I have some mixed feelings about the work of Cormac McCarthy, the renowned author who died this past Tuesday, June 13, at the age of 89. Chief among them is his dearth of women characters in major roles; he was a novelist very focused on (white) males. Also, his depiction of violence could get to the very edge of being gratuitous.

Still, there was a time about a dozen years ago when I became engrossed in his fiction — reading eight of his bleak novels almost consecutively and then later a ninth. Why?

Well, the guy could flat-out write — producing prose and dialog that almost felt biblical (albeit occasionally veering into near-nonsense). That writing had southern gothic Faulkner vibes early in McCarthy’s career (when his novels were mostly set in America’s south) and terse Hemingway vibes later in McCarthy’s career (when his novels were mostly set in America’s southwest…

“At some point, John Cage must have decided he was not going to be one of the world’s great composers so he invented a fallback career for himself. Perhaps it was after Arnold Schoenberg, his teacher, said he was ‘not a composer, but an inventor – of genius.’ Mr. Cage became, instead, one of the leading philosophers and wits in 20thcentury music, a man whose influence went on expanding even while his composing pretensions seemed to shrink. … These are not the titles of musical works but of books in which Mr. Cage has verbalized, with his private blend of high seriousness and sly humor, the ideas that have unchained the imaginations of so many musicians and nonmusicians in our time. There is no question but that he was a welcome and liberating influence in a time dominated by Serialism and other forms of musical strait-jacketing. I must confess that…

Only days ago, the Network for Public Education released a report on the growth of Christian nationalist charter schools. It is titled “A Sharp Turn Right: A New Breed of Charter Schools Delivers the Conservative Agenda.” Many of these charters are affiliated with the far-right Hillsdale College, and call themselves classical academies. Their goal is to indoctrinate their students into extremist political views and to teach a rose-colored version of American history.

In Texas, a charter of this stripe is applying to the State Board of Education for the fourth time, hoping that new conservative members of the board will grant them a charter.

Edward McKinley of the Houston Chronicle reports:

Last summer, the Texas State Board of Education denied for the third time an application from Heritage Classical Academy to start a charter school in Northwest Houston. Heritage will try again next week, and although very little…

The theocrats are on the march, and they won’t rest until they have overthrown the Founding Fathers’ vision of a secular republic. We used to call them “Fundamentalists,” but now they are known as “Christian nationalists” or Dominionists. Different name. Same game. Make America a Christian nation, but their kind of Christian.

The Founding Fathers had studied history. They knew that Europe had been torn apart by religious wars and religious persecution. They wanted their new nation to be free of sectarian strife. Their Constitution foot the action protected free exercise of religion while assuring that government neither favored nor disfavored any religion.

Frederick Clarkson wrote a frightening article for Salon about the determination of the evangelical right to conquer the nation for their religious views.

Their target right now, he writes, is Pennsylvania, but they are active in every state. This is ironic because Pennsylvania was founded by…

“… A spaghetti western is a subgenre of the Western film. They were most common in the 1960s and 1970s. Spaghetti westerns are typically Italian-made Western films that emerged in the mid-1960s. There is no precise definition of a spaghetti western, and it is difficult to clearly define the term as it encompasses a wide variety of approaches, themes, and tones. Spaghetti westerns are further defined by the period they were produced, usually the late 1960s to the mid-1970s. Films of this era were released, among the most notable films, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966) and Once Upon a Time in America (1984). The majority of these films were produced in Italy by directors such as Sergio Leone and Sergio Corbucci. Still, there were also significant numbers of them made in Spain, Germany, and France. The Eurospy genre also falls within these parameters and refers to European…

Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers to the press, surrenders at the U.S. Courthouse in Boston on June 28, 1971, accompanied by his wife at the time, Patricia.

“Daniel Ellsberg, a military analyst who after experiencing a sobbing antiwar epiphany on a bathroom floor made the momentous decision in 1971 to disclose a secret history of American lies and deceit in Vietnam, what came to be known as the Pentagon Papers, died on Friday at his home in Kensington, Calif., in the Bay Area. He was 92. … The disclosure of the Pentagon Papers — 7,000 government pages of damning revelations about deceptions by successive presidents who exceeded their authority, bypassed Congress and misled the American people — plunged a nation that was already wounded and divided by the war deeper into angry controversy. It led to illegal countermeasures by the White House to discredit Mr. Ellsberg, halt leaks…

Historian Heather Cox Richardson brilliantly contrasts the views of Republicans and Democrats on the role of government. Republicans want it to be as minimal as possible. Democrats want it to use its powers and resources to improve people’s lives. Understanding this difference helps illuminate why Republicans want to get rid of public schools and why billionaires like Charles Koch and Betsy DeVos support vouchers and libertarianism in a society where everyone is on their own.

Yesterday, the Republican Study Committee, a 175-member group of far-right House members, released their 2024 “Blueprint to Save America” budget plan. It calls for slashing the federal budget by raising the age at which retirees can start claiming Social Security benefits from 67 to 69, privatizing Medicare, and enacting dramatic tax cuts that will starve the federal government.

I’m actually not going to rehash the 122-page plan. Let’s take a look at the larger picture.

Florida education officials demanded that the College Board remove questions about gender identity and LGBT content from its AP Psychology course, because state law bans teaching these subjects. The College Board refused to comply because these topics are included in college-level psychology courses.

Governor Ron DeSantis, a candidate for the Republican nomination for President in 2024, opposes any teaching about these issues. At DeSantis’ behest, the Florida legislature passed a law widely known as “Don’t Say Gay.” Originally intended for K-3, its application has been extended by the State Board of Education to apply to all grades.

Ironically, Florida has one of the nation’s most vibrant gay populations, centered in South Florida, in Miami, Key West, Fort Lauderdale, and also Orlando, which just memorialized the June 12, 2016, massacre of 49 people at a gay nightclub called The Pulse. DeSantis wants everyone to pretend that gays don’t exist.

Thought control…

“SNCC: The New Abolitionists is a book by Howard Zinn that describes the early years of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and their registering of voters in the rural south. This book describes the SNCC, focusing especially on the early years. Zinn details in particular the voting registration efforts by black activists in the most recalcitrant areas of the South, as well as the federal government’s failure to support their efforts. Zinn highlighted the role of civil disobedience as a countermeasure to state repression. Martin Duberman describes this book and its reception in his biography Howard Zinn: A Life on the Left. Duberman notes that Zinn received largely positive reviews at time of publication, and he describes the book as among Zinn’s best. Duberman writes that the book is passionately argued, intense, and persuasive, though it has a few peripheral problems. Duberman critiques the non-chronological structure of…

“At a critical time in the 1960s Seattle civil rights movement, the Seattle chapter Black Panther Party (SCBPP) was an active participant in the fight for equity and justice. The chapter was founded in 1968 and was the first chapter to be located outside of Oakland, California. The first SCBPP headquarters was a storefront in the Central Area’s Madrona Neighborhood on 34th Avenue. Nearby was the home of SCBPP captain and co-captain Aaron and Elmer Dixon. When this space became too small and the national headquarters insisted that they move to a location that could be fortified, a duplex in the Squire Park neighborhood at the corner of 20th Avenue and Spruce Street became the SCBPP’s second home. The SCBPP occupied both levels of the duplex, and they made modifications to the building that allowed for more protection if necessary. The need to barricade and sandbag this location was deemed…