The famous Chesapeake oyster industry has a strange and violent history, finds Rita... It was like slurping up a gob of phlegm. I swallowed as quickly as possible to get the awful thing out of my mouth. But then the flavor hit, delicate with a hint of brine. Absolutely delicious. My first ... Read More...
Dispatches from the Former New World
Rita reflects on 2015's biggest issue in American discourse Does a bullet cause more mayhem to the body, more pain to the victim, if the shooter is labeled a “terrorist” rather than “mentally ill” or a “thug”? If the shooter is a police officer, or the neighborhood drug dealer, or a toddler ... Read More...
Rita gives Christmas in America both barrels... Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the land Fear and loathing were stalking, “Merry Christmas” was banned By those secular fiends the Politically Correct, They hate America, what do you expect? Assault weapons were stowed by the chimney with care Stockings stuffed with ammunition to spare, The children ... Read More...
Rita provides a liberal's guide to surviving this year's family Thanksgiving get-togethers... Thanksgiving is almost here, and Americans everywhere are dreading the highjacking of dinner table conversation by the grumpy uncles and drunken cousins who think we all want to hear their political rants and favorite conspiracy theories. Remember the year ... Read More...
In honour of Halloween, Rita shares her own ghost and haunted house stories... First I should stipulate that I don't believe in ghosts, even though I've seen one. Nor do I believe in poltergeists or demonic possession or any of the other emanations of the paranormal world. I think psychics and spiritualists ... Read More...
A stay in hospital forces Rita to wonder where America would be without immigrant workers... This American summer's favorite sport of immigrant bashing is still going strong well into the fall season. Temperatures may have cooled weather wise, but out on the campaign trail the heat still sizzles. Hot air blows ... Read More...
An encounter with an amateur Icelandic historian leaves Rita pondering the counterfactuals... Sometimes you have to travel far away to learn the history of your own neighborhood. In Iceland this summer we had a chance encounter with a loquacious bus driver who told us a fascinating story from World War II, ... Read More...
Rita returns to her ancestral Belgian homelands, and finds that the historical cities have succumbed to a plague of modern public art... Martin McDonagh’s film In Bruges opened the 2008 Sundance Film Festival and went on to become a cult hit. The story of hapless Irish hit men stuck in the ... Read More...
What does the Harper Lee firestorm say about American attitudes to literature and its own history, wonders Rita... This summer two publishing events with remarkably similar backstories splashed across American media with the waves of adulation usually reserved for pop culture icons. Both stories featured the discovery of long lost manuscripts ... Read More...
Rita reckons that in the southern states of the US, history is written by the losers... That winners write the history books is conventional wisdom, but it is turned on its head here in America. The losers of the Civil War seized control of the popular history narrative almost as soon ... Read More...