NEW YORK CITY, near America A decade ago, the opening fusillades of bigotry were fired at Barack Obama, first African American president of the United States, prompting a professor at Northwestern University in Illinois to issue prescient warning of the worst to come. In an essay for a Manhattan weekly newspaper, under the headline WHITE AMERICA HAS LOST ITS MIND, Steven Thrasher wrote in the now defunct Village Voice— “About 12:01 on the afternoon of January 20, 2009, the white American mind began to unravel. It had been a prettyRead More

Woke America Screams ‘Enough!’  Police savagery, racism, poverty, environmental destruction, fascism by Thomas Adcock Copyright © 2020 — Thomas Adcock NEW YORK CITY, near America Thirty days that shook the world began on the first day of June when hundreds of thousands of outraged Americans—of all colors, creeds, and ages—overwhelmed the streets in cities and towns throughout the United States, all of us pumping the air with fists demanding justice for a dead African American man named George Floyd. We Americans touched off allied demonstrations of support in countries asRead More

North Chatham, New York — U.S.A. Should you ask of us here in the hills of rural New York State, a region of apple orchards and dairy farms and green mountains and our hamlet of five hundred and three souls, my wife Kim and I are faring well enough since fleeing the big city three weeks ago. More than two hundred kilometers to the south lies New York City, population nine million—epicenter of the coronavirus global pandemic, and hometown of a dangerous buffoon in down in Washington whose name IRead More

North Chatham, New York — U.S.A. Last time in this space, we dealt with the theme of stupidity as complement to incompetence—both forces kill—and how the world’s leading example of this deadly synthesis comes in the person of Donald J. Trump, dedicated to ignoring science and empowered by a supine Republican Party and backstage oligarchs. Ever since, Mr. Trump’s ineptitude and ignorance, seeds of his anger and amorality, has metastasized in ways too numerous to mention—preventing any rational or coherent national strategy for dealing with America’s greatest medical crisis sinceRead More

NEW YORK CITY, near America Fundamental to the citizens of Trumpistan is cultish deference to Dear Leader’s every vile tweet, every ludicrous lie, every malignant boast, every odious blast of oral flatulence from Dear Leader’s kewpie doll lips—the more racist the blast the better. In this time of global pandemic, in which the United States has surpassed the health and economic devastations of China and Italy, more and more Americans are homebound, voluntarily or by legal order. We flip on our television sets each day in search of governmental andRead More

James Lee Burke These are depressing times, but I would like to share with you some memories and lessons I always found helpful in dealing with what Gram Parsons called „In My Darkest Hour.“ I remember how frightened I was when, on December 7, at 1:15 P.M., a radio music program was interrupted in the little cafe where I was eating Sunday dinner with my parents. A news broadcaster informed everyone the Japanese had just bombed Pearl Harbor. No one moved or spoke, as though they were inside a motionRead More

NEW YORK CITY, near America Lawrence Peter Berra—sportsman and grand master of spoonerisms—warned us of epochal times like these: “It’s déjà vu all over again.” The late Mr. Berra (1925-2015) is affectionately known by generations of New York Yankees fans as “Yogi.” When he can bear to look down from where he resides in Baseball Heaven, I believe he is distressed by what he sees: an unholy number of us Americans’ failure to grasp the caution implied in his most famous lapsus linguae, beguiled as we habitually are by allRead More

By Thomas Adcock Copyright 2020-Thomas Adcock  NEW YORK CITY, near America As I write on this final day of January, it appears that Donald Trump will be found not guilty in his so-called impeachment trial in the upper chamber of the United States Congress. Despite the dishonest verdict—orchestrated by a once grand old American political party, now destined to live in infamy—I encourage a cheerful view: Donald Trump is toast. In this bleak moment, my outlook may be considered Pollyannaish. But as surely as the calendar moves forward to ElectionRead More

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana – U.S.A. With respect to religion and/or spirituality, I am a devout believer in the God of Irony. As testament to my faith, behold the present-day, oddly coifed idol of Christian Evangelism and Pentecostalism—an American president who proudly prostitutes a code of decency given unto the world two millennia ago by a Nazarene carpenter of note. During an earlier once-upon-a-time—June of 1998, actually—some of the biggest machers of American Christendom assembled in Salt Lake City, Utah, to adopt a “Resolution on the Moral Character of Public Officials.”Read More

“When authoritarian figures can do no wrong, the problem is not so much with the leader but with the followers, who, like followers of religious cults, willingly drink the proverbial Kool-Aid regardless of how high their IQ may actually be. Seeing their unearned, privileged positions threatened by merit-based concepts such as equality, they embrace cult leaders who present themselves as the only solution to their downward-spiraling predicament, or as Trump proclaimed while mounting the Republican National Convention stage: ‘I am your voice. I alone can fix it.’” —Miguel A. DeRead More

