you please. And it’s a good way…
Quick note: Starting tomorrow, March 15, I will be reading and signing copies of my new novel, The Past is Never, at bookstores including The Tattered Cover (Denver), Off Square Books (Oxford, MS), Turnrow Books (Greenwood, MS), and Lemuria Books (Jackson, MS). I’ll be on a panel at the Tennessee Williams Festival in New Orleans on March 24. You can see the full schedule in the sidebar on my website and I’ll update this information frequently. Please come and say hello….
The current White House is shedding staff faster than my cat sheds fur. Gary Cohn announced his resignation this week. The stated reason? Tariffs. Cohn believes the steel and aluminum tariffs being pushed through by the president are bad for America. Most economic experts agree with Cohn, but this is not a president who listens to experts. Perhaps that is why Jared Kushner retains his job even though he cannot get a proper security clearance and he is unqualified to…
Ivanka Trump has an identity problem. Ivanka got testy when asked whether she believes the women who have accused the president of sexual harassment and assault. “I think it’s a pretty inappropriate question to ask a daughter if she believes the accusers of her father when he’s affirmatively stated there’s no truth to it,” she said. “I don’t think that’s a question you would have asked many other daughters.” What Ivanka needs to understand is that no one wants to…
In yesterday’s town hall meeting about gun violence, the NRA’s Dana Loesch called the Douglas school shooter “crazy” and an “insane monster.” These aren’t clinical terms, of course. Loesch isn’t a mental health professional. It is possible this teenager might have benefited from better mental health screenings and intervention, but Loesch isn’t qualified to judge. Anyway it can take months to get an appointment with a therapist. You can buy a gun in an afternoon. Loesch argued that all we…
The word ‘unwitting’ is trending right now thanks to a set of indictments and reports from the Mueller investigation proving that Russians worked to sway the outcome of the 2016 presidential election in Trump’s favor. Russian operatives apparently infiltrated the Trump campaign by engaging with unwitting aides. That word—unwitting—is the one the administration has embraced as proof they did nothing wrong. It isn’t proof of anything like that. A person who is unwitting lacks knowledge or intent or both, but ignorance is…