One figure stands out in my miserable youth of fundamentalist evangelical repression as the epitome of feminism, modernity, and humanism. My aunt, Nicky. She was actually named after her father. They stuck an “ita” at the end of his masculine name and thought that would do. It just made for an ugly name. Since she hated it, too, she always went by Nicky.

She was the first woman deputy sheriff in my hometown county, Black Hawk County, Iowa. She let me hold her gun once when I was young. My parents were not into guns, so this was a big…

Folks sing a song about the hills where I’m from
It’s an exquisite tune with ideal words to strum

Written by a guest to these parts
She knew about how we don’t like

To make our problems other people’s concerns
So, I sang the line over and over

To scream its truth
To break the silence

It’s blissfully green come summer and spring.
Enough to shut my mouth about the humidity thing.

How many of us have detasseled corn?
I got the skin on my arms torn

Facts have emerged about Brett Kavanaugh’s early life and environment which show a guilty culture, if not the guilty act. We learn that he spent time with boys in high school who consumed far too much alcohol. We learn that Republican women on CNN will describe this behavior as “typical” and “common.”

What kind of fraternity was Kavanaugh in? What was its culture? During the 1980s when women began protesting sexual assault on campus with “Take Back The Night” and “No Means No,” was his fraternity building a culture of gender equality and concern for women’s safety?

We can…

See ma, no chin

Cuz now I’m thin

Watched a show yesterday

Women and girls on display

Woke up with chocolate

on the pillow

It joined caramel on my shirt

and in my hair

But I am all better

Nothing I saw affected me

Focused on fat so weighty

I handled it all fine

My feels will fall in line

I was just tired last night

Lots of people would, right?

Just like me with a mouthful

Exhausted to sleep with a handful

But I am all better

This poem came following my reaction to the documentary, Embrace, on Netflix

Five-year old Jordan Bray had two heroes. Laura Ingalls Wilder and Captain James T. Kirk. I was glued to the television to watch both of them. It sort of figures they would both die in the same Tweet thread.

First, I was alerted that William Shatner had sent out a tweet about Laura Ingalls Wilder losing her literary award named in her honor.

In light of this tweet, I thought I would approach this man who represented the “enlightened, scientific white man” who “learned from the past” about culture such that the brave exploration of new worlds was not…

Today, on Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, along with their chattering class, tried to tell liberals how wrong they are, again. Not that it isn’t a daily occurrence, but today was particularly galling. The thesis was that we have been crying wolf about authoritarianism in Nixon, Reagan, and Bush, Jr, so everyone got numb to it and became Nazis.

What they said was stupid, of course. What actually happened is that too many Americans looked at the authoritarianism that started with Nixon, and said, “Of, that’s fine.” Joe Scarborough watched Ronald Reagan preach about black welfare queens over…

You were raised to believe you are always right. You are given the most time to speak in every room — always allowed to dominate conversations. This is perhaps why you won’t let it go when I use the word Orthodoxy to describe old-guard conservatives or traditionalists in the United States. You have to tell me, “No, you are using that word incorrectly.”

Even as I write this essay, you are still lecturing me on the connotations and denotations of Orthodoxy, prattling in my ear. I’m such a foolish girl. Those people aren’t “right” or “correct” so they can’t be…

I made a sacrifice. I wanted to save the children I love more than anything from the abuse I was experiencing. It may have all been for nothing.

By taking over the parenting from my mother, I didn’t prevent my younger brothers and sister from experiencing trauma nearly as much as I hoped.

My sister was taken from my mother when she was a breastfeeding infant. You may have recently heard about this happening again. I was ten and the oldest so it didn’t affect me as severely. I have another brother who took his own life, so I would…