This morning, Monday morning, March 29, 2021, I woke up in Castiglion Fiorentino as usual and was still thinking about a column I published on Salon.com just over fifteen years ago titled, “What’s the Best Method for a Painless Suicide?”. I still to this day receive an occasional letter about that column, both from people who find solace in it and people who call me mean names...
This is not an advice column. This is commentary. Robert Aaron Long, 21 years old, of Woodstock, Georgia, was arrested Tuesday in the murders of eight people, six of whom were women of Asian descent working in massage parlors. Initial media reports indicated that he claimed he did it because he was a sex addict. Sex addiction is not a trivial matter. But right now his claim feels like a...
How do you reach a point where your conscience is overwhelming and you must make the leap?
How do you get to that point?
… where the conscience … blooms, and all the fear subsides, and the conscience floods the spirit, floods the mind, floods the brain, and gives one the courage to just do the right thing. Just fucking do the right thing!”
Full podcast:
NOTE: This is my podcast made the day after the the January 6 2021 attempted insurrection. On the podcast I get the date wrong; I say it’s January 7, 2020. I think that is because, as you can hear, my voice is still hoarse, as I was just three weeks out of my five-week stay in San Donato hospital in Arezzo, Italy after my catastrophic illness. NOTE: This is my podcast made the day...
Being a poll worker was one of the best things I’ve ever done. If you’ve ever thought about doing it, here’s my advice: Give it a shot! Poll workers were under attack four years ago and they’ll be under attack this election too. It’s a hard, complicated, sometimes boring but wonderfullly rewarding experience. Democracy doesn’t work without poll workers...
Dear Cary, I am a 67-year-old bald white man who wears glasses. Recently, I’ve been around people who assume that because I look like Mitch McConnell, I think like Mitch McConnell. I don’t look THAT much like a GOP senator, but… you get the idea. It’s very sad to have spent a lot of my adult life working against racism and get lumped in with the KKK and the GOP. I...
Every now and then in his reality show called “The President,” Donald Trump tries a gag that fails. The idea probably came to him in the wee hours when he stews and sweats and tweets. It had a glow, it felt right, the idea of getting up there with a goddam Bible on the church steps, shaking that Bible at people like a stick, that Bible must have looked good to him, this square black bomb made of...
Tears come out of my eyes and wet my cheeks and go into my mouth and taste salty. I watch Atlanta’s mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms tell the citizens of Atlanta to go home and I get it. This is no way to blah blah blah I get it, I hear the reason born of pain and oppression and I get it but I would be there too, wouldn’t I, if I were there. I would also be feeling that enough is enough, fuck it, burn...
I have lived so long with America, with its promise and its shame, with its beauty and its tragedy. I have lived so long now with America’s numbness to its own pain, its impotence, its blindness to its own shame and its own crimes. I have lived so long with this! I am in tears! I am in tears with all the rest of us who have lived with this for so long and have protested and written and spoken and...
A classic column from TUESDAY, SEP 27, 2005 It’s political, it’s personal — I just wanna clobber the people in charge! Dear Cary, I have an emotional problem. I walk around with a rage inside me that I don’t know how to address. I fantasize about things that, were I to describe them to you, I would be visited by black-suited men at my apartment one night and, if not taken away, at least...
#NetNeutrality is an issue that will affect every single person here. It is not a partisan issue. We will never go back to a free internet.
— Kumail Nanjiani (@kumailn) November 21, 2017
I want to quickly share one simple response to the shock, fear and heartbreak my friends are feeling in the U.S. as a result of the recent election. I should be working on the novel, or the Finishing School book, but this is important to me. In my personal quest to let go of attachment, that means all attachment. I must let go of the illusion of power, the lust for control over people and...
Hi Cary, Something new is happening and I honestly feel like I’m in a corner. Politically I am liberal. I am also atheist. And I consider myself a very tolerant and accepting person. I will, for example accept that your favorite flavor of ice cream is vanilla, and that you say you love it, while mine is tiramisu. But, if you say vanilla is absolutely, without a doubt the best flavor, not to...
[button link=”mailto:[email protected]” newwindow=”yes”] Write for Advice[/button] He’s a Vietnam vet and a retired civil servant. Now his mind’s been warped by Fox News! He’s gone Obama-nuts! (Cary’s classic column from WEDNESDAY, MAY 19, 2010) Dear Cary, I am writing because I am feeling more and more estranged from my father in the last few years, and I would like...
Journalists are like firemen. They aren’t needed all the time. But when they’re needed, they’re needed fast and you need a lot of them. They have to do a lot of things all at once. And it helps if they know each other too, so they don’t fall all over each other and make a mess. I think the San Francisco City College closure threat makes it clear what happens when a city...