Letters at 3AM

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon asks whether we’re really living … and if not, why not?

"...The inevitable dances with the unpredictable. That sentence I scrawled in my notebook, the fifth time..."

June 22, 2001 Column by Michael Ventura

Letters at 3AM: So Big Deal, Hemingway

Will Huck Finn be a valuable and immortal American archetype in the future?

"...you write a lot, sometimes you publish a sentence that is so silly you just have to walk away..."

July 25, 2014 Column by Michael Ventura

Letters at 3am: Oligarchy Blues

Without fair elections and a viable legislative process at federal and state levels, the republic no longer exists

"...The Left: does not exist in the United States – not as a meaningful force. To state the..."

June 27, 2014 Column by Michael Ventura

Letters at 3AM: Just Since April

Secret surveillance efforts fly in the face of our Constitution

"...mind, so: In April, when I began the "Arbitrary Nation" series about our battered Constitution, I had no idea..."

Aug. 23, 2013 Column by Michael Ventura

Letters at 3AM: An Arbitrary Nation, Part 1

We are governed today by an arbitrary legal hodgepodge

"...The Constitution of the United States – read it lately?..."

April 19, 2013 Column by Michael Ventura

Letters at 3AM: Did Abraham Lincoln Deserve a Second Term?

In 1864, Lincoln would have seemed more in favor of war than peace

"...Republican Abraham Lincoln carried 22 of the 25 states loyal to the Union, crushing Democrat George B. McClellan..."

Dec. 14, 2012 Column by Michael Ventura

Letters at 3AM: The System Ain't the System

The goal of oligarchy is to utterly disempower the workforce

"..."Half the jobs in the nation pay less than $34,000 a year ... A quarter..."

Aug. 31, 2012 Column by Michael Ventura

Letters at 3AM: Accidents of Birth and Rebirth

The unacceptable trade-off for a medically extended life

"...my era, I take a moment to remind myself that no other era would have me...."

July 13, 2012 Column by Michael Ventura

Letters at 3AM: A Pattern of Subversion

President Obama regularly oversteps his bounds of office

"...and begin less than two months into Barack Obama's administration, when this president issued his first flurry of signing..."

April 6, 2012 Column by Michael Ventura

Letters at 3AM: NDAA: Obama's Betrayal

NDAA: Obama's Betrayal

"...The president signed the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act on New Year's Eve, certain of..."

Jan. 27, 2012 Column by Michael Ventura

Letters at 3AM: What's Your Sign?

Michael Ventura observes the Occupy signs of our times

"...purple on brown paper and mounted on an easel at Occupy Austin...."

Dec. 30, 2011 Column by Michael Ventura

Letters at 3AM: The Bad and the Beautiful

Film noir cuts through the cant of America's idealism

"..."Wait a minute, I know this place. I've seen that courthouse."..."

May 20, 2011 Column by Michael Ventura

Letters at 3AM: Life as We Don't Know It

Our planet casts a shadow

"...A throaty voice full of gravel, nuts 'n' bolts, and broken..."

Jan. 14, 2011 Column by Michael Ventura

Letters at 3AM: Who's That Girl?

Singer-songwriter Joanna Newsom is an inimitable genius

"...Men are intractably stupid about women (a condition that does not improve with age). So when a male..."

Nov. 5, 2010 Column by Michael Ventura

Letters at 3AM: In the Margins of Oligarchy

Society is created by a mass of individual choices

"...If I am not my brother's keeper, what am I?..."

June 4, 2010 Column by Michael Ventura

Letters at 3AM: Georges Méliès' Tricks and Treats

Creating the possibility that anything could happen onscreen was the great contribution of Georges Méliès

"...it continues to converse – and, headless, he places that head on a table, where it goes on talking..."

Oct. 23, 2009 Column by Michael Ventura

Letters at 3AM

The prose themes of Willa Cather are timeless

"...Writing about masturbation just wasn't done in 1919, but Willa Cather got..."

Aug. 28, 2009 Column by Michael Ventura

Letters at 3AM

Homer, the epic poet of ancient Greece, invented the cinematic close-up

"...Homer, the epic poet of ancient Greece, invented the cinematic close-up...."

April 24, 2009 Column by Michael Ventura

Letters at 3AM

I am not my thoughts; I am not my feelings

"...be straightened, not really. It's doomed to be untidy, what with its piles of books; three laptops on wood..."

Feb. 13, 2009 Column by Michael Ventura

Letters at 3am

Obama won the election through a uniquely American combination of inspiration and cash

"...the lawn of an elementary school – a school that was whites-only when my contemporaries were 8 or 9...."

Nov. 21, 2008 Column by Michael Ventura

Letters at 3AM

This two-year-long campaign of such unprecedented intensity may have been the best proving ground for Barack Obama's candidacy

"...Economics: On Thursday, Sept. 11, John McCain told a ServiceNation forum, "Our economy is broken" (The New York Times,..."

Sept. 26, 2008 Column by Michael Ventura

Letters at 3AM

Officially confirmed 'alien' activity would be as sobering as it is intoxicating

"...out into a very black night brilliantly canopied by what seemed like the entire universe. The adobe was in..."

Aug. 15, 2008 Column by Michael Ventura

Letters at 3am

The "Situation" is upon us: China and Southern Asia can support their own growth and have no more use for us

"...this column ran with the headline "Welcome to the Situation." After huffing and puffing about the inability and/or unwillingness..."

Aug. 1, 2008 Column by Michael Ventura

Letters at 3AM

Heterosexuals are no longer the sole 'official' definers of marriage and gender.

"...if homosexuality is immoral, Hillary Clinton made the remarkable statement that the issue was "for others to conclude." Later,..."

April 27, 2007 Column by Michael Ventura

Letters at 3AM

U.S. military action against Iran is not likely to be tolerated by Europe, Russia, and China

"...The major nations hated but tolerated the United States' invasion of Iraq...."

Feb. 16, 2007 Column by Michael Ventura

Letters at 3AM

Three fronts of transformative change in U.S. society: the allowance of Christian proselytizing in the U.S. Air Force Academy, Halliburton's receipt of government contracts to build detention centers for Homeland Security, and the rise of the Latino electorate

"...piece for USA Today, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld wrote that "when he assumed office President Bush announced that he..."

April 28, 2006 Column by Michael Ventura

Letters at 3AM

Happiness costs. I know better now than to indulge this happiness, but still I drive on and I can't or won't stop. It isn't right that I and my Chevy, and you and your car, eat up the world's resources at the rate we do. We're driving in sin.

"...The only time I saw my father truly happy and almost free was on a winter..."

May 27, 2005 Column by Michael Ventura

Letters at 3AM

No concept lies more firmly embedded in our national character than the notion that the U.S.A. is No. 1,' the greatest.' A number of facts reveal that we can no longer even consider ourselves among the Top 10 nations in the world.

"...No concept lies more firmly embedded in our national character than the notion that the USA is "No...."

Jan. 21, 2005 Column by Michael Ventura

Letters at 3AM

The numbers tell a different story than the pundits: The next election will again be the Democrats' to lose if party members don't learn to talk plainly and with respect to people who are different culturally, and are uneducated, left out, or left behind

"...doesn't jibe with the numbers. The numbers don't say, "Democrats lost on moral values." The numbers say, "Democrats were..."

Nov. 26, 2004 Column by Michael Ventura

Letters at 3AM

Ralph Nader's stubborn refusal to acknowledge any difference between the Republican and Democratic political platforms cost the Democrats the election.

"...During the '96 election I wrote that there was little functional economic or foreign policy difference..."

Aug. 8, 2003 Column by Michael Ventura

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