Rich People Have Agency

Take notes. I am a radical. Not a democrat. Not a republican. There are no independents. They employ the same political and cultural infrastructure – how things work – that the rest of us are compelled to use. Climate: Not a word. It’s the Trump go to for climate change,…

Next Flight Out

Take notes. After I put my kids on the flight out of America, and all the crying had slightly ebbed, I had to sit in the airport for about an hour because I could not get up. I knew I had done the right thing. America is just not a…

Tim Barrus, New York Times

Take notes. When you add up all the actuarial  elements for a homo sapiens who is overweight, the numbers do not lie. The chances that a 78-year-old male will not be with us is ten percent. The story doesn’t end there. The chances that a 78-year-old overweight male with a…

Tim Barrus New York Times

Take notes. Gay men have formed a survivor’s group that is about older men who survived AIDS. And the AIDS era. Which has not ended. The group is angry with me for questioning the tenet of the tenets. The rule that life is always worth living because it’s life. Living…

Tim Barrus, New York Times

Take notes. This article is frenetic. That is not a criticism. Publishing is frenetic. The Leapfrogging Around Effect, from this and that, trading office space, is reflecting a publishing story where publishing insiders hop and skip around publication to publication. Job to job. Money is important, but it’s rude so…

Shawn Mendes

Take notes. People demand to know if Shawn is gay. These are the people who will make him pay for it. His fan base is mainly composed of fifteen-year-old girls. There’s a lot of anecdotals attached to Shawn. I hear a lot of: No One Cares If He’s Gay. That…

Tim Barrus: Year of the Hyena

Tim Barrus: Year of the Hyena

A Division Laid Bare

Take notes. The graphic implies a civil war. It’s in your face. The image works, but not alongside the writing of this particular article. Soltis-Anderson is kinda perky, and very informed. The juxtaposition of the flag, with its message that we are undone, is a whole world away from the…

Anita Hill, Dignified

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/28/opinion/kamala-harris-dignity.html#permid=137174224 Take notes. Dignity in the face of screaming rage. By someone who has been burned before. This was very well written. I could never get into the whole nonviolent affect that speaks to us of calm. Calm is a problem. Anita Hill is pointing to a bigger issue. Her…

DEMENTIA

Take notes. Many of the Boomers with HIV are now elderly. HIV/AIDS affects many of the body’s organ systems, including the brain and nervous system. HIV infection actually makes its way to the brain early in the disease process. HIV encephalopathy is an infection spread throughout the brain. The greater…

North Korea

Take notes. I would like to know what was said in those phone calls to the Kremlin. Is contacting the leader of a country we are at war with even legal. I forgot. There is nothing treasonous about calling up a really close, close friend. I forgot. Illegal is a…

Your Mouth

the last time I touched your soft lips with my fingers/ you put those fingers in your mouth/ tasting dreams/ but by the wind grieved, ghost/ we wrote that book together/ the ice machine was just outside the room/ it sounded like the USS Enterprise/ smoking ass/ but you cannot…

Ross Douthat’s Catholicism is Subordination

Take notes. There is no god. There is no Jesus. There is no heaven. There are no wing rentals for Victoria’s Secret Angels. There are no angels. There are no gates. There is no sane theology. There never was a virgin Mary. Jesus did not walk on water. When Ross…

NO MORE BABIES

History is history. Repeating it is what homo sapiens sapiens do. Take notes. I have been listening to the whole Let Us Have More Babies And More Babies. So that we can keep the status quo of growth at all costs, development at all costs, overcrowding at all costs, environmental…

Tim Barrus, New York Times

Take notes. Great piece. I knew we were in trouble when the Hurricane blew the front door off. I live at the top of a mountain in the Appalachian Blue Ridge. I have survived 22 hurricanes. But nothing like this one. The water was coming at us sideways. There was…

Tim Barrus: New York Times

Take notes. “But voters still trust his positions more than his opponent’s.” Don’t tell me. Show me. I do not believe it. There’s a different standard for showing, and clinging to a narrative that is dubious at best. How do we know that Americans trust Trump more. Where are the…

Tim Barrus: New York Times

Take notes. Thank you for one very well-written piece. I did think that the issue of violent rhetoric was glossed over. This happens in journalism when one is trying to sound somewhat objective in relationship to how political considerations enter into the focus of how big is this dragon. That…

Mister Potato Head

I do not look back much. It has saved my ass. I wish book publishing would  stop what with the reader has to meet the writer thing. I just don’t get it. Why can’t the reader identify that thing they have for delving into what happened during your divorce. I…

Tim Barrus: Let’s Get Rid of SCOTUS

Take notes. There are two  Americas. The rich tribe. And the poor tribe. Nothing of significance in between. The senate is the rich guys. They never go down without a blood feud. The House of Representatives is also with the rich guys. They do go down regularly. The bottom is…

Blue Ridge

The rich get richer. The poor get floods.

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…

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…

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…

Tim Barrus: Book Art

Tim Barrus: The Great American Novel

Tim Barrus: The Great American Novel A Novel In A Novel