Opinion

The Daring Opinion columnists, editorials, analysis, and guest essays.

Trigger Warning: No Person Is Above the Law (Or, Why the Attorney General’s Constitutional Law Professor Laurence Tribe Thinks Trump Is Guilty)

A commander-in-chief who’d lost his bid to a second term, a lame duck waddling to the finish line between election day, November 3, 2020, and the joint session of Congress’s certification of state electors on January 6, 2021, could have done serious damage to a republic knocked down, sucker punched, blindsided by unexpected blows caused by a conspiracy to defraud the American electorate.

January 6 Hearings
Bully, Inc. (Or, How Trump Failed to Strong-Arm the Justice Department and Why He Should Be Jailed)

Yet another smoking gun for conspiracy to defraud the American public as part of our series on the January 6 hearings. Here, analyzing testimony from days 4 and 5.

January 6 Hearings
Gaslighting the Vice President (Or, Why Trump Doesn’t Want to Be Mike Pence’s Friend, Anyway)

Televised hearings on the January 6 insurrection reveal that Trump’s attacks on former vice president Mike Pence cut deep.

Joan Baez
Joan Baez Strikes a New Chord With a Dylan Classic: “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright”

Especially in a pandemic, her and the Indigo Girls’ arresting performance matters.

Teaching the whole child and social-emotional learning
The Hard Reality of Teaching the Whole Child

What Does It Mean to Teach the Whole Child? A big, loaded question. A somewhat…

Tomboy, The Daring
Tomboy: Toward a More Expansive Definition of Womanhood

Once, being a tomboy was a way to gain male validation. When adolescence brought on emotion and curves that were harder to hide, an expanded view of what womanhood could look like also flourished.

City Girls
City Girls

I long to see my childhood on screen. No one is steeped in poverty and crime, or so bougie and disconnected they can’t kiki at the cookout.

Jimi Hendrix Electric Ladyland
The Ghost of Jimi Hendrix in Electric Ladyland

Near the House of Pot, sandwiched between an electric power station and a direct path to the local airport, the neighborhood I live in is a mix of working-class Asian immigrants, mostly Cambodian and Vietnamese, and long-time African American denizens. The only prophet to ever come out of this northwestern hub, Jimi Hendrix, shuffled through these parts as a latchkey kid.

Sexuality, Womanhood, and Power. Simone and Lorde.
They Don’t Have to Be Friends

There are these standards of friendship applied to kids that I think should be eradicated.

Sexuality, Womanhood, and Power. Simone and Lorde.
Toxic Femininity

Black men are supposed to be the ultimate image of strength and sex appeal. Linebackers and the Sexiest Man Alive. But, when is the linebacker allowed to cry? How does the Sexiest Man Alive express his honest insecurities about his image? For so many Black men, there’s no safe space to express this level of vulnerability.

Sexuality, Womanhood, and Power. Simone and Lorde.
More Sex, Less Playdates

On almost every TV show I watched growing up, the mother was always too tired for sex. Mothers would constantly shoo away their husbands’ flirts and affections. I am determined to understand the absurdity of the sexless mom.

Audre Lorde
The Plight and the Path: At the Intersection of Race and Gender

Black women have always fought for women’s liberation. As far back as the Suffragist movement, Black women have always rallied for equality of the sexes. But, Black feminists have always had to consider their plight in the fight, the intersection of their blackness and their womanness.

Sexuality, Womanhood, and Power. Simone and Lorde.
I’m Gonna Make A Mistake

I am a card-carrying member of the worry club. But I’m showing up in relationships as my whole self, flaws and all, and evolving outside the narrow margins of perfectionism brought on by the patriarchy.

The Moon, Desire, and the Pursuit of Joy

With music—as with many crafts—once you experience that first tremendously powerful time when something really clicks, the intrinsic and dynamic reward system can become intoxicating.

Airless

you photographed me
exposed, image of your arm
outstretched clenching my neck
squeezing cluster of wind where life
temporarily nestled

The Big Picture

A story about tapping into who you are and where you come from. What happens after we uproot? I was one of the 300,000 Romanians who emigrated in a wave following the political regime change in 1989.

A Letter to My Young Self

At eight years old, everything is alive, and everything deserves love and companionship, which, come to think of it, even at 37 years of age, still makes sense.

Star Rockets in Flight, Afternoon Delight

Is it possible to be delighted, almost mesmerized, by a red carton containing scoops and scoops of my favorite chocolate peanut butter dessert, Oregon’s very own Umpqua ice cream, and not feel as though the burden of guilt—maybe the most wasted emotion of all—has flipped into hyper gear?

The Most Unexpected of Gifts

When empathy is lost, what follows? What is the agenda? Perhaps, a steady march toward denigration and solidly placing the foot? The assumption of power surely is an unapologetic aphrodisiac.