Robert Oppenheimer, a leader among the scientists who directed the production of the first nuclear weapons, likened the first test to an experience of Armageddon. He and his fellows actually had a betting pool as to whether the atmosphere would ignite as a result of the detonation. In order to insure the political viability of the infant “Military Industrial Complex,” the U.S. spread the components of the Manhattan Project all over the nation. By the early 1980’s, however, except for...

Passions and Fashions, as the World Crashes and Thrashes WE ALL PAY ATTENTION, BUT TO DIFFERENT THINGS When my friend Samara called me today, she began by saying, “I called to say you were right.” She laughed. “There, that’s out of the way.” What she really called to discuss---I knew since I had been savoring this chance for “I told you so” since she left me a message last week---was how freaked she had been since her Shiite Iraqi husband had returned to the Fallujah area, to try to ...

“The Time Has Come to Take a Stand” THE LIFE OF THE SOUTH ALIVE IN ONE WOMAN’S TALE She was eight years old, forty five years ago, when she dropped the bag of cotton she was picking from her shoulder and declaimed to her mother, “Mama, when I grow up I’m gonna get me an education.” The coterie of her eleven brothers and sisters who were present paused to listen as their middle sister continued, “And I’m gonna learn to make money with my brain.” And as they all laughed in approval, ...

Rise Up Children, Your Parents Will Follow THE PRISON SYSTEM, THE SCHOOL SYSTEM, THE WHOLE FUCKING SOCIAL SYSTEM IS ROTTEN This is not the BLOGessay I intended to post. I had a series of four environmental issues and environmental heroes pieces all planned out surrounding Earth Day tomorrow. I nearly posted a similar piece, as this has turned out to be, last week, about unfortunately typical vicious stupidity in Alabama’s schools, as usual promulgated by the State. A Birmingham ‘a...

Evolution, Revolution, & an Invocation of a Consciousness Convolution Necessary for Survival MAY DAY REFLECTIONS FOR APOCALYPSE AVOIDANCE “We all start out as scientists,” Carl Sagan once stated, “every child born to discover the world anew in repeated shocks of awe and wonder,” akin to the scientist’s routine countenance of nature and her cosmic glory. I experience the privilege each day of repeating this amazement at even the most common occurrences. “I’m Atlanta’s cheapest date,”...

Theft and Deception Among the Deaf of Perception WHY BUSH’S REELECTION IS IMPOSSIBLE This is not to say that George W. Bush might not end up President, or that someone with equal elements of sleaze and butchery could not take his place. I mean, we ought to be clear: the American public should have a ‘once burned, twice shy’ attitude toward the thief currently in the White House. This group plied their way to power with cheating and lies the last time, after all. Anyone in doubt shou...

A Slug in the Neck and a Slug in the Back for the Crime of Being Frightened While Black GEORGIA IS A ‘RAISIN IN THE SUN’ READY TO POP! THIS IS A FIRST INSTALLMENT. I AM FINDING MY WAY HERE. I INTEND TO GIVE SOME OF THE INCREDIBLE PEOPLE WHO HAVE PRIVILEGED ME, WITH THEIR PRESENCE IN MYLIFE, A SPOT OF SOME SORT IN THE CULTURAL PANTHEON. THESE WILL OCCASIONALLY BE JUST “OCCASIONAL” EXPLORATIONS OF CHARACTER AND EVENT. OTHER TIMES, HOWEVER, AND THIS IS THE FIRST OF MY POSTINGS FO...

LET’S ABOLISH IMMIGRATION LAWS An Initial Salvo in an Interminable Argument This is my position, and I’m sticking to it until someone can present good reasons for thinking otherwise, as opposed to using bigotry and bad science to support continuation of vicious, universally harmful, and ultimately unenforceable laws. The following tale, basically a modestly expanded anecdote, came to me one evening a year ago, as a neighbor accosted me about helping him with his English. Bottle of T...

The news filtered in as Rick and I said hello this morning before our weekly update, that, down the street from where we conversed over coffee, a masked gunman had just robbed the local Wachovia. Only a few diehards among us would disagree that the perpetrator of this crime belongs in prison. What about my friend Rick, who two months ago, after ten years “on the wagon,” culminated a three month beer-to-vodka binge by sideswiping a shopper’s car in a suburban Atlanta parking lot and then h...