The Fascist Cookbook

Illustration by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter I grew up during the late sixties and early seventies when youth counterculture was king. Rock and roll, pot, LSD, free love, and political activism were all part of the scene. The country was sharply divided along political lines—just as it is now. Protests and clashes, sometimes violent, …
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Common Sense and Sensibility

Attribution: Carol M. Highsmith , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Geoff Carter At face value, it seems naive to think that twelve randomly selected citizens can put aside their beliefs and prejudices long enough to logically assess the evidence, facts, and arguments in a court of law to determine the guilt or innocence of a …
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Not One of Us

Illustration by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness…” –(The Declaration of Independence) Right. These words were written by a slave owner …
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Sticks and Stones

Artwork by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter Outspoken is hardly the word to describe former president Donald J. Trump. Neither is bombastic, ranting, raving, or loudmouthed. The nastiness and sheer animus of his discourse deserves a word with a much ruder connotation; blunt is a closer fit, but that word can imply being brutally truthful, …
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The Nine Black Riders

Illustration by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter In J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic fantasy masterpiece The Lord of the Rings, the evil lord Sauron’s minions include the nine dark riders, known as the Ringwraiths or Nazgul, former men who have been seduced by the corrupt power of the one ring who would rule them all and turned into …
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Dialogues on Right To Privacy Pirates: The War on Women

Attribution: Charles Edward Miller from Chicago, United States, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons Featuring the Fabulous Dadbots: Mark M., Mark O., Dave S., Dennis C., Paul C., and Geoff Carter I recently was answering an innocent worker survey. The first question asked for my gender and was very pc, providing about a dozen options, including …
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Kickass and News Perspective

NASA TV, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, interrupts his napping to assist the keeper in putting certain news items into relatable perspectives. The destructive blow-up of Elon Musk’s 33-engine, 394-foot-tall rocket ship, celebrated by Musk and his followers as a success, can be compared to someone in the …
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More or Less Equal Before the Law

Deval Kulshrestha, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons “We are a government of laws, not of men.”  John Adams said that.  “All men are created equal.”  Thomas Jefferson said that—in The Declaration of Independence.  Atticus Finch, in the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, said “In this country, our courts are the great levelers.” These are all fine …
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