Whirlwinds of Cruelty Achtung, Flüchtlinge! Amerikanische Konzentrationslager by Thomas Adcock Copyright © 2019 • Thomas Adcock NORTH CHATHAM, New York—U.S.A. Two years and seven months ago, a bankrupt casino magnate, bigot and vainglorious “reality television” braggart became president of the United States (with a little help, to be sure, from comrades in Moscow). To mark the occasion, yet another turn for the worse in the history of my country, I borrowed a famous phrase of yesteryear for an essay published in this space at that dark time. In the wakeRead More

RHINEBECK, New York—USA We are halfway through 2019 as members of the United States Congress are scurrying en masse back to home districts across the land, in accordance with one of their numerous recesses from important business we voters elected them to attend. Per the previous two years’ periodic recessionals, they abandoned Washington having done zilch about the most important business at hand: a one-man crime wave named Donald J. Trump. Upon his inauguration as president, in January 2017, the ridiculously coifed Mr. Trump set forth to consolidate power. InRead More

by Thomas Adcock Copyright © 2019 • Thomas Adcock NEW YORK CITY, near America In January 2016, in Montréal, the old man lay dying.  Perhaps he silently cursed having reached the age of ninety-nine rather than a full century well deserved. Surely he reflected on his long ago life in Berlin; in particular, Kristallnacht—the night of November 9 in 1938, when Hitler’s brown-shirts assaulted Jews in the streets, smashed the windows of Jewish-owned shops, burned synagogues to the ground. Perhaps he gave silent thanks to his having the wisdom andRead More

by Thomas Adcock Copyright © 2019 • Thomas Adcock NEW YORK CITY, near America In last November’s federal legislative elections, Democrats swept to party leadership in half the two-chamber Congress of the United States—the House of Representatives, affectionately known as “the people’s House.” At last! Power to the people! Voters turned out in historically high numbers to demonstrate their profound disgust with the cupidity, immorality, and criminality of Donald J. Trump and his enablers of the hear-no-evil, see-no-evil Republican Party. Heeding the message of upstart Democratic contenders, featuring a bumperRead More

NORTH CHATHAM, New York—U.S.A. William Barr, attorney general of the United States, did exactly what Donald J. Trump hired him to do: On the afternoon of March 24, in Washington, he granted absolution to his lord and master—Donald J. Trump, suspected of treason and obstruction of justice. This act of legal mercy occurred on a Sunday, when evangelical Christian Trumpisti throughout the land undoubtedly spent their Sabbath morning beseeching Jesus and the Holy Father to spare the Golden-Haired One from impeachment or imprisonment. As the world knows by now, aRead More

Please…Call us ‘People of Means’ New York to world’s richest man: Fuhgeddaboudit by Thomas Adcock –Copyright © 2019 • Thomas Adcock  NEW YORK CITY, near America A prosperous dolt named Howard Schultz scored his most notable life achievement in 1995 by inventing the Mocha Frappuccino, a briskly profitable confection peddled throughout his empire of Starbucks coffee houses. A quarter century later, now comes Mr. Schultz asking voters to believe that his caffeinated brainstorm, and the billions of dollars accrued, qualifies him to be president of the United States.   Bad timing, Mr.Read More

NEW YORK CITY, near America Picture the current American presidency as gangster-laden film noir, a tawdry movie with two leading rôles: a thuggish lawyer called “The Fixer,” employed by “The Don,” malevolent godfather of a crime syndicate. The stars: Michael D. Cohen as consigliere, Donald J. Trump as capo di tutti capi. So it was, in life off the screen, for ten sorry years. Then came the morning February 27, a cold and sunny Wednesday in Washington. One of the stars broke character on live television. During five hours ofRead More

‘Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses …’ (Oh, never mind) Baby Jesus, go home by Thomas Adcock Copyright © 2018 – Thomas Adcock NEW YORK CITY, near America  Where to begin on the subject of the most loathsome mobster currently at large in the United States? Every thirty days as I sit down to compose my monthly offering to CrimeMag, I ask this question. Today, I ask again, Where to begin with Donald J. Trump? Mr. Trump’s endless racketeering, mendacity, and racism are daily cyclones ripping throughRead More

Fear, Loathing and Madness in the White House Eine merkwürdige Paralyse grassiert unter maßgebenden amerikanischen Politikwissenschaftlern, Historikern, Journalisten und aktiven Politikern: Wenn über das Thema Impeachment diskutiert wird, lautet die Devise der Wegducker: „Don´t mention the I-word“! Warum eigentlich? Als wirksame Drohkulisse hatte die Einleitung eines Impeachmentverfahrens bereits 1974  „Tricky Dick“ Richard  Nixon vor einer endgültigen Amtsenthebung zum Rücktritt veranlaßt. Von Peter Münder Den Wahlkampf von Donald Trump hatte Allan Lichtman genau verfolgt und sogar den völlig überraschenden, sensationellen Wahlsieg des egomanischen Dealmakers vorhergesagt, worauf der Wahlsieger T sich sogarRead More

