MY BLOGS

I want you to picture this scene: Hector Alonzo is escorted onto a bus, utilitarian and drab. He shuffles down the aisle, past anxious faces straining to remain stoic. They’re all headed to the same place; a place they’ve only seen in TV and movies. The bus spews out a plume of diesel exhaust, rumbles down the road, and leads Hector away from his home…

When I woke up the morning after my first post went out, I received a wonderfully reassuring email from a dear, old friend of mine, of nearly 40 years, whom we’ll call “Jenny” because that’s her name. In part, it read: “You literally make me want to pull my kids out of school TOMORROW!

I’d like to start in February of 2021, about a day after arriving at our friend Joni’s place an hour south of Austin, TX, in a little lake-side community of mostly law abiding citizens. I say mostly, because her live-in boyfriend Ricky, a fully tattooed and perpetually-high former gang member from south central Los Angeles…

As an important caveat, I am a recovering Leftist, with impeccable credentials. In 2012, after visiting another liberal utopia, Copenhagen, my wife and I decided to move to Portland, OR with our 3 year old son in tow. We wanted to cash in on the American, quasi-equivalent of these venerated Danish socialist ideals…