Pompous Jackassery and Mortal Concerns, Vol. 1

Thursday, August 21, 2025

Nobody asked for this column. Nobody. You don’t roll over in bed thinking, “God, I hope Keith Howard tells me about his childhood crushes today.” And yet here I am, kicking down the door anyway. I wrote a memoir, Unclaimed, But Loud. Four hundred pages of memory, confession, and polite detonations. Some readers say it’s good. I say it’s cheaper than therapy and with fewer co-pays, though with slightly more swearing.

The Soapbox: Lawrence Bryant for Ward 11 Alderman – ‘I’m running for an opportunity’

Friday, August 22, 2025Thursday, August 21, 2025

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The headstones in my head

Friday, March 27, 2026Wednesday, August 20, 2025

We were somewhere in Oklahoma in a cheap motel off I-40 in the middle of nowhere, the type of nowhere place that most people from the East Coast don’t know about unless they’ve been to nowhere.

Interracial relationships & mixed kids: What people won’t say out loud

Monday, August 18, 2025Monday, August 18, 2025

I see interracial relationships more often in the South than in the city. In places like New York, where different cultures blend every day, people don’t always stop to notice who’s dating who. But in the South, or in places where diversity isn’t as deeply woven into everyday life, people seem to pay more attention, especially when a child is involved. That’s when opinions start coming out, whether welcomed or not.

‘South Park’ is more relevant than ever

Monday, August 18, 2025Sunday, August 17, 2025

In case you missed it, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of the Comedy Central cartoon television show “South Park,” have opened up with both barrels parodying the Trump Administration and the MAGA movement in the first two episodes of Season 27.

The Soapbox: Mayor Ruais – stand up for your residents

Thursday, August 14, 2025

On the MPTV Will and Joe show, Will Infantine referred to the artists as “the slow ones.” Joe made no effort to correct him. It was clear from this conversation it was not only the art they thought was ugly, but the artists themselves.

The Soapbox: Our state’s Victim Bill of Rights is being ignored

Wednesday, August 13, 2025

HOW MANY more women have to die before we admit that the system is broken?

The Soapbox: GOP Senate candidates want to help Trump put Social Security on the chopping block

Monday, August 11, 2025Saturday, August 9, 2025

To say that more than 334,100 people in New Hampshire don’t want Social Security and don’t care about the program is one of the more audacious comments Brown has made so far – and it was a glaring example of how he is willing to sell out Granite Staters to get Trump’s endorsement.

An Existential Pug contemplates abandonment

Monday, August 11, 2025Thursday, August 7, 2025

That’s it. The Blonde Woman left last Friday, and she is never coming back. I’ve been staring out the living room window looking for her as those damn Golden Retrievers walk past my domicile, back and forth and back and forth, with total insouciance—as if my barking doesn’t register any sound with them, as if I don’t even exist.

The Soapbox: GOP’s war on disabled Americans

Wednesday, August 6, 2025

Sitting on the White House lawn on July 26, 1990, my husband, Jim Piet, witnessed a Republican make history. President George H.W. Bush proudly proclaimed, “I now lift my pen to sign this Americans with Disabilities Act and say: Let the shameful wall of exclusion finally come tumbling down. God bless you all.”