Sprachverlust 3 oder „Why I Write“   Brigitte Helbling über Sprachverlust, Renitenz, Kulturwechsel, Englisch und „Hochdeutsch“ – und über die Lust des „writers“, Worte auf dem Papier herumzuschieben (Joan Didion).   Hin und wieder frage ich mich, ob ich auf Englisch schreiben sollte. Die potentielle Leserschaft wäre wesentlich größer, die schriftstellerische Konkurrenz allerdings auch. Und warum sollte ich mich nicht auf sie einlassen? Auf Englisch würde ich innovativ und mutig und unvergleichlich relevanter daherkommen als auf Deutsch, eine Sprache, die sich vor allem dazu eignet, Landschaften zu beschreiben. Und Innenräume.Read More

»Mein Name ist Sa. Ich bin deine Frau.«  Der September kam und ging. Der Oktober ging, und die Santa-Ana-Winde kamen. Sie rauschten mit der Wucht der Autos auf dem Freeway in östlicher Richtung von den Bergen herunter und knickten die Halme des Papyrus um, den Mrs. Khanh in Keramiktöpfe neben dem Spalier gepflanzt hatte. Sie erlaubte dem Professor jetzt nicht mehr, seine nachmittäglichen Spaziergänge alleine zu unternehmen. Stattdessen folgte sie ihm diskret im Abstand von fünf, sechs Metern, wobei sie sich wegen des Windes den Hut auf den Kopf drückte.Read More

Messiah of the Maniacs America’s Red Hat Road to Hell Donald Trump’s bad hair day by Thomas Adcock Copyright © 2018 – Thomas Adcock NEW YORK CITY, near America The racist crime syndicate occupying the White House, headed by what psychologists identify as a malignant narcissist, has gone to panic mode. The signs are plentiful. State and federal elections held on November 6 delivered a massive political rebuke of il capo di tutti capi, namely Donald J. Trump. The reaction has been a daily cascade of falsehoods from Mr. TrumpRead More

Fantasyland – Die Geschichte Amerikas neu erzählt Textauszug aus dem Buch von Kurt Andersen Das amerikanische Expe­riment, die Fleischwerdung der großen aufklärerischen Idee von der intellektuellen Freiheit, die besagt, dass jeder Einzelne frei ist zu glauben, was auch immer er oder sie will, hat sich zu etwas ausgewachsen, das wir nicht mehr im Griff haben. Dieser Ultra­-Individualismus war von Anfang an tief mit epischen Träumen verknüpft, manchmal auch mit epischen Fantasien – jeder ein­zelne Amerikaner, jedes Individuum aus Gottes erwähltem Volk, schuf sich sein eigenes, maßgeschneidertes Utopia, jeder von unsRead More

Moral Civil War Decency vs. Debasement  Seeking exit from the New Confederacy by Thomas Adcock Copyright © 2018 – Thomas Adcock NEW YORK CITY, near America Reasonable citizens trapped in the bedlam of Trumpistan are angry—or depressed, or disgusted, or distressed, or despairing, or drained of energy needed to absorb the drumbeat of cupidity and criminality emanating daily from a debauched White House. Some days, all these emotions meld into an existential sorrow: Cry the beloved country. We limp through these last gasps of October in hopes that next month’sRead More

Justice is Nigh for Trump His Cult Keeps the Fascist Faith A promise of national catharsis in November by Thomas Adcock Copyright © 2018 – Thomas Adcock NEW YORK CITY, near America   I am happy to report that America’s most repulsive individual, Donald J. Trump, is not long for Washington. The current presidency—a circus of the tawdry, the pathetic, the crazy, the criminal, and the cruel—cannot sustain itself, no matter that its ringmaster is a virtuoso of ballyhoo and bullcrap. He is also a ringmaster in a death spiral.Read More

Lord Trump Almighty Gladdening the Heart of Lucifer  ‘Ego te absolvo’ by Thomas Adcock Copyright © 2018 – Thomas Adcock   NEW YORK CITY, near America Scheduled to open in October in more than a thousand “select” American cinemas is a motion picture entitled “The Trump Prophecy,” produced by Liberty University of Virginia, a bottom-tier institute of evangelical Christian instruction. The university is hustling advance ticket sales via online movie trailers meant for the mesmerizing pleasure of stalwarts in a religio-political cult whose lord and savior is said to haveRead More