The Dismantling of the White Race

I have delayed writing this for some time. Sadly, the time to say it has never proved impertinent. I worry about saying it only because I worry about getting over-my-skis, speaking beyond my knowledge. But the fact is, a certain imperative has been rolling over and over and over in my head for the last several months. And with each tumble in my brain, the conviction becomes surer. We must dismantle the White Race.

Trump Dump

This blog post is unnecessary. Its utility is questionable at best. And it’s certainly not timely. The absurdity and offense of the Trump administration have already been scrutinized, exposited and critiqued by millions of people better-equipped than me. There are a thousand articles from reputable outlets on why Trump is, was and forever will be unfit for the highest office in this country and no one needs a bloggy think-piece from me saying so. But I need it. I need to lance this boil and lay out for my own satisfaction why Donald Trump is the worst president in history.

Legalize Immigration: America’s Past is Its Only Future

There is a crisis at the southern border of the United States. There has been one sprawling back decades. It is a humanitarian crisis. Almost everyone agrees on that point if not with the addendum “and national security.” Yet while the current administration ponders perplexingly inhuman solutions to human problems, and other politicos spin their wheels, I the ordinary civilian cannot understand why we are not meeting this crisis in the exact same way we have met it before.

The Prophet Kaepernick

It was in our face the entire time. Colin Kaepernick on a knee. Silent, he fixed his eyes on the American flag as the national anthem played. Millions of U.S. citizen eyeballs stared back at him, many indignant. It was an old dance, a dramatic reenactment of an ancient stalemate. Kaepernick certainly isn’t the first prophet calling an idolatrous nation to repentance for generational sins. As the cacophony builds around his catalytic act, will America still be able to hear the call?

Electing Trump: The Rural Vote

I have lived through 10 presidential elections, five as an eligible voter, but this year is the first I sat before a TV on that night. Like a lot of people, I watched islands of blue floating in seas of red in Michigan and Wisconsin. I went to bed in resignation. I woke up to a battlefront I had not heard articulated so pointedly since I was a minor: the country versus the city. Rural America had voted for an aberrant candidate. That angle dominated the Wednesday morning news coverage and knocked my thoughts back to my home town. It is just one of millions of rural American voices, but its story has something to contribute to the thousands of explanations for the election of Donald Trump.

Album Review: Disintegrator by Daniel Markham

For the past four years, Daniel Markham has been establishing himself as a serious artist in DFW. Disintegrator is the third of a trio of albums in that span and another stone Markham has laid in a musical career that continues to impress. It validates Markham’s status as an excellent songwriter and serves as a marker of a promising trajectory.

Album Review: SVIIB by School of Seven Bells

We now have a coda for a band we knew for not quite a decade. Alejandra Deheza is alone at its helm, her friend, muse and collaborator of nine years, Benjamin Curtis, having died at the age of 35. The band’s final chapter, SVIIB, is both a diary and eulogy of love.