A Straight Shot of Politics: The Thrilling Adventures of Joe Claus

About Me

Location: Columbus, Ohio, United States

I have returned from darkness and quiet. I used to style myself as "Joe Claus", Santa Claus’ younger brother because that is what I still look like. I wrote my heart out about liberal politics until June of 2006, when all that could be said had been said. I wrote until I could write no more and I wrote what I best liked to read when I was young and hopeful: the short familiar essays in Engish and American periodicals of 50 to 100 years ago. The archetype of them were those of G.K. Chesterton, written in newspapers and gathered into numerous small books. I am ready to write them again. I am ready to write about life as seen by the impoverished, by the mentally ill, by the thirty years and more of American Buddhist converts, and by the sharp eyed people [so few now in number] with the watcher's disease, the people who watch and watch and watch. I am all of these.

The political posts I do here are occasional and, largely, are of no real interest for any longer than two weeks after the original posting. But I have other writing in me, familiar essays of the major and minor journeys of my life, which are somewhat more durable. Now that I have made over 300 posts, they are worth collecting together for both you and I to get a rounder and more comprehensive picture of the man making the political judgements. So here they are:

Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

Who Put The Bong In The Bong, Shabong, Shabong?

A Confrontation With Consciousness

If Joe Claus Were Not Joe Claus He Would Be Claude Rains

For November Eleventh

The Vision of Simplicity

The Perils Of Being Invisible

A Generation of Workaholics With Dreams of Adequacy

"Well, There Ain't No Use In Turnin' On Your Light Babe, I'm On The Dark Side Of The Road."

Bamboo Redux

The Joys of Spring in Columbus

Joe Claus' Reading List

Methuselah's Daughter Is Curious

On The Day One Was Born

Pen & Prose

A Good Round Hand

Cooking In Self-Defense

The Terrors and Pleasures of Levitation

A Post For Buster: Learning How To Learn

The Red-Leaved Bamboo

The Genuine American Epidemic

The People of The Garden of Eden

A Meditation on Disgust and Despair

The Laborer is Worthy of His Hire

Polio

Capturing The Flag

Adieu And Not Au Revoir

The Bright, White Wall of 2007

Of Time Past and Tennessee Ernie Ford

The Ghosts of the City

The Face You Deserve