Andre's Executive Order

On 9/11, Americans remember the tragedy that redefined our understanding of modern conflict. We remember the people who died in the twin towers. We remember the passengers on the planes and the brave men and women who brought down one of them before it hit the Pentagon. We remember the firefighters and first responders and brave citizens of New York City who stepped into all that chaos and death to try to find anyone who had survived and help someone. Anyone. Those who were not close to ground zero wrestled with our shock, our grief, our disbelief and the rising swell of empathy and compassion that drove us to want to contribute, to donate, to even travel if necessary and be a part of the national effort to handle this unprecedented event. As someone who spends much of his time saturated in politics and current events, 9/11 marks another turning point that would have almost as dark implications as the attack, itself. The attacks on the World Trade Center cast the first stone in w...

If you're white, you're racist. If you're like me and you read that or hear it, what's the first thing that goes through your mind? Anger? 'Oh fuck you...'  Is it surprise? "Whoa... what the hell man?" How about defensiveness. "Not if I can help it. Not that I know of." Or maybe dismissively vague. "Well everyone is a little, right?" There's an article in the Atlantic concerning the role of race and the current Administration. It's a long article to listen to or read (you have both options), but it's engaging and beautifully written. It's the first article in a long time that I've really felt left me understanding the deeper framework under which we're struggling in our politics and social battles today. Let me digress... One of the hardest things in my life has been coming to terms with how much of who I am and how I am that has nothing to do with my conscious choices. Sure, I made conscious choices...

No matter how much lipstick you see on a collar, or strange perfume you catch on a shirt, there is part of us that always holds out hope that the evidence we see hinting towards something awful is wrong; A hope that despite the signs, the underlying message is different. But when you walk in on the cheating couple, that hope is removed and even though you might have strongly suspected infidelity the whole time, something about getting absolute knowledge still hits like a hammer. Yesterday, we got that absolute confirmation: Our president is an unapologetic and soul-deep racist who believes his inner circle is above the law. Joe Arpaio - The Tyrant of Arizona Sheriff Arpaio has a long and sordid history in Arizona, the kind of history you would think would horrify any reasonable person including unconstitutional jail living conditions, failure to investigate sexual assault cases, misuse of funds, abuse of power, election law violations, and even a staged...

The tricky part about critiquing late stage capitalist consumerism isn't thinking about it, it's talking about it. We live in a world that can no longer afford it's costs, consequences, and horrific toll on most participants but people have been living with this particular cancer for so long that they can't see any suggestion to the contrary as anything but communism. So we recoil from the conversation. Yet here we stand, sinking up to our throats in a thick slime of uncontrolled income disparity, poverty, diminishing opportunity capped with climate change placing an impending need on us to pull together if we're going to survive as a species. But like a pretty flame, we paw at the false promise of unrestricted wealth heedless of the burns it inflicts on almost everyone who touches it. It lures millions into impoverished complacency; men and woman spending meager incomes month to month in hopes that eventually their 'temporary' fina...