I’ve bounced around from job to job over the last few years, but I recently landed a position with the Partnership for Strong Communities which I think will be a really good fit for me in the long term. One of my responsibilities at my job is to attend meetings as a representative of PSC….
Today is my son’s 11th birthday. I celebrated by looking up whether life insurance policies pay out in the case of suicide. I cried silently in the back seat on the ride into work this morning, but thought to myself, “Hold it together for now. You have to walk past the Bushnell to get to…
A few days ago I posted a video on Facebook of Robert Mueller, former director of the FBI and currently the special counsel investigating the Trump Administration. In the video, Mueller is giving a speech about the future of the FBI as a counterterrorism force. Of course, the word “future” is a relative term. The…
*This essay is strictly about the anime, not the manga. If anyone says, “But in the manga…” I will come to your house and punch you. As I did a little research for this essay, I searched for science fiction anime recommendations and checked the first five results. There were almost sixty different anime recommended…
When I learned that Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon after he resigned, I was angry. It seemed like a very clear example of the powerful and politically connected getting off without punishment. The Mueller investigation of President Trump has given me an occasion to think more about that decision, and where we find ourselves politically…
“My sister is always talking about God and heaven and how Jesus has a mansion waiting for us after we die, so I asked her: if heaven is so great, what’s the point of living here on earth?” she said. “Let’s just cut to the chase,” I responded. “What’s the point of living, period?” That’s…
My name is Jam Stunna. I was born Jamil Rashad Ragland on October 21st, 1985. Names are a funny thing, because they determine so much of who you are and how the world relates to you, yet you have almost no say in picking your name. Your parents say, “You’re a Jamil,” so I’m a…
I cried during the scene in Black Panther when Erik Killmonger spoke with his father, because he was expressing the hurt that I’ve had so much trouble putting into words. Erik’s rage is overblown and genocidal for the sake of a Hollywood blockbuster, but that rage is so real and so raw for so many…
I was listening to the breathless coverage of Rex Tillerson’s firing, and how various people from news show talking heads to Deep State prognosticators were discussing how it would effect Iran, North Korea, Russia, and pretty much the entire globe when Mike Pompeo takes over. With that understanding of the Secretary of State as super…
What were you doing when you were 22 years old? You may have been looking forward to graduating from college in a few short months, or you were working in a dead end job that you hated. Perhaps you were falling in love, or cursing your ex’s name. Whatever you were doing, if you’re reading…
