I have avoided posting for some time now. Not because things have been going badly — they haven’t. I feel that I am doing well, that our family is doing well. But it’s hard to post about things like travel (we spent a couple of weeks in Maine at the end of August) or the stuff we’ve been streaming and I’ve been reading (Poker Face, Wednesday — season two; the new Guy Gavriel Kay novel and Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel) when around us our nation continues its descent into hatred and chaos.
I don’t want to write about the Cheese-Doodle-In-Chief. I don’t want to write about a hopelessly compromised Supreme Court enabling our drift into authoritarianism. I don’t want to write about the hypocrisy of the right, who mocked the assassination of two political leaders in Minnesota earlier this summer but now profess outrage at all who point out that Charlie Kirk, while not deserving of his violent fate, spewed hate speech throughout his political career. I don’t want to think about, much less write about, the imperiling of American children by RFK, Jr., and his fellow quacks.
I also don’t want to write yet again about my grief. It is what it is. It will never go away. But I can live with it. I WILL write about Alex next month, on the anniversary of her passing, but for now I am not willing to go there.
So, what does that leave?
Well, how about freedom of speech?
The recent cancellation of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and the subsequent (and apparently short-lived) suspension of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, have demonstrated the fragility and the resilience of our most sacred and basic Constitutional right. Colbert and Kimmel ran afoul of the current Administration by having the gall (/sarcasm) to speak critically of the aforementioned Cheese-Doodle-In-Chief. Colbert went after him relentlessly for months, highlighting every contradiction, every ridiculous boast, every gaffe, and doing so with his characteristic wit, aplomb, and intelligence. Kimmel did much the same thing, but apparently went too far when he pointed out that Charlie Kirk’s killer, whom the MAGA right had prematurely characterized as a far-left, transgender, un-American hater of all things wholesome and patriotic, turned out to be the Mormon, gun-toting, scion of a White, Republican family.
The Cheese-Doodle wanted these men (Colbert and Kimmel) off the air, and he was willing to pressure their networks to make this happen by using the full weight of the Federal Communication Commission’s regulatory power. Think about that. The President of the United States used the power of the government to force off the air comedians who dared to criticize him. This is something one might expect to happen in Cuba or Russia, China or North Korea, Iran or Venezuela, Saudi Arabia or Myanmar. But here?
As it turns out, people in this country don’t like government censorship of the airways. Less than a week after the announcement of Kimmel’s suspension, he is set to return to late night television this week. ABC/Disney faced a growing boycott on multiple levels, including subscription cancellations and celebrities withdrawing from previously scheduled appearances. They quickly caved. CBS’s firing of Colbert seems more likely to stick, but in the wake of that firing, Colbert’s ratings, already the highest in the late-night category, surged. And last week, his show won its first Emmy Award.
It seems that when at least some of our core rights as Americans are threatened, we get our collective back up.
This, of course, has done nothing to curb the Chief Doodle’s appetite for speech suppression. In just the past few days he has called for the censorship of all network news programs that don’t pander to him. “It’s no longer free speech,” he said, speaking of networks that he perceives as too critical of his Presidency. He called such criticism “illegal.” He recently sued the New York Times for $15 billion (yes, billion, with a “b”) citing the paper’s negative coverage of his 2024 campaign. The suit was dismissed within days, but he and his lawyers are bound to try again. Late last week, the Pentagon announced new and unprecedented restrictions on press access to the military, suggesting that only Pentagon-approved access will be tolerated.
Make no mistake, First Amendment rights are under attack from this Administration on multiple fronts. We the people can fight these assaults, but as the Cheese Doodle broadens his siege against our system of government, continued resistance becomes harder and harder to maintain. That is his hope, of course. He has four years. He is waging a war of attrition, hoping and expecting to wear us down.
But why? What does he hope to gain? Why does he hate our Constitution so much? I can’t answer. I can’t imagine. Few in this country have benefited more from all society has to offer than this undeserving, talentless, incompetent, incurious, unintelligent boor of a man. Despite his many shortcomings, he is rich, famous, powerful. Why would he seek to destroy the country that has given him so much?
If you can answer, you’re smarter than I am.
And look: I wrote about him after all.
Damn.
Have a good week.
