Ben Sen would be the first to find his obituary a joke.

After a battle for a number of years with life, trying always to embrace it in spite of himself, he finally contracted a disease that gave him no choice in the matter.

His death was announced by dear friends who… Read full post »

    Have you ever seen a movie about the political infighting that went on during the protest movement in the 60's?

     I never have.  Or perhaps there was another and I have forgotten.

     That's what this movie is about.&n… Read full post »

     The journal FOREIGN AFFAIRS published the piece that said Obama's greatest mistake was not visiting Israel during his first term.  It posed the question without answering: If he had done in Israel what he did in the Arab nations would there have been an Is… Read full post »

     If you ask Google: What percentage of Americans own guns?  The first answer you get is that Americans comprise 5 per cent of the world's population, yet own 50 per cent of the guns.

     That says a lot about us as a nation.  The history is… Read full post »

    I started blogging on Salon during the primaries in '08.  Before that I was a journalist who once had a card that said, "As long as it's in English," to introduce myself.

     Salon had a system where they gave you a "star" if they recommended a commen… Read full post »

     Obama won his first term by a fluke, premised by the moral outrage at the sordid nature of the Bush presidency.  It brought out the young, and the idealistic, taking the old guard by surprise.

     His second term is an entirely different matter. … Read full post »

     The GOP will sweep, with the exception of the Pennsylvania Senate race, where substance will win out over another pretty face.

    You think my tongue is wobbling in my cheek?  I saw Nixon, who turned out to be a paranoid, win promoting a war tha… Read full post »

 I met Joan Walsh on Salon via her column during the primaries in '08.  Sides were being taken.  She and I stuck with Hillary while she was under assault (Joan, not to mention Hillary) from all sides, but increasingly by the feverish "Obamatons" who took no prisoners.

   … Read full post »

     Detropia is a combination of the word "Detroit" and "dystopia" as invented by Rachel Grady, director of this documentary.  Dystopia is defined as "an imaginary place which is depressingly wretched and whose people lead a fearful existence."  That's been true of Detr… Read full post »

 Your only purpose here is to block and bring down the site.  Go away.

To Jacob Sugarman, Editor:  Your absence from this discussion makes you conspicious.  We now know dozens of us have been trying to contact you and you have not responded publically or privately.&nbs… Read full post »

Their only purpose is to destroy OS.  Stop the Live Feeds Now.

Add your comment or name below if you agree.  I'll see to it that management receives it. Read full post »

    I had a dialogue, so to speak, with a hothead on OS about why people vote or don't.

     She or he had enough of the lies and manipulations of politicians so they weren't going to feel forced to vote.  They'd had enough of everybody telling t… Read full post »

     No, it's not Spiderman, or Batman. It's not even based on a comic book.  No, it's not Prometheus, the year's biggest disappointment, or Bernie, the funniest.

    Beasts of the Southern Wild is a movie starring an eight years old girl by/… Read full post »

I'm not a known writer, not even half known.  The safe bet is I'll die that way, but don't count the money yet.

I split words the way the bomb splits atoms and quit being ashamed of it long  ago.  I list and dig through facts seeking the shit at the bottom of t… Read full post »

Disclosure:  I've known Bob Koehler, author of COURAGE GROWS STRONG AT THE WOUND for over forty years.  He and his sister Sue used to live down the hall in college and we spent time together in front of the Post Office in Kalamazoo, Mi. lettin' 'em know we didn't like a… Read full post »

_{Joan Walsh's book is now available from John Wiley and Sons.}    

 I met Joan Walsh on Salon via her column during the primaries in '08.  Sides were being taken.  She and I stuck with Hillary while she was under assault (Joan, not to mention Hillary) from all si/… Read full post »

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Not for distribution                       Reader Discretion Advised

(The following is the opening chapter of a novel, another excerpt, and t… Read full post »

     My father died when I was in my early 40's.  He'd been sick for over a decade so every time we saw him we thought it would be the last--until one year it finally was.

     His was the "closest" death I'd known so it still took me by surprise. … Read full post »

You walk into the bay filled with giggling bathers splashing water at one another.

It's a nice day, like in the brochure, the sun shines, the club packed with fresh guests and lots of rum.

Why are they all congregated here?  Why not go where nobody can see them?  Where they can be… Read full post »

This is the time of year she'd take a drive on a Saturday morning by herself.  I don't know where the place was, but she knew it from days gone by.

It was her job, nobody elses, all those springs after the snow melted and the dirt in the cement pots on the walls and… Read full post »

 ^{Rilke: If you are capable of living without writing, don't be a writer.}   

    On trips hitchhiking through Europe in college, whenever they picked me up in France and asked what I did, my answer was "Je suis un ecrivain." (I am a writer.)  It was the fir/… Read full post »

     What a relief to find a contemporary, incredibly informed writer who is not in the grips of the prevailing ideologies, and actually provides analysis.  I "discovered" Tony Judt hiding in plain sight in the pages of the New York Review of Books.

     I… Read full post »

     I was born with an Irish surname.  It's the kind of name they give black cops in the movies as a joke.  On St. Pat's Day my father and grandfather left the house with their green ties flapping in the frosty Michigan March wind and felt the-luck-a-the-… Read full post »

     I come from what will be called, if it is not already, the "crossover" generation.  My father went to college, my mother did not.  That was also true of my grandparents.  While my mother worked on and off between children until my father was… Read full post »

The following is a guest post from my friend Mercedes Arnao.  I hope my OS friends will welcome her.  Ben Sen 

     A few weeks ago my boyfriend and I decided to have a quiet Sunday. He retreated to the candle lit bathroom where he soaked in a tub of hot… Read full post »