Archive for June 2022
“Delay is the deadliest form of denial”
by David Benjamin “… Having seen Trump survive too many other scandals that should have ended his disgraceful political career, I cannot be overly sanguine that he has finally reached his rightful reckoning. The cancer has been exposed but could still continue to metastasize.” — Max Boot, The Washington Post MADISON, Wis.—Donald Trump’s political epitaph…
Read MoreWhy not the “Yankee Doodle Dandies”?
by David Benjamin “After years of contemplation, Washington announced in January that the team’s nickname search had been cut down to seven options: Armada, Brigade, Red Hogs, Presidents, Commanders, RedWolves, and Defenders.” — Jack Dougherty, Sportscasting MADISON, Wis.—I’m wearing a t-shirt that honors the 1932 Jersey City Skeeters. This somewhat silly but unique monicker derives…
Read More“Takes soap and water for to keep it clean”
by David Benjamin “The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid ‘dens of crime’ that Dickens loved to paint. It is not done even in concentration camps and labour camps… But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white…
Read MoreThe “old days”: Good, bad or just old?
by David Benjamin “Oh, I wish I was an Oscar Mayer./ That is what I’d truly like to be,/ ’Cause if I was an Oscar Mayer wiener,/ Everyone would be in love with me.” ―The Oscar Mayer Wiener Song MADISON, Wis. — Every paycheck I got during my employment at the Waunakee Canning Company identified…
Read MoreThe mirage of the market
by David Benjamin When I began writing essays, I took advantage of a captive market. I was both editor and a multifaceted reporter for a Massachusetts weekly, The Mansfield News. Both to gratify the urge to express myself and to fill the great white void of column inches in each issue, I assigned myself three……
Read MoreTwenty-four poems I love (and one of mine)
by David Benjamin “‘Beware the Jabberwock, my son!/ The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!/ Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun/ The frumious Bandersnatch!’” ― Lewis Carroll MADISON, Wis. — For three years in high school, I carried around a dog-eared copy of Louis Untermeyer’s Great Poems anthology. In the course of this autodidactic…
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