Dear Friend and Reader: We now have our first tangible result of full digital conditions: a Frankenstein monster of every vile or repressive political stance has been designated president-elect. A national Muslim registry? Really? Rounding up Mexicans? This has been an exhausting year. It’s been agonizing enduring the attacks on women, on darker-skinned people, on … Read more
Dear Friend and Reader: The one item I don’t remember including in any of my election coverage is that this is all happening in the midst of the Uranus-Eris conjunction, so anything is possible. Maybe I mentioned it somewhere. Uranus is the god of ‘expect the unexpected’: developments, revolutions, upsets, inventions, breakthroughs. We got one … Read more
Dear Friend and Reader: Last week the new edition of Chronogram came in. That’s the regional magazine I’ve written for every month since early 1996. Chronogram always has excellent covers which by design are unconnected to any specific article. But they are often timely comments. With one glance my jaw dropped: the artist had summed up the state of … Read more
Dear Friend and Reader: For his weekly program on Halloween eve of 1938, a young Orson Welles tried something new. For some months, his Mercury Theater on the Air had run on Columbia Broadcasting System (the CBS Radio Network) with a small listenership. On the evening of Oct. 30, they decided to try doing a science fiction … Read more
Dear Friend and Reader: Last night, Donald Trump said something that has become the lead story out of the third presidential debate: he might not accept the election results if he loses. All week long he’s been bleating about rigged elections — as if there’s some conspiracy between black people, The New York Times, Hillary Clinton, … Read more