Meatball Ron is doing it again.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, America’s Republican fascist frontrunner, has instituted educational guidelines in his toilet of a state that require educators to talk about the “personal benefit” of slavery to the enslaved.
When pressed by reporters, DeSantis sputtered, “They’re probably going to show that some of the folks that eventually parlayed, you know, being a blacksmith into doing things later in life.”
Continue reading “How Hateful Can One Man Be?”
If you ever wonder what this country will look like if Republicans win the White House in 2024, look no further than Florida.
Under Gov. Ron DeSantis, the “Sunshine State” has earned a new nickname: “The Hate State.”
DeSantis, trying to pave the way for his own presidential run and backed by a Republican supermajority that knows no shame, has passed a series of measures more befitting a banana republic.
He’s banned abortion, books, and health care for trans people.
He even approved a bill in which health care workers can now refuse care to patients whose lives violate their beliefs.
Continue reading “Florida: America’s Fascist Future”
New England Comics shuttered its Cambridge store on Sunday.
A mainstay of Harvard Square for more than 30 years, the store closed because of a precipitous decline in foot traffic in this post-pandemic era.
Despite its proximity to Harvard University, the store was no longer profitable.
I had been a customer almost as long as the store was open.
Continue reading “Sanctuary Lost”
Never meet your heroes.
You’re bound to be disappointed.
Isn’t that what we are told?
But years ago, while working for the Fishrag That Shall Not Be Named, I got the chance to interview Kevin Conroy.
Continue reading “Forever Our Dark Knight”
There have been many books about the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Doubtless there will be many more to come.
But you will be hard-pressed to find one more visceral, more frightening, more damning that Michael Fanone’s “Hold the Line: The Insurrection and One Cop’s Battle for America’s Soul.”
Fanone, in video footage of that day seen round the world, was a Metropolitan Police Department officer defending the Capitol when the angry mob of Trump supporters yanked him out of the building and almost killed him.
He was repeatedly Tased, beaten with a Blue Lives Matter flagpole, and kicked.
Continue reading “Can America ‘Hold the Line’?”
Mark Perigard 