Author Archives: Denise Donaldson

*************************************************BREAKING NEWS**************************************** April 15, 2021 – Planetary News Corp. International mining consortium Devour, Inc., has just announced its discovery of a sizable deposit of rare-earth element lutetium, used in petroleum cracking.  This metallic substance is the least common of all such elements, making the find an immensely valuable one.  The lutetium is located about 50Continue reading “Razing the Vatican”

In a recent post, Australian blogger Caitlin Johnstone references an article in The New Yorker about the endless wars in which the U.S. engages.  In her essay, Johnstone ruminates on the sheer idiocy of the Army’s practice of shooting a howitzer into the Syrian desert “just to say we’re here.”  Leaving aside the expense ofContinue reading “But What Do They DO?”

“Winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing.” – UCLA Bruins football coach Henry Russell (“Red”) Sanders (then quoted by Vince Lombardi) “There is no such thing as second place.  Either you’re first or you’re nothing.” – Gabe Paul “Second place is just the first place loser.” – Dale Earnhardt It’s no coincidence that all ofContinue reading “Let’s Ditch the Giant Foam Fingers”

It’s Cleveland, it’s early April, and it’s77° as I write, heading for 80, same as yesterday.  The early daffodils are bloomed out, as is the weeping cherry on the treelawn.  The ornamental pear tree has burst into a cloud of white.  Golden pussywillow catkins are heaped on the ground.  In our postage-stamp front yard, theContinue reading “Respite”

In the 1983 film, The Dead Zone, Christopher Walken portrays a man who comes out of a coma and finds he has both telepathic and precognitive abilities.  Upon shaking hands with a Presidential candidate, Walken’s character perceives that the candidate will win the White House and will subsequently launch a nuclear attack on an enemy,Continue reading “That Trapped Feeling”

I love rain.  The more, the better.  Great torrents, sluicing down out of a gray sky, are deeply satisfying to me (not talking floods and mudslides here, naturally).  I never made any complaint about gearing up in boots, raincoat, and hat to trundle out to the bus stop and then from the corner downtown, alongContinue reading “The Bliss of Rain”

“What if someone gave a war and Nobody came?” ― Allen Ginsberg, The Fall of America: Poems of These States 1965-1971 “Army strong.” “Aim high, fly – fight – win!” “The few, the proud.”             “Forged by the sea.” Andrea Mazzarino at the TomDispatch site wrote an opinion piece last week about how militarization hasContinue reading “A Matter of Hearts and Minds”

I want to start by saying that I’m not being at all facetious with this post, nor do I intend to be disrespectful, blasphemous, or snidely disingenuous, although I’m sure my commentary will strike some nerves.  For years, in my 20s, I was a mostly-convinced atheist.  I admired the few people I knew who wereContinue reading “God and Lizardmen”

The northeast Ohio area is deep blue, particularly heavily urban Cuyahoga County, which is decidedly multiracial.  In recent decades, it has elected some of the most Progressive politicians in government, among them Dennis Kucinich and Sherrod Brown.  After four terms, the Democratic National Committee gerrymandered Representative Kucinich out of his district in favor of aContinue reading “Sympathy for [Some] Texans”

For over a week near the end of January, after she was identified, Rachel Powell was in hiding, sought after by the FBI.  Profiled by Ronan Farrow at The New Yorker, Powell has eight children, ranging in age from 4 years to mid-twenties; some of the younger ones disappeared from her house when she did. Continue reading “A Question of Accountability”