Ken Padgett

In 1969, one week after turning 17 and two years after dropping out of high school, I went to the Army recruiting office at a shopping center near my home in Suitland, Maryland. Two weeks later I was riding a bus with other new recruits on the way to Fort Bragg, North Carolina. The bus arrived at the reception center at 4AM and a drill sergeant came on board and screamed at us to “Get off the bus, now!” “Line up on the marks” “No talking” I was terrified, and immediately began to question my decision to join the Army but it was too late for that, because I had already signed the papers and taken the oath. They fed us and put us to bed for a couple of hours. Later that day, we got buzz cuts and our new uniforms. After a week in the reception area, we were assigned to platoons for basic training. Our days began at 4:30 AM, with the drill sergeant yelling at the top of his lungs for us to get out of bed. I had a hard time adjusting to waking up that early, especially since I wa...

Today we mourn for the country we thought we were. Our illusions about the basic goodness of America have been shattered by the reality that Americans have elected a demagogue and a dictator as our president . Trump has made it quite clear that he will use the awesome powers of the presidency to silence his critics, bully our allies and abandon international agreements.  Americans have also returned to power a Republican Congress that has done everything it could to damage America so that they could blame it all on Democrats. After eight years of craven racism and obstruction, Republicans will now insist that “for the good of America” we should all come together and help them pursue their agenda of tax cuts for the rich, “law and order” in the inner cities and dismantling the safety net.  And when Americans finally realize that they made a mistake; that Trump isn’t a champion of the “common man” so much as a con man, will they learn from the experie...

The flood of August 1969 was one of the most disastrous in Virginia history. Making landfall in the Bay Saint Louis area of Mississippi on August 17, 1969, Hurricane Camille had wind speeds of up to 170 miles per hour and the surge was twenty-five feet high. Moving up the mouth of the Mississippi, Camille killed 143 people in the Gulf Coast region before heading North. Two days later, the storm had significantly diminished in strength, becoming a much weaker tropical depression. On August 19, Camille made a sharp turn to the east, leaving Kentucky and heading over the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, where during the night the rain intensified dramatically. When she slowed over Virginia, her thunderstorms "trained" (one followed the other) for 12 hours. Nearly 31 inches of rain fell with devastating results. The ensuing flash floods and mudslides killed 153 people. Damage was estimated at $113 million. I was 16 years old i n August 1969, when three friends and I ...

"Judge" Napolitano is a Fox News flack who has been predicting Hillary's downfall since day one. This latest salvo is based on a lie (as usual) that Hillary aids knew her server had been hacked, when in fact the emails reviewed by The Associated Press, show that State Department technical staff disabled software intended to block phishing emails. So there's no proof the server was hacked and not blocking phishing emails, while ill-advised at best, is not tantamount to leaving the ser ver wide open.  The Right Wing Propaganda machine creates the lie and then goes nuts over it. Along comes "hired gun" Napolitano to claim, once again that this is all that is needed for an indictment, or a Watergate-level scandal if Hillary is not indicted. Gotta keep the "base" stirred up! The Right Wing has been claiming that "anonymous sources" "close to the investigation" have told them that an Hillary indictment is ...

The images are terrible. Blood spattered locations. Families, friends and bystanders overcome with grief.  Seriously injured and dying victims being carried to waiting ambulances and other vehicles by first responders and citizen volunteers. Pictures of the perpetrator(s) smirking at us from social media. These videos are on a loop, playing over and over again while t alking heads use the tragedy for political gain. On the Right, it's all Obama's fault for refusing to destroy ISIS and for refusing to use the term " Radical Islam " . On the Left, it's more calls for gun control and lamenting the influence of the NRA. Cable News Networks have become our YouPorn for disaster porn, delivering stimulation for our reptilian brains 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. There is no greater money maker for cable news than tragedy. And cable news exploits tragedy for all it is worth. Eric C. Wilson, a Wake Forest University English Professor and author of Ever...