Roy Moore, the Republican running for U.S. Senate in Alabama, has now been accused of sexually molesting a 14-year-old girl and engaging in inappropriate relationships with other underage girls. None of the women making the accusations were looking for fame or revenge or even justice. They were sought out by a hardworking reporter from the …
Give anyone enough time and they will break your heart. I am a southerner. I live in Denver now, but I spent the first 21 years of my life in Mississippi. I first read Joyce Carol Oates’s short story, “How I Contemplated the World from the Detroit House of Correction and Began My Life Over …
I was raised in a home with guns. My father had hunting rifles, the kind you might use to shoot a deer or a squirrel. He used his to shoot both, though he hunted less and less as I grew older. In later years he used one of those rifles to shoot a snake that …
Take one late summer cold virus. Stir in a generous helping of all the following symptoms: sneezing, runny nose, coughing, congestion, headache, backache, fever, exhaustion. Add copious amounts of unpronounceable over-the-counter medications: pseudoephedrine, dextromethorphan, diphenhydramine, guaifenesin, phenylephrine bitartrate, aspirin. For added fun, examine labels and research drug interactions while peering through dirty reading glasses. You are …
America is engaged in a longtime, painful power struggle. Thurgood Marshall, our first African-American Supreme Court Justice, was sworn in by Justice Hugo Black, a former member of the KKK. We elevated a Klan member to the highest court in the land almost 30 years before we offered the position to a black man. And …
This weekend my home state held its annual Mississippi Book Festival. I didn’t go. It’s a long way from Denver to Jackson, but my mother gave me a full report. She told me Ellen Gilchrist was super funny and charming at the morning session. No surprise. She told me about young adult author Angie Thomas …
My husband and I spent the better part of this week paddling our kayaks across several Colorado mountain lakes. It was blissful. We spent hours disconnected from the world, but we couldn’t completely tune out. When we came back to our rental unit in the evenings, we were stunned by the reports and images of …
I won’t shed a tear for the demise of the Sessions-Trump bromance. They were an odd couple from day one, joined together by a shared hatred for brown people with foreign accents and outdated ideas about drug enforcement. Bad policy is not enough to sustain a longterm love affair. If Sessions is removed from office—and I …
Warning: It’s not a pretty picture. I’m worried about Sarah Huckabee Sanders. She seems to have no moral center. Sanders has been the White House’s water carrier for the president’s cruel and misogynistic attacks on women. It makes sense to turn to her. Can you imagine Sean Spicer trying to defend the latest round of tweets? …
Last week I wrote a blog post about hypocrisy. It struck a nerve. Most of my posts get fewer than 100 views. When a post edges up over 200 views, I celebrate. In the first few days, “You Said This Was What You Wanted” registered nearly 40,000 views. My website crashed and crashed again. The last …