Larry Benjamin. Wordsmith. Writer. Author.

  Anyone who reads this blog knows I worked election day as Judge of elections in my district. I’d decided months ago I was going to serve. If I was going to get Covid, it would be after I cast my vote to oust Trump and his GOP enablers. Like everyone else working the polls that day, I spent 15 straight hours wearing a mask and plastic face shield. I didn’t think much about the value of what we were doing. But all day long people thanked us for our services as they came and quickly went having exercised their rights. People brought us pizza and water and one little girl and her mother brought us homemade butter cookies. It felt good to be seen, to be appreciated. I didn’t think much more about it until Saturday night when both the President-elect and the Vice President-elect made a point of thanking every poll worker for their service. They thanked us even as Donald Trump worked to demonize poll workers, voters themselves and delegitimize the election results. The contrast was star...

I'm sure this will lose me a bunch of connections, but I've had enough. You cannot call yourself my friend, my neighbor, describe yourself as someone who wishes me no harm AND support Donald Trump and his administration. You can't say you're not a racist and support the policies of this racist administration. You can't say you're an ally and support this homophobic administration. You can't say you're "Pro Life" and support this administration when they are doing THIS to children. Black children, brown children, are still children and equal to your precious WHITE children. I am not a parent and this breaks my heart. YOU would die to protect your children if this was happening to them. And you know what? So would I. Most likely YOUR forebears were immigrants and faced discrimination, yet you set yourself above and beyond AND BETTER THAN, more DESERVING than, today's immigrants. You are a disgrace and unChrist like. I am embarrassed ...

Photo by Pierre Chatel Innocenti on Upsplash As I mentioned in Ode to Words (Part 1): One Line Wednesday , I recently attended a workshop on racial and gender equity. While there, and as part of the workshop, I was exposed to words that were mostly unfamiliar to me: systemic oppression…equity-focused…gender justice lens…power imbalances…patriarchy…unpacking white privilege…micro aggressions…gender policing…monosexism…tokenism…White Fragility…intersectionality… As I listened, perplexed, and watched others around me nodding and murmuring understanding, I felt oddly…isolated. Have you ever played that game with yourself where you repeat a common, known , word over-and-over until it loses all meaning, all sense ? Words are funny things, aren’t they? They can be powerful and meaningful—listen to any Barack Obama speech —or absurd—read any of DonaldTrump’s tweets , or heck listen to him speak extemporaneously. systemic oppression…equity-focused…gender justice lens…power ...

This post is an open letter to John McCain—usually this blog is dedicated to the “Writer’s Life.” To an extent it still is since writers are people and, so I tend to write about my experiences, even those unrelated to writing because those experiences are a part of this writer’s life and often influence my writing which though I write fiction, that fiction is, more often than not, informed by reality. So here goes. Dear Senator McCain: I am begging—yes begging , and normally I’m too proud, too arrogant to beg but in this instance, there is too much at stake, too many people at risk to stand on pride—John McCain to change his mind and vote against Trump's tax bill. As Mr. Spock said in one of the Star Trek movies, “The needs of the many outweighs the needs of the one.” We lost our father, a veteran, and a good man to cancer on November 8. He had access to healthcare. And, we did not have to worry about the cost of his care—even if we had to pay out of pocket, we h...