Gil Scott-Heron died on Friday, and that is a sad, sad sentence to write. If you are familiar with his music, then you know what I’m talking about; and if you’re not, you can begin to remedy that by following the links in this essay. (Listen to the beautiful “Rivers of My Fathers” from 1974’s …
The world didn’t end yesterday (unless the next world includes a bus from New York to Philadelphia equipped with the electrical outlets and wifi that enabled me to write this essay). Yes, I’ve been on the road all spring, a condition that tends to impair my ability to focus on a single topic long enough …
I’m watching the Death-of-Bin-Laden blogs unfurl, and my mind keeps wandering away from them. Instant reactions to the news drop like petals from a dying flower as new information emerges: was Bin Laden armed? Was torture used to find his whereabouts? The whole process seems designed to calibrate some precise reading of responsibility and righteousness, …