On The Scariest US Presidential Election in Recent History.

Responsible journalists and commentators have listed ad nauseum all the ways Donald Trump is unfit to be President, but let's give it a go, shall we? He's made it clear using nuclear weapons would be on the table for him as commander in chief. He's made it clear he plans to deport tens of thousands of people and to build a wall reminiscent of the Berlin atrocity. He's promised to prosecute journalists who report things he doesn't like. He has a long, sad history of making deals with small businessmen, and then bilking them out of the money he owes them by sending a team of lawyers to intimidate them, leaving their livelihoods in ruins. Trump University was an obvious swindle by which he cheated hundreds of earnest people, taking their money and giving them absolutely nothing in return. The way he talks about women would not be tolerated in any corporate boardroom anywhere. And who could dismiss his cute little references to assassinating Hillary Clinton, like a petty dictator tries to take out political rivals. He routinely lies in speeches, interviews, and even during presidential debates. To dismiss his praise of reporter-murdering Vladimir Putin as some kind of jujitsu statesmanship is to twist yourself into a pretzel because you're so horrified at the idea of Hillary Clinton running the country.

You shouldn't be.

Her use of a private email server in order to preserve her privacy, considering she's endured one humiliation after another, is not much of a story. Sorry. It really isn't. No damaging material was compromised in her private emails.  She did not risk national security in any way, and no criminal charges have been brought against her. It would be ludicrous to compare Clinton's emails to the actions of David Petraeus, who showed a binder full of top secret government documents to a woman he was having an affair with, and then lied about it to the FBI. In short, Clinton was exonerated of wrong doing. And that much ado about the Clinton Foundation? Absolute bullshit. It's an AIDS foundation that saves lives across the globe. The independent vetting organization Charity Watch gave them an A rating --as highly rated as UNICEF. Hillary Clinton has done a beautiful job combatting the AIDS epidemic, and she served as Senator and Secretary of State very admirably.

Here is an abbreviated list of her many accomplishments over her career: As First Lady she fought to pass the Children's Health Insurance Program, which cut the number of uninsured children in the US by half. As Senator she co-sponsored the Employee Free Choice Act, which made it easier for workers to unionize, and harder for their employers to stifle them. She also co-sponsored the 9/11 First Responders Bill which helped people suffering health problems from volunteering at Ground Zero, and much more. As Secretary of State, she negotiated a cease fire between Israel and Hamas. She also worked with Russia, China, and the EU to craft trade sanctions that forced Iran to make a deal with the US not to develop nuclear weapons. Think about that. She brought Russia and China to the negotiating table and got what she wanted. To list all her hard work, all the ways she's changed the world, would not fit in this essay. She has worked tirelessly to make the world a safer place for millions.

But that's not what the Republicans want you to believe. They want you to think she was doing secret deals with scary people, that she's corrupt and untrustworthy, that she's incompetent. And you know why they want you to believe that? Because she scares them.

They should be scared. In increasing numbers, the American people are no longer buying the insane Republican ideology that what's good for the rich is good for everyone. How the GOP managed to keep voters believing this ridiculous economic fiction for as long as they did simply boggles the mind. The middle class is not doing particularly well in America, and that should be obvious to everyone. We are being bankrupted by medical bills, paying more for college and housing and saving less for retirement than any generation previous. And why is that? Very simply because the tax code has been quietly rewritten ever since the Reagan presidency to go easy on the rich so they can keep more of their money, while the middle class pays a HIGHER PERCENTAGE of our earnings to the federal government for services that are constantly under attack. The GOP is peddling a heaping pile of fetid excrement to the American people, but we are wising up, and they are losing.

Right now their strategy resembles the writhing death struggle of a pinned rattlesnake: They are scapegoating the brown people. Oh those Mexicans, those Muslims, trying to steal America away from us honest hard working white people! This is the best they can come up with, which is absolutely pathetic.  The GOP has routinely made life more difficult for the middle and lower classes, but they want you to think our woes are the fault of the hispanic guys in the parking lot of Home Depot. You know what would curb the practice of hiring undocumented workers in the US? Put the people who hire them in jail. Simple. They're breaking the law too, right? How about we disrupt their lives just like we rip families of undocumented workers apart when we raid the sweat shop? Let Mr. Joe Public spend a month in jail thinking about what he did. Huh? No? Not gonna happen? Gee. That's kind of racist. People who hire undocumented workers and pay them less than minimum wage face paltry fines for their first FEW offenses, which, when factored in as a business expense, do absolutely nothing to their bottom line. It makes more economic sense for them to keep paying undocumented workers ridiculously low wages and risk those fines, which to me says, hello, THEY'RE NOT BEING PUNISHED ENOUGH. But I digress. This kind of logic does not fly with the GOP. They don't blame the piece of shit white guy who pays desperate people two dollars an hour and works them for twelve hour days in sub-human conditions. He's not the bad guy. No. The poor, terrified, desperately struggling people who are fleeing crushing poverty in Latin America --they're the bad guys.

