A year or two ago I wrote a poem about the ubiquity of politics and how it’s impossible to go through your day without having it cast a shadow over everything. Part of me very much wants to get away from that, and I’m sure you want to get away from that too, which is why I write columns about fun topics* like why I’m not married and how I lost hot water and injuring my shoulder.

But also sometimes I write political columns like this song parody The Governor Down In Georgia, because I feel like lately things are getting a lot worse in this country for people who aren’t straight white christian men. And I feel like it’s incumbent upon me to use whatever tiny megaphone** I have to advocate for those whose freedoms are being taken away. Here in the “Land of the Free”, we have more people behind bars than any other country on earth — both in terms of raw numbers, and per capita. Private prisons exacerbate this problem, because private companies exist to profit, and so when locking up more people leads to profit, more people will be locked up.

Maybe this should be a poem instead of a blogpost. I guess WordXWord is in a few weeks, but I get exhausted from doing political poems. I’ve done so many. And this blogpost is not funny, but at least it has links to funny, because it’s important to take a break from the politics and breathe***, right? So, maybe just click through and enjoy some columns for now. But at some future point, speak up for people who just want to live their lives and are being deprived of life or liberty because of who they are rather than what they do.

* I should mention that I have no idea what fun is, as anyone who has ever invited me to a concert or party will confirm.

*** It was only after I typed this that I realized “I can’t breathe” springs to mind, reminding us that for some people it is literally impossible to not be dealing with politics at all times, because politics means fighting for their right to live without being caged or killed.