ArcaMax

Literature fuels empathy and conversation. It can foster belonging and it can also fuel productive discourse. But only if you actually read. If you choose to opt out altogether, you only fuel ignorance, which is what the Supreme Court ruling on Mahmoud v. Taylor accomplished. Parents can now opt their children out of instruction that includes ...Read more

I remember being impressed when the Jehovah's Witnesses in the city where I lived needed a new Kingdom Hall, which is what they call their churches.

That thing got built fast, I mean in just a few days. Religiously motivated volunteer labor doesn't dog it on the job. You go to hell for that.

Down in Florida, where hurricanes are the will of ...Read more

Elon Musk warned that if Republicans passed their big domestic policy bill, he would form a new "America Party" to primary those who voted for it. He doesn't need a new party. He has his old one, the Democrats.

Many Democrats have grown to intensely dislike Musk, and they have their reasons. His prancing around with a chainsaw as he gleefully...Read more

There are so many losers and so few winners in Donald Trump's "Big, Beautiful Bill" that it's a minor miracle that, as of this writing, Republicans appear poised to pass it. I'm old enough to remember when Republicans were deficit hawks who would chafe at adding trillions of dollars to what future generations will have to spend just paying off...Read more

Independence Day occurs as this imperfect union, publicly declared on July 4, 1776, faces an existential threat. President Donald Trump daily amasses more authoritarian control, unchecked by the Republican majority in Congress and the Supreme Court's conservative supermajority. Mass arrests and deportations of immigrants accelerate, sweeping ...Read more

America's 249th birthday Friday will be no party. Call it bittersweet at best.

The guns of Gettysburg were stilled on July 4, 1863, after the Union Army whipped Robert E. Lee and Confederates brigades in a raging three-day theater of civil war.

Now somehow, without ever reading it, President Donald Trump tore up the Constitution's clear ...Read more

Don't let it be said that the superrich care only about themselves, always taking from society and giving nothing back.

Consider the generous billionaires who live on an island in Florida's Biscayne Bay. Amazon kingpin Jeff Bezos lives there, as do Ivanka Trump and her hubby, Jared Kushner. Actually, their so-called island is fake, built in ...Read more

In Woody Allen's iconic film "Annie Hall," protagonist Alvy Singer instructs his new girlfriend that our existence is divided into two categories: the horrible and, if you're really lucky, the miserable. For many Democrats who find Donald Trump and his presidency an abomination, their alternative seems a Democratic Party dominated by a base ...Read more

Zohran Mamdani seemed to hit the political jackpot in besting former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the New York City Democratic mayoral primary. Hyper commentary now portrays this once obscure state assemblyman from Queens as a political meteor.

The thing about meteors is that they burn bright for a while and then fall. Mamdani is unlikely to...Read more

The Trump administration floated an idea in recent weeks: suspending habeas corpus.

Why? Because over and over again -- including in the American Civil Liberties Union's challenge against President Donald Trump's illegal use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport people without due process -- courts hearing habeas corpus cases have stopped the ...Read more

So now all the babies born to undocumented parents in the 28 states that didn't challenge President Donald Trump's executive order will have to sue (anonymously, of course, lest this administration deport them, which it would if it could find them) to demand that the Constitution be followed in their state and get an injunction of their own. ...Read more

Whatever United States military forces may have achieved in last week's brief attack on Iranian nuclear sites -- a question that will not be answered definitively anytime soon -- we have learned again the most fundamental fact about the current occupant of the White House.

Under Donald Trump, the principal purpose of our military and ...Read more

The people have a message for the establishment: We hate you. We really, really hate you.

The upset victory of Zohran Mamdani in New York's Democratic mayoral primary -- which, in an overwhelmingly Democratic city, makes him the odds-on favorite to win the general election -- has profound implications for a national party still reeling from ...Read more

Birds are dying at an alarming rate, and it's a warning sign to humans that the quality of our environments are getting worse. Bird populations are an ecosystem indicator. The massive decline in bird species serves as our collective canary in a coal mine, an urgent reminder that what matters to birds matters to humans.

The North American Bird ...Read more

I don't burn sage because I want to purify my house. I burn cigars because they taste good. I like to burn them with a cup of black coffee or a glass of Irish whiskey.

I can box a little. I can ride a horse. I'm a fairly good shot.

So, right there, I get the serious, old-school manhood badge that so many guys cultivate with everything from ...Read more