If this isn't proof of racism in America I really don't know what is.

And Donald Trump has mounted the fire breathing stink-worm of American Bigotry and plans to fly on its ragged wings right into the White House. And people are LETTING HIM. The polls that claim voters believe Trump has more integrity than a woman like Hillary Clinton who has spent her career fighting for working families reveals a shocking gullibility that is troubling in the extreme. Donald Trump must not become president. And that means, for the love of God, vote. You need to vote. Deal with the inconvenience and go to your polling place and vote for Hillary Clinton and get your sticker and go home and watch TV. It is the least, the very least, any of us can do. This is not a time for complacency, folks. The stakes are higher than they have ever been.

To learn more about Hillary Clinton's many accomplishments, click here:

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/09/carly-fiorina-debate-hillary-clintons-greatest-accomplishment-213157

To learn more about Trump's scandalous history:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/09/donald-trump-scandals/474726/

https://www.hillaryclinton.com/feed/things-donald-trump-has-said-and-done-that-in-a-normal-election-would-disqualify-a-nominee/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=fb&utm_campaign=20160915feed_disqualify

To the Stanford Survivor.

First, I want to tell you that you are a very good writer. I think you could make a career of it. I hope
you do.

Second I want to tell you that you are an inspiration. You are courageous, and your poignant letter to that smudge of excrement who attacked you will serve as an inspiration to other survivors. You have inspired me.

Third, I want to acknowledge your repeated trauma, first at the hands of a morally bereft Neanderthal, and second at the hands of a morally bereft injustice system. Much of our society functions in a haze of sociopathy, without remorse or empathy, and your letter forces us all to take a look at that. Well done.

Fourth, I want to advise you to reclaim your body, your sexuality, and your life, as quickly as possible. I am a survivor of sexual assault too, and I can personally attest to the possibility of a full recovery. You will enjoy sex again. You will enjoy life, and love. I bet you've already had good moments, and laughter. That horror of a few hours will fade, and you will get better. If you get therapy to help you deal with PTSD, you will get better faster. But know that you will get better. Your life HAS NOT been ruined.

Finally, to any other survivors out there, it wasn't your fault. Were you tricked? Were you coerced? Did you feel safe when you weren't safe, and made a decision that resulted in disaster? Your decision was to trust. His decision was to rape. That wasn't your fault. Repeat after me: It wasn't my fault. And the shame society tries to impose on you? It isn't yours. It's theirs.

With a raised fist in the solidarity of love, AKR

On All the Things I Used to Do Before Social Media Took Over My Life

Authors have to do social media, they said. You must develop a platform, they said. Post eighty percent on random crap, and the other twenty percent on shameless self-promotion! No ten. Actually fifty! You must include Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and Tumblr and Twitter, wait, not Twitter! Twitter is dying! No it's not! Are you writing a book about birds? Look for message boards filled with people who will attack you like a flock of rabid chickadees if they get ANY INDICATION AT ALL that you are there to promote your book. You must promote your work without SEEMING to promote your work! Actually it's okay to promote your work! People expect it now!  Unless they are internet purists. Avoid the purists. They will TROLL YOU, destroy your reputation, accuse you of trying to actually profit on the very activity with which you are desperately trying to earn a meager living. Get noticed by people, but not OVER noticed, or they will come for you. The misogynists and militant vegans and religious fundamentalists and crazy lonely cat people will lie in wait for you on message boards and in comment sections. They will surround you like hyenas circling an injured baby wildebeast! Don't be a baby wildebeest. Be a hyena. Unless there are catfish around.  Or cat-fishermen. Or...

Avoid animal metaphors!

And forget. Forget how you used to sing in a bar at a thing called a Hootenanny, how you would practice with your friend Mimi and harmonize for a group of tolerant middle aged people. Forget making dinner for friends, showing off your lasagne, telling them that hilarious story that happened in Spain and making them laugh. Instead entertain those friends from afar with 140 characters. Forget how you used to get bored of being home, and you'd put on your shoes and walk to a coffee shop to read a book. Especially forget that you used to carry a book with you everywhere you went, because books are heavy and iPhones are light, and Twitter is even lighter. Forget sitting quietly in a park listening to birdsong. Forget taking naps.

Entertain yourself entertaining people entertaining you.

And definitely forget about how much you used to write. How much MORE you used to write. How much longer you used to write.

On second thought, forget it all. Forget Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and Tumblr. Forget your passwords. Forget your iPhone. Remember that story you never sent off? That book you meant to read? That idea you had for an essay about how social media is destroying your attention span?

Look out the window.