American Shithole #38 | Digital to IRL
We’ve seen what connecting the world can do — wonderful things with Caturdays for everyone indeed — but mostly, Facebook provides charlatans and two-bit grifters with a platform to fleece more humans in less time than ever fleeced before.
American Shithole #37 | The Redaction Game and a Farewell to a Softer, Kinder Dildo
So yeah, not quite the sendoff I gave that miserable fuck from Arizona, but it is technically the holiday season, and in the spirit of giving, I guess I’ll just leave it at that.
American Shithole #36 | The Waiting Game
I just want to know the truth.
“I’ve been sitting in the waiting room forever, doc, give it to me straight — how bad is my country?”
“I’m afraid you have late-stage four Klepto-Capitalism; it’s malignant, and left untreated, it’s terminal.”
“Any good news, doc?”
“Not really.”
American Shithole #35 — Happy Thanksgiving!
I sure would like to take December off and write about some stupid fucking British television show I absolutely love for a change.
American Shithole #34 — Perhaps This Time We Shouldn’t Forgive?
There is a part of me that wants your vote to count in a way you never imagined. I want your vote for fascism to matter. I want a fiscal rebuke of the millions of miserable idiots handing this one-man societal wrecking-ball a blank fucking check.
American Shithole #33 — Thank You, America
America will not fall to tyranny. Make no mistake, despite herculean efforts by some of the worst people in the world — sanity prevailed. The descent into Authoritarian Fascism is no longer in free-fall. We will not go gentle into that good night.
American Shithole #32 | Other People
Whatever happens, whether we are reinvigorated or crestfallen, I’m proud that so many Americans are taking a stand. I’m sorry I couldn’t take even five fucking paragraphs this week to thank you.
Thank you, other people.
American Shithole #31 | Bomb Building Basics for Simpletons
If we let Klepto-Capitalism play out to its logical conclusion, humanity will end up with only a handful of people with any real power — and at that point the cancer is beyond stage five; the cancer is incurable.
American Shithole #30 — I’m the Grinch Who Stole Halloween
So I really don’t watch anything remotely scary any more. I mean, other than the news.
American Shithole #29 | End of Act II (The Empire Struck Back)
It is quite possible now, that McConnell and the republican Senate, Ryan and the republican House, the President, his entire administration — all of them — all of them are going to get away with everything. If so, in the immortal words of C-3PO, “We’re doomed.”
Welcome to the end of Act II, America.
American Shithole #28 — Keeping Up with the Kavanaughs
“Boys will be boys,” some old, crusty bitches have said about drunk, teenage rapists — by the way, fuck you, conservative white women over 50. Seriously, fuck you. I want a new world order where you get assaulted at bridge club by wandering donkeys fed solely on Viagra.
Hey, donkeys on Viagra will be donkeys, you crusty fucking bitches.
American Shithole #27 — There’s More Room for Billionaires on a Starving Planet
Besides, the number of people clipped, side-swiped, T-boned, or completely totaled by this administration, is ever-growing. Make no mistake about it, your turn getting run over is coming — you need to vote; pretty please, with sugar on top.
American Shithole #26 — A Remarkable, Unremarkable Day
Imagine you’re standing in the middle of a busy airport. Passengers crowd past you in every direction. Looking up at the arrivals and departures; all flights are delayed. Suddenly, the entire board changes — rows and columns of numbers and letters flip with the familiar clickety-clack, clickety-clack of the old, analog displays — revealing only destinations on your bucket list, as the throngs of weary travelers part before you like the Red Sea.
That’s how I felt today.
American Shithole #25 — Can the Dying Mule Become the Butterfly?
We are still in the age of clutching things. We humans like to clutch. Our belongings, our pearls. Our ideas. Our instincts to gather and protect were selected long ago — so the idea that resource collecting is at the heart of our concerns today, is a tough pickle to swallow, compounded by the behavior’s hidden influence on all other human doctrine.
American Shithole #24 — A Love Letter to the UK, Revisited
I penned this genuine, heartfelt love letter to the United Kingdom in the summer of 2016, quite possibly hours after the news of the Brexit vote broke. America followed suit a few months later, by instructing the world to "hold my beer."
American Shithole #23 — Burn in Hell, Motherfucker (Adios, John McCain)
“You’ve been off the grid for two months after collapsing from stress; are you really going to come back now and revisit a languishing column, just to trash a dead war hero?”
It seems so, yes.
American Shithole #22 — FLOTUS, She Wrote (Us)
I do feel emptiness sometimes, in a way I have never felt it before, when I reflect on how much rage this presidency instills in me. The Yang of a terrible Yin, I suppose. I’ve never experienced the desire for revenge, the way I want for it now.
American Shithole #21 — Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III: Feckless Runt
I know there are some liberals out there that have been hanging on to the idea that if progressives just get a little quieter, the problem will go away. I love you, but no, it won’t. You need to get angry, motivated, and involved.
American Shithole #20 — Vacations, Part One: Camping Is For Masochists
It’s not a vacation if what you are doing is indistinguishable from survival training. Preparing for the coming apocalypse by eating baked beans straight out of a can is not a vacation.
American Shithole #19 — 500 Days of Bummer
Healthier people are unfortunately happier people; and happy people don’t fear the bogeyman. For obscene wealth inequality to work, billionaires need lots of bogeymen — and of course, lots of terrified poor people.
Anxiety is the thing that’s ripped our country apart. It has divided us, caused us to fear and hate those who think and live differently than us, and even caused us to hate those who only slightly disagree with us. It has led to panic and overreaction. And I worry that American Anxiety is only going to exacerbate the social and political divide in this country to the point that there is no coming back.