“I understand that fear is my friend, but not always. Never turn your back on Fear. It should always be in front of you, like a thing that might have to be killed.” – Hunter S. Thompson, “Kingdom of Fear” I. I believe in math, in the primacy of data.  I believed the polls in […]

The morning after the election, I walked three blocks to my nearest federal government institution, which, luckily for me, is run by the National Park Service—the Chimborazo Medical Museum, a unit of Richmond National Battlefield Park. The hospital at Chimborazo was the largest of the Confederacy’s medical facilities, and over the course of the war, […]

I know last week’s election was about more than who is going to be president. Local races, school levies, marriage, legalization, the house and senate, yes.  But here in Ohio, it felt very much like just one race. The race. The Big One. I’m not sure anyone who doesn’t live in a battleground state can […]

I told myself I wouldn’t do this. I was going to ignore the slowly rolling in election results — the incremental light up of the U.S. map into red or blue, like some sort of distorted Christmas tree, with Maine as the tiny tippy-top. There were a million things I could have been doing instead […]

11/6,  Election Day 6:00 pm: It is time to stop writing and start watching returns. I park myself on the red couch in the basement and turn on CNN. My partner, Adam, texts from the east coast lamenting how late it is there. We know absolutely nothing about our adopted state of Washington and won’t […]