Tim Barrus Blog
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Tim Barrus and the New York Times
Take notes. I get a lot of Reader Flack from readers that strenuously resent: “Why do you always have to deal with dead kids. It’s depressing us. Poor us.” I write about children I know. Having been in Special Education, I write about what I know. Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Multiple…
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Blue Ridge
The rich get richer. The poor get floods.
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Hurricane Helene
Take notes. It was Armageddon. I am still clawing out of it. Even as my neighbors are just beginning to deal with the trauma of losing everything. The tourists are pouring in. A steady stream of tourism – disaster porn – didn’t even flinch at another opportunity to see us…
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Mobsters
Take notes. The morality of losing everything (usually because someone talked) One of the recurrent themes here is organized crime. We have made the thing a little difficult for made guys in the mob to move among us. The mob has weathered bloody insurrections, federal convictions and undercover agents through…
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Tim Barrus: NC and the Pollsters
Take notes. I lie to polls. This is Appalachia. From this perspective, this piece nails North Carolina. The new NC, and the old NC. It’s difficult to get folks around here to slide into politics. It begins with a shrug. Then, we tiptoe around: I thought Trump was gonna… You’all…
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I WANT OUT OF AMERICA
You do not know me. You could never live my life. You would not survive it. I wanted to scratch one big window lined with clawmarks. I wanted him out. You can’t have him. He’s mine. The States are not safe. I don’t give a fuck what you believe. I…
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CONSTITUTION
1.) TAKE NOTES. I do not normally respond to outrage or cultural disgust. Our constitution was written by an aristocracy that was mainly Educated In Cambridge. Those were the values they carried with them. Call it cultural whiplash. 2.) Most Americans only knew there was some kind document that the…
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Tim Barrus: Despair Is All That Is Left
Take notes. “Despair, however, is not an option in medicine.” Despair is the only option there is. What I do not understand is that health insurance is still unavailable. Money. Capitalism and health care is an uneasy relationship. Instead of kicking you out into the street, they are allowed to…
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Tim Barrus: New York Times
Take notes. I have no faith. Things are worsening fast. I got my kids to another country. I am hopeful we will have a civil war. Repeat: I am hopeful we will have a civil war. The problem is that – allow me to call them the Normals – it…
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Fire Cracker
Take notes. Truly great literature is written by outsiders—the unorthodox and the nonconformist. When their careers are destroyed before they begin, we all lose. Writers privately tell us that they are concerned about the inevitable literary pablum of the coming decade. It’s already here. I live in a village in…