From the Left

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Politics

Toora Loora Loora

From the Left / Marc Munroe Dion /

Sure, and it's a little St. Paddy's Day story from my grandmother.

She was Irish American herself, and in her childhood, there were a great many people in her life who had come from Ireland.

"If you said Ireland was a bad country, they'd fight you in the street," she said of the Irish immigrants. "But if you got a bunch of them together, no ...Read more

On the Road

From the Left / Marc Munroe Dion /

It's Newt Night. Frog Fest. Salamanderpalooza.

The temperature is brushing up against 50 where I live, and it's been drizzling for a couple of days.

And so, the amphibians, the goggle-eyed, slightly slimy dwellers in marsh, swamp, creek, pond, slough, and sluggish, shaded stream, are making their way to the spring pools where they lay their ...Read more

We're Getting the Band Back Together

From the Left / Marc Munroe Dion /

I don't live in the kind of city that gets Lady Gaga live for one night, or Taylor Swift.

I live in the kind of city that gets a Journey tribute band that sounds just like Journey if you're drunk. Sometimes, at some limping, underfunded civic event, we get a band that still has one of the original band members from the days of their greatest ...Read more

I Was Country Before Beyonce Was Country

From the Left / Marc Munroe Dion /

The old man's idea of paradise is inertia.

Right now, there's an old woman looking sadly out the window of her apartment, seeing the vacant store where the "good" bakery was, or the kosher deli, or the bar with the neon shamrock in the window. The Dominicans and Haitians who moved into the neighborhood didn't have much use for those places. ...Read more

Crying Over Spilt Beer

From the Left / Marc Munroe Dion /

There's probably still a bar that uses the old beer schooners. Maybe in Chicago or Topeka or Bemidji, one of those towns with a flair for the traditional, for ethnic sausages and casseroles and good barbecue.

The schooner, if you remember, is a beer glass with a wide base, then a thick glass stem that suddenly blossoms out into a heavy glass ...Read more

Sexual Notes From the Debate Team

From the Left / Marc Munroe Dion /

Like high school itself, high school sports are the unimportant masquerading as the hugely significant.

Every time an adult told high school me that "these are the best years of your life," I used to pray the guy was wrong.

He was.

And I liked high school. My parents got along. We lived indoors. I usually had a girlfriend.

But, bedazzled ...Read more

Manhood as a Game

From the Left / Marc Munroe Dion /

So, let me get this straight. You DO want to see muscular men in tight pants play football. You do NOT want to look at Taylor Swift.

This, you tell me, is manliness. You tell me that right before you begin sobbing into your hanky.

There's a lot of beauty in manhood, and a lot of ugliness. The beauty is the guy working two jobs because he's ...Read more

Ooh That Smell

From the Left / Marc Munroe Dion /

My wife, who worked at a desk 13 feet away from me in the newsroom, noticed it first.

"The parking lot of the Walmart reeks of weed," she said. "I mean all the time. In the afternoon, in the morning, at night."

"Sometimes, even inside." she said.

A few months later, she reported back from a local grocery store.

"Not in front of the Stop & ...Read more

Throwing Me at Donald Trump

From the Left / Marc Munroe Dion /

I'm a reasonable man. I do not raise my voice to my wife. If you cut me off on the highway, I do not make rude hand gestures. I do not roll my eyes and sigh if there are other people in line at the grocery store.

So, of course, I don't support former President Donald Trump. He is not a reasonable man, he believes and says unreasonable things,...Read more

Lights at the End of Day

From the Left / Marc Munroe Dion /

Understand. I live in an urban area full of old multifamily homes and Hyundai sedans with duct tape on the upholstery.

This means that my small, northeastern city looks best at dusk. In the full black of night, it seems dangerous. In bright sunlight, it's too harshly lit, and the sunlight picks out every flattened cigarette butt in the gutter...Read more

Trump Is Innocent Until Proven Guilty

From the Left / Marc Munroe Dion /

Former President Donald Trump is innocent of directing, fomenting, encouraging or concocting an insurrection.

He is innocent of these things until he is found guilty. This is because, in America, you are innocent until proven guilty, one of the facts I retain from a civics class taught by an assistant basketball coach.

That's a weird thing for...Read more

Statues Have Limitations

From the Left / Marc Munroe Dion /

Being an American of working-class origins, I've lived most of my life among people who say "statue of limitations" instead of "statute of limitations." That's OK. I always know what they mean, and the main purpose of language is for us to know what the person we're talking to wants to say.

I've also lived a lot of my life among statues ...Read more

Questioning the Bible

From the Left / Marc Munroe Dion /

Luke 2: 8-14

And there were in the same country (Which country? Open border or closed? Communist or Socialist?) shepherds (Agricultural laborers. Were they legal?) abiding in the field (In the field? Were they homeless? Part of a caravan?), keeping watch over their flock ("their" flock? One flock? Several shepherds? Sounds Communist if they ...Read more

 

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