WordCraft: Another Brooklyn by Jacqueline Woodson

On a different planet, we could have been Lois Lane or Tarzan’s Jane or Mary Tyler Moore or Marlo Thomas. We could have thrown our hats up, twirled and smiled. We could have made it after all. We watched the shows. We knew the songs. We sang along when Mary was big-eyed and awed by […]

The Error of Trump’s Weapons-Chasing Ways

Wassup with President-elect Donald Trump’s fixation with the 80s and ramping up military spending? Even if you cast aside the confusing media cycle of Trump tweeting about how the US needs new nukes (as an aside, President Obama proposed spending $1 trillion to upgrade America’s nuclear arsenal), doubling down with a declaration to MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski and […]

Unpacking Trumpland: The Unmentioned Way Hillary Clinton Played Herself

After losing the Presidential election, Hillary Clinton and her merry band of campaign planners have blamed nearly EVERYONE for why she missed her November coronation. They blamed Huma Abedin, one of Clinton’s insiders. They blamed so-called “fake news.” The F.B.I. Self-Hating White chicks. Angry-Azz White dudes. Putin. Millennials. Think about that for a moment — […]

Unpacking Trumpland: Will He Avoid the Economic Storm Ahead?

I want to continue my thoughts from yesterday about the possibility of another economic crisis ahead and what President-elect Donald Trump could do for the poor and middle class. For starters, I’m going to state two things that will make Conservatives and Liberals cackle and become pissed — not necessarily in that order or at the same […]

Unpacking Trumpland: The Economic Storm Ahead

“And now Yellen raised the rates.” I’ll get back to the importance of Yellen in a moment. There’s so much to unpack with this blog, given the panic of fake news, the Trumpocalypse and Evil Muva Russia 2.0 — I’ll need a series of posts to cover everything. But I want to start by explaining […]

mentalunrest’s 2016 Person of the Year

I’ve decided to riff on Time Magazine and name my own Person of the Year, plus four entries for the short list. Needless to say that my take will differ a bit. 1. Vladimir Putin The Russia President changed the decades-long Neoliberal regime change machine in addition to changing the West’s entire narrative. Do a word cloud […]

WordCraft: The Performance of Becoming Human by Daniel Borzutzky

The 2016 National Book Award-winning poetry book, The Performance of Becoming Human by Daniel Borzutzky, describes a depressing and violent world of wars, societal dismemberment from the assault of free trade agreements, migrant crises, inequality, xenophobia, and dictatorial oligarchs. Borzutzky’s prescription for living in this mad world is to take on a “spiritual mission in […]

Trump May Pick Hard-Core ‘Whites Only’ Banker for Treasury Secretary

Remember Steve Mnuchin, the Goldman Sachs guy who became President-elect Donald Trump’s chief fundraising guy during this year’s campaign? He could be The Donald’s pick for Treasury Secretary. Mnuchin followed up his 17-year run as a Goldman Sachs banker — where he led the firm’s mortgage-backed trading group and also became the investment bank’s chief […]

Fidel Castro — a Different Kind of Bastard

With former Cuba President and revolutionary icon Fidel Castro’s passing, it’s a good moment to quote an insightful response US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt supposedly gave about a decade prior to Cuba’s revolution, after Roosevelt’s Secretary of State called then-Nicaragua President Anastasio Somoza Garcia a bastard: “Yes, but he’s one of our bastards.” Explains a […]

Remembering David Mancuso, Loft Lord

When placed in chains, they created spirituals that gave birth to much of the music you hear today. Gave them tough, green leaves — long thought to be degenerative cabbage shoots — and the resulting simmered collard greens they made have graced the menus of countless restaurants. Shut their writers out of the mainstream publishing […]