In Ohio, this Tuesday, voters in a special election will decide on a scammy state constitutional amendment. “Are you sick of constitutional amendments? Vote yes on Issue 1 and you won’t have to put up with them anymore!” Issue 1 makes the process of amending our state constitution significantly harder. Since 1851, proposed amendments to our constitution needed a simple majority to pass. Issue 1 would up the required majority to 60%. If you take supporters’ word for it, shadowy interest groups from outside the state have set their eyes on Ohio and our big, beautiful constitution. “They” seek to shred it so as to turn us into another Democratic shithole like Chicago or California. We need a special instance of living constitutionalism to protect the original intent of the constitution (or something).
Nathan Osborne
It’s Coming for Us All
“Don’t talk to me about mental illness! Anyone who does something like that is just a coward!” I was at the park, walking my dog. Excepting my dog, I was the lone solitary walker. Huddled groups of twos and threes trampled the blacktop. The mostly geriatric crews traded thoughts on yesterday’s slaughter in Uvalde, Texas. Some comforted each other, Most traded justifications or vows of revenge. The air was bad; bloodlust hacked from many wrinkled throats. I feared going to work. On days like these in retail, with all the displaced anger, the rituals of hierarchical debasement get worse. I felt horror at the unspeakable, mundane child murders in Texas. But I couldn’t understand the crack about cowardice. It seemed like there were two competing braveries – the world-destroying violence of the shooter, almost certainly consigning himself to death. And the teachers acting as human shields – the parents who literally broke the hold of the cops to run in and rescue their babies.
Do the Wrong Thing
As though, for the first time I saw my country
And, with a pang of recognition, knew
It is all mine and nothing can divide us
It is my soul, it is my body, too
Iris Dement, “From An Airplane”
Everyone’s lost their damn minds. Americans stalk their local chain stores or Arby’s—once thought neutral ground—with an insatiable need to talk politics. Usually in the most asinine and conspiratorial ways.
Towards A Tragic View of Darren Beattie
Few things shock me anymore. And I’m the worse for it. But leave it to an ex-Trump speechwriter to find a way. A think piece from Revolver was making the rounds on Fox News and into the living rooms of a million Americans. In it, one Darren Beattie critically examined court proceedings for some of the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrectionists. He noticed some defendants had yet to be charged. From this, he conjectured that these unnamed people are FBI agents, and that the entire day was an inside job.
First In, Last Out: A Year of Retail Mask Mandates
In mid-May, the CDC revised its guidelines on masks. Vaccinated individuals could go maskless both indoors and out. The news came on the tail end of a long shift at my retail job. We’d strictly enforced the mandate since last May. It felt like, mid-fight, the enemy combatants had called out from their opposing trench that the war was over. Maskless customers filtered in throughout the evening. Without word from On High, the battle was over. And that battle had been about more than just public health.
Rittenhouse, Homegrown Fascism & the Midwest Consensus
Kyle Rittenhouse scares me in part because I don’t understand him. He isn’t like the racist or incel mass shooters of recent memory.
Notes on Being Down But Not Out with Hip-Hop
The author of this piece wrote it before the killing of George Floyd. (See his postscript on that score below.) Osborne notes “recent real-world events take precedence over bitching about good or bad rappers.” Your editor takes Osborne’s point but his act of imagination isn’t out of time. His refusal to buy into ugly images of black men is, in its sweet way, a contribution to the struggle against real killer cops.
The Pharisee and the Coronavirus
I’ve been thinking about the Old Testament prophets lately. I distrust end-is-nigh-ism; that “end” is often just the destruction of some solipsistic fantasy. Life goes on in whatever seemingly hobbled form. The fundamentalists I grew up with understood those OT doom-sayers quite literally. The surreal omens promised a real-world destruction always five minutes from a moment exactly like now. But that now never comes.
Letter to an Editor: On NYRB’s “Liberal in Trump Land”
Your editor linked Nathan Osborne to this recent piece in New York Review of Books detailing a liberal local journalist’s experience in an upstate New York town full of Trump fans. Osborne replied as follows…
Sad Memes and the Limits of Radical Brokenness
r/2meirl4meirl is a “subreddit”[1] devoted to sad memes. People commiserate there in short blasts of image and text on how lonely and shitty life as a Millennial is.
Sympathy for BeYelzebub
The best line from Jesus is King, Kanye’s new gospel album, comes halfway though its brief 28 minutes. “I thought the book of Job was a job.” It’s classic Ye—self-deprecating, stupid-corny (in a fun way), and a little sad. It’s honest about the cause of his recent hard times: himself. Five years ago he was claiming celebrities are the new slaves. I think processing that in good faith made us all a little stupider. His candor now is refreshing.
Big Thief: Not Another Brooklyn Band
Big Thief is an alt-folk band from Brooklyn, but their spirit isn’t tied to that place. Usually, “Brooklyn band,” scares me off.
Future’s So Bright I Need VR Goggles
I still feel the hunger after all these years. The pangs spark at the strangest times—as attention wanes at co-worker’s oft-told story; ascent 302 of the thousand times I climb my apartment staircase, moments of confusion amidst a girl’s mixed signals. I want to go back to that safe, warm, strong place of my childhood. I want to play video games again.
Back to the Future
First is reposting (below) what Nathan Osborne wrote in November 2017 after the mass shootings in Las Vegas and Sutherland Springs.
Dreams Fade Into the Everblue: Lori McKenna’s Bygone Humanism
“Here is what I know” is the first line of “A Mother Never Rests,” the opening track off country singer Lori McKenna’s latest LP. “Even when she’s sleeping she’s still dreaming about you”–her voice is weary yet sure of wisdoms both received and earned. McKenna dives into the laundry-list of domestic chores and anxieties expected of a mother in red-state America.