This morning Murph texted me, "Do you hate 'telling it like it is?'" in response to a post-Superbowl barroom chat we had last night. I responded, yes, because more often than not, I don't agree that that is, in fact, how it is. Almost universally. Now, of course, some things are irrefutably "like it is." The sun rises in the East. That's just how it is. Johnny Damon has signed with the Yankees. That's just how it is. I am underpaid and undervalued at my dead-end job. That's just how it is. Usually, though, folks who invoke the "like it is" clause are apt to be qualifying one of their paranoid, uninformed conjectures that usually features some degree of bigotry and, often as not, outright violence. You know who I mean.

Jeremy Slusarz is a great writing talent. Someone give him a job doing that please.