ArcaMax

I had to buy birthday presents for my wife. Her birthday was last week.

I'm not bad at present buying. I specialize in scarves, perfume and jewelry. None of those items come in a specific size, so there's less room for error.

This year, I took a jump off earth's flattest edge and bought her a sweater. It fit, too, and she liked the color, so ...Read more

I've got a little list.

It's a list of the places I go most often.

I live in a town of 88,000 in southeastern Massachusetts. I go to the same places all the time, and because I'm not what anyone ever called "sophisticated," they're mostly small, unfashionable places.

Work, which is a small radio station. Five different diners because I like ...Read more

The city where I live, an undistinguished place in Massachusetts, is getting ready to build a replica of the Vietnam Wall in Washington, D.C. It is a thing keenly desired by the population, most of whom make less that $30,000 a year, which is a hell of a lot less in Massachusetts than it is in Georgia.

It's an old city. We have a monument to ...Read more

If we can't chant it, we don't want it.

Doesn't rhyme. Doesn't have to. It's too long anyway.

Like "Yankees Suck" or "Sieg Heil," what you want in a chant is brevity. If possible, two words, maybe three words.

"Couldn't arrest him because he's a sitting president," can't be chanted, so it's no good.

"Lock her up!" Now, there's a chant. It'...Read more

Let's start out by putting a floor under this column.

I was raised to believe that you did not wear the American flag as clothing. The reason my teachers and my parents gave me was that if you had an American flag on your T-shirt, you would eventually spill gravy on the flag. Just as bad, sooner or later, your flag T-shirt would end up in the ...Read more

I had a pickup truck. Her bloodline is not important, though I will say she was a 2001 and white in color.

Her name was Evangeline. I'm of French descent, and all my vehicles have French female names. Suzanne. Therese. Suzette.

And Evangeline, who last week would no longer start and so was towed away as junk.

These last few years, her air ...Read more

"Some of us are illegal, and some are not wanted,

Our work contract's out and we have to move on;

Six hundred miles to the Mexican border,

They chase us like outlaws, like rustlers, like thieves."

--"Deportee" by Woody Guthrie

Woody Guthrie, by God, that Commie Okie, the troubadour of the Dust Bowl. It was Woody who gave me the ...Read more

As the election slouches rudely toward the Russian-monitored polling place in your town, there is much to be argued.

But...

Quit arguing about Hillary Clinton going to jail. She's not going to jail. Bill Clinton's not going to jail. They're not going to be locked up.

No matter how convoluted your math, Mexico isn't paying for the border wall,...Read more

As I have written before, groundhogs live in my yard.

They're fat, furry, graceless, beaver-faced things and they live well in and out of their hole, feasting, not just on what grows, but on birdseed that's fallen from our bird feeder, and food thrown to them from the second-story window by my wife, Deborah. I think they also eat some of the ...Read more

The United States of America has always traded with Britain, though sometimes it was less of a formal trade, and more of a swap.

We stole our whole country from the British, and they invaded us in 1812. But, we sent Americans to help Britain in two world wars. Call it even.

They sent us The Beatles. We sent them The Doors. Even.

They sent us ...Read more

I heard Robert Mueller's statement on Wednesday, sitting in front of a dead microphone in the studio of WSAR, an AM radio station in Somerset, Massachusetts. I do a talk radio show four days a week.

Just before the 11 a.m. break, during a commercial, our newsman stuck his head on the door and told us he'd switch to the live feed of Mueller at ...Read more

I've been Trumped, obstructed, Korea-ed, Iran-ed, Alabama-ed and Mueller-ed nearly to death in the last few months, just like any newspaper columnist whose weekly column isn't titled "Gardening Tips From Rose" or "Church Doings."

I've spent 36 years in the Trade of Despair, as I call what some people call journalism, and I've sounded the alarm ...Read more