Alex Pagliuca

Quick public service announcement on something you're going to be seeing a lot more of in news and from the mouths of people with fecal matter between their ears.

I think what sticks in my craw about the “political violence is unacceptable” declarations is that it’s basically just a defense of a mythological history that never happened. Political violence, and most especially what we now consider right wing political violence, has always been acceptable. Ther

Kind of can’t really explain the degree of dread and fury it inspires to have watched the far right use campus free speech as a Trojan Horse for spreading hate for years, to now see people start saying, “Campus free speech has gone too far,” because far right fuckwits are very into suppressing speec

Ryan Walters, the head of public education in Oklahoma, is showing us the future of right wing politics and governance. This is what happens when fascists gather power. There are a lot of otherwise well meaning people who just write this stuff off and say, “Well, that’s what happens when you live in

Fear. Anger. Two of the most common and destructive human emotional and psychological responses. They're deeply interconnected, and one of the few real truisms is how often anger is the veil for fear, especially but certainly not only for men. Market Street, on August 12 in Charlottesville in 2012,

As a writer, as well as someone who is deeply invested in the place of storytelling in culture and human life more broadly, I'm interested in all of the things the current controversy surrounding changes being made to the works of Ronald Dahl and Ian Fleming. It's a convergence, a nexus point, for a

For a decade or more, among our political commentators, pundits, media personalities, operatives of both parties and no shortage of self identified leftists, there has been a dismissive tenor toward what are often called "culture wars" and/or "identity politics." The dismissiveness is founded in the

The circumstances of my life couldn't be more different today than they were in the mid 2010's. Given this, it seems strange to be looking at events in the news, and feeling as if we are once again, back in 2015 - 2016, some six or seven years on, it's as if nothing has happened. In too many places

Rolling Stone has just published a piece detailing the degree the FBI has been lying about what it knew prior to Jan. 6. You may, instead choose to believe incompetence is the problem, but it's not less damning, and it doesn't change the conclusions to be reached. In the past, I've written pretty ex

Every few days, it's impossible not to think about the years between 2014 and 2017. The protest tactics of BLM, the efforts to de-platform bigots of every variety, to shame them, their associates and financial backers out of public life, the American variation of antifa. All being referred to then a

Because of Big Tech's decision to start cracking down on Q Anon, the crowd of liberals and moderates who believe the answer to Nazis, white supremacists and their fascistic kin spreading their propaganda is "more speech" are making their arguments about rational discourse being the only way to turn

Lauren Southern is a grifter. That's the short version of the story about Lauren Southern. The long version is, for a short time, she was operating a successful grift as the American media and culture was trying it's best not to admit that the "alt-right" wasn't some new splinter movement of youth c

I'm currently working a piece which has expanded in scope and breadth far beyond what the initial idea was, but I think I have something good, and something useful. In the meantime, there's something connected to it which seems worth bringing up. A good deal of our current political climate is awash

There are inescapable experiences for lifelong horror cinema obsessives. Those adults who fit the description, and many adolescents, can probably recount examples when someone reacting as if there as if there was something wrong with someone who would get so much from morbid, macabre and strange, al

There has been a strain of a few arguments against the stay at home orders began in many states. The particular argument I'm concerned with comes in the form of a question. "What about people who have mental illnesses that end up committing suicide because they can't pay their bills?' That question

Controversy has surrounded Tod Philips "Joker" since it's first screening at the Venice Film Festival. Immediate reaction from critics suggested a film that was extremely well crafted and even with it's 1980's period setting, possibly too timely for this character and story. A number of early critic