When is the last time the U.S. government, or a fragment thereof, has truly been held accountable – not merely legally or politically, but morally accountable – for an act of violence, for its addiction to violence? Ever?And what might that even mean?These are not questions I’ve ever even asked…

Suddenly my cynicism vanished and things started making sense . . . America started making sense, from past to present.I was already in the process of writing this column – hey, the nation’s 250th birthday is coming up – and had never felt more lost. Where, where, where am I going with this? What…

Is war simply part of human nature? It’s been absurdly “ordinary” throughout my lifetime, and continually expanding its power and psychological reach.And unless you’re in the middle of it – unless you’re digging for a dead child beneath a bombed building – war  is just an abstract horror. It’s…

If nothing else, Donald Trump pushes the nation’s – the world’s – thought process beyond anything that feels normal and comfortable. Consider the “MADness” of the last eight decades: You know, how “mutually assured destruction” has kept humanity from nuking itself into oblivion because . . . uh,…