Blog / Our America

Decommisioned: An Obituary

December 9, 2020 - By Daniel Nevárez Araújo

Photo: University of Central Florida

the soul, after all
doesn’t exist by itself
it needs to take the form
of the things it inhabits…
-Elidio La Torre Lagares, from Arecibo Observatory

On December 1st, I woke up to the news that the radio telescope at the Arecibo Observatory had collapsed. A cable holding the main platform in place snapped, sending the structure crashing down early in the morning. The news was first shared by local meteorologist Deborah Martorell and would soon spread like wildfire on local and international news outlets. The vast majority of my friends as well as public figures expressed...

Game Theory

November 25, 2020 - By Jim Hicks

(Photo: Bengt Ekeroth and Max von Sydow in The Seventh Seal, 1957. © Svensk Filmindustri. Ingmar Bergman, director)

So, is it just a game for them, with us? If you think it through, that simple idea would make their every move not simply justifiable, but impeccable. Even in the endgame, a true master sees room for maneuver, an occasion for thumbing his nose, macho display for the masses or for the record books. In that most martial—and most US—of sports, when your team can’t move forward, they still bury the ball deep in enemy territory, trusting their defense, waiting, expecting to strike again. The only goal is to crush the opposition, and anyone who thinks otherwise is a fool. That’s how the game is played...

What's the News in Trumpworld?

November 23, 2020 - By Marya Zilberberg

It’s so fitting that the Trump era has ushered in toilet paper shortages in the US. Should the current coup attempt somehow still succeed, and we find ourselves in an endless loop of rule-by-tweet-from-the-gilded-toilet known as Trumpworld, fear not, my fellow Americans—we Soviet refugees can teach you a lot about how to get along without.

When my family came to the US from Odessa in 1977, we had never seen saran wrap, sandwich baggies, or paper towels. We survived just fine. And you’ll be fine too, or at least you’ll be forced to pretend to be fine. Let me tell you how to manage, while at the same time leveraging that reviled organ of propaganda, the purveyor of fake news, the newspaper.

In the USSR, newspapers were revered, not reviled. They, or...

Love Poem and Response

November 15, 2020 - By Roque Dalton and Katherine Silver

(Photo: Lines from Roque Dalton's Poema de Amor on a wall near the offices of Al Otro Lado in Tijuana, México, courtesy of Katherine Silver)
 

Roque Dalton

Beanie the Cat

November 7, 2020 - By W. D. Ehrhart

(Photo: Beanie in the Tunnel, June 2, 2020. Anne Ehrhart.)
 

November 6th, 2020

Anne and I have been holding our breath
for three days, trying not to think,
or feel, or contemplate the implications
of another four years of madness
if our current president should win,
astounded it should be so close
we still don’t know who won.
What kind of country could this be
to have so many voters ready
to return to office such a man?
Dishonest, criminal, amoral,
pathologically narcissistic,
ignorant, uncaring, vile. A grifter.
One struggles to avoid despair.