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Civility, Integrity, Moral Example, and Other Quaint Notions
The Sinema affair at Arizona State University was a minor kerfuffle that nonetheless illustrates Joe Biden's penchant for speaking off...

David Matthews
Oct 13, 20216 min read
Scribblerus Interruptus
I take a break from half-baked cogitation and its attendant scribbling about surrealism and me, or some such, to recommend a recently...

David Matthews
Sep 20, 20215 min read
Biden Awry
I give Joe Biden generally good marks for the early days of a presidency that faced multiple crises from the moment he took the oath of...

David Matthews
Aug 23, 20219 min read
The Wisconsin Boulder Affair
Students at the University of Wisconsin struck a resounding blow against racism with their successful campaign to remove a 42-ton boulder...

David Matthews
Aug 13, 20215 min read
The Fire This Time
Kenneth Rexroth wrote that James Baldwin's book The Fire Next Time (1963) "is designed to make white liberals feel terribly guilty and to...

David Matthews
Jun 30, 202111 min read
Nikole Hannah-Jones, the 1619 Project, and Academic Freedom
In April the University of North Carolina's Hussman School of Journalism and Media announced that Nikole Hannah-Jones would join its...

David Matthews
Jun 7, 202112 min read
The Israeli Peace Movement, Palestinian Nonviolent Activism, and What They Are Up Against
News coverage of Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank tends to focus on Hamas raining rockets down on Israel and Israel in turn bombing the...

David Matthews
May 31, 202112 min read
Liz Cheney and the Urgency of the Moment
Liz Cheney and I share little common ground. For the most part a vast chasm lies between us. Cheney contributed to the authoritarian...

David Matthews
May 12, 20213 min read
Untimely thoughts prompted by the Chauvin verdict; and sundry digressions
The jury's verdict of guilty on all counts in the Derek Chauvin trial should have come as no surprise. The prosecution had a strong case...

David Matthews
Apr 29, 20217 min read
A Spirit of Inquisition
In a spirit of inquisition the puritan left roots out heretics who are insufficiently woke. In that same spirit the MAGA faithful wage...

David Matthews
Mar 23, 202115 min read
Pleasant weather brings out the blockheads
Last night a mob spray-painted grafitti, smashed windows, and set fires at the Mark Hatfield Federal Courthouse in downtown Portland in...

David Matthews
Mar 12, 20212 min read
The rush to a foregone conclusion
The Hound of Heaven is on its own trail, and the vestige still lures the scent of a foregone conclusion. —Benjamin Paul Blood. Blood...

David Matthews
Feb 13, 20216 min read
Republican deadenders, impeachment, and that pesky conservative value personal responsibility
Today I picked up a mystery set in Belfast in 1982. It opens with the discovery of a torso, chopped off at shoulders and knees, stuffed...

David Matthews
Jan 30, 20216 min read
Meanwhile, back in Portland, plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose
Yesterday our nihilists celebrated the inauguration of Joe Biden by attacking police and vandalizing Democratic Party of Oregon...

David Matthews
Jan 21, 20211 min read
With lightened heart but no illusion about what lies ahead
I ran the Wednesday seven after taking in the inauguration of our new president. The morning was cold, 33 degrees when I set out a little...

David Matthews
Jan 21, 20212 min read
The aftermath of Wednesday's insurrection 48 hours on
President-elect Joe Biden and a host of voices from the commentariat and punditocracy have joined me in dubbing Wednesday's assault on...

David Matthews
Jan 9, 20219 min read
A few thoughts about today's events
Optimism is not my default setting. I expected violence in the streets of Washington DC today and a lot of horse manure to be shoveled by...

David Matthews
Jan 7, 20213 min read
Beyond absurdity
The longer Trump's election farce drags on, the more anxious I become. Yes, farce : [from the verb; or from farcer, French, to mock.] A...

David Matthews
Nov 20, 20204 min read
Very deep divisions: within the country...and within the Democratic Party
High anxiety in the days following the election eased somewhat when Pennsylvania was called for Joe Biden while I was out on the Saturday...

David Matthews
Nov 11, 202011 min read
Not the time to lay down this burden
Last night went not as I hoped but as I feared. I indulged in wishful thinking that Biden might win in decisive fashion and the Democrats...

David Matthews
Nov 5, 20204 min read
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