As for writing, I have still not done much at all. But that might be changing soon. There are a lot of moving parts to this development, and nothing is set in stone yet, but for fans of the 
Last weekend, at ConCarolinas, I was honored with the Polaris Award, which is given each year by the folks at Falstaff Books to a professional who has served the community and industry by mentoring young writers (young career-wise, not necessarily age-wise). I was humbled and deeply grateful. And later, it occurred to me that early in my career, I would probably have preferred a “more prestigious” award that somehow, subjectively, declared my latest novel or story “the best.” Not now. Not with this. I was, essentially, being recognized for being a good person, someone who takes time to help others. What could possibly be better than that?
Our beloved older daughter would have been thirty years old today.
Later we realized that the name was too small to contain her, too simple to encompass all that she was, all that she would grow to be. She might have been the smallest in her class, but she was smart as hell and personable, with a huge, charismatic personality. She might have been the smallest on her teams, but she was fast and savvy and utterly fearless. On the soccer pitch and in the swimming pool, she was fierce and hard-working. Size didn’t matter. She might have been the smallest on stage, but she danced with passion and joy and grace, and, when appropriate, with a smile that blazed like burning magnesium.
One time, in a soccer match against a hated rival, a player from the other team, a huge athlete nearly twice Alex’s size, grew tired of watching Alex’s back as she sped down the touchline on another break. So she fouled Alex. Hard. Slammed into her and sent her tumbling to the ground. I didn’t have time to worry about my kid. Because Alex bounced up while the ref’s whistle was still sounding, and wagged a finger at the girl. “Oh, no you don’t,” that finger-wag said. “You can’t intimidate me.”
She was effortlessly cool, like her uncle Bill — my oldest brother. And she had a wicked sense of humor. She was brilliant and beautiful. She loved to travel. She loved music and film and literature. She was passionate in her commitment to social justice. She adored her younger sister. And she was without a doubt the most courageous soul I have ever known.
When Alex was three years old, Nancy took a sabbatical semester in Quebec City, at the Université Laval. I stayed in Tennessee, where I was overseeing the construction of what would become our first home. Once Nancy found a place for them to live, I brought Alex up to her and helped the two of them settle in. In part, that meant finding a day-school for Alex so that Nancy could conduct her research. We put her in a Montessori school that seemed very nice, but was entirely French-speaking. The first morning, Alex was in tears, scared of a place she didn’t know, among people she could scarcely understand. But we knew she would love it eventually, and as young parents, we had decided this was best. So we explained to her as best we could that we would be back in a few hours, that the people there would take good care of her, and that this was something we needed for her to do. I will never forget walking away from the school, with tiny Alex standing at the window, tears streaming down her face as she waved goodbye to us. And I remember thinking then, “She is the bravest person I know.” Remember, Alex, all of three years old, didn’t speak a word of French!!
Her dauntlessness served her well on the pitch and in the pool, on stage and in the classroom. It fed an adventuresome spirit that took her to Costa Rica for a semester in high school, to the top of Mount Rainier with a summer outdoor program, to a successful four years at NYU, to Germany for part of her sophomore year in college, to Spain for all of her junior year in college, and on countless side-trips all over Europe.
She was, in short, remarkable. I loved her more than I can possibly say. I also admired her deeply. To this day, I push myself to do things that might make me uncomfortable or afraid by telling myself, “Alex would do it, and she’d want me to do it as well.”
Yet, the figures who fascinated me most during our afternoon at the museum were those of whom I’d known nothing — not even their names — before seeing the exhibit. One of them was Leah Penniman, a food justice advocate and activist whose portrait exudes warmth and joy. Her quote is wonderful and worth repeating in full:
Another was Grace Lee Boggs, an author and community organizer, who gazes out from her portrait appearing tough, frank, unwilling to put up with any BS. Her quote:
One of my favorite portraits was of a media hero of mine, PBS’s Bill Moyers. I will leave it to him to have the last word:
Clara Bartels was born in Amsterdam and came to the United States as a small child. Her father was a diamond cutter, and diamond cutters were in great demand in the diamond district of New York City. She grew up around the block from Jacques Cohen, who later in life changed the family’s last name to Coe, and whose father also was a diamond cutter who emigrated from Amsterdam. They would marry, have three kids, and then divorce, bitterly, at a time when divorce was not really something people were supposed to do.
