The Unclad Soul

I asked Ingrid on the way to school the other morning if she could remember when she stopped believing in Santa Clause. She’s 13 now and I miss those days when she would stand by the tree in her Dora pajamas and chatter about Santa coming. She didn’t hesitate to answer my question. She said, “The year Santa never ate the cookies and milk.” Pilar and I were together then and we all lived in the house—Ingrid, her mom Claudia, and Pilar’s mom, Olivia, and Pilar and me. I remember I had set out the cookies and milk after Ingrid was in bed asleep and I always ate them before I went to bed and then would leave a note saying how good they were, signed by Santa. But that night for some reason, maybe I was just too sleepy, I went off to bed and left them there on a little stool by the tree. I don’t remember Ingrid saying much about it at the time. But apparently when she saw the cookies and milk untouched on Christmas morning, all the doubts she’d had about the whole Santa enterprise, fina...

Domestic gun violence with mass murders of innocent unarmed people. Refusal to pass any meaningful immigration reform. Glaring unjust economic inequality. Unquestionable racial discrimination. Blatant disrespect for the office of president and the function of government. These are vital national issues Republicans perpetuate and will not face. Why do Republican candidates want to be president anyway? Why do Republicans in Congress want to serve? What is it Republican governors, mayors, and elected state officials want? Why are they there? I mean, what possible good do any of them want to do for the country? They refuse to cooperate with president Obama and Democrats. They demagogue. They patronize. They pontificate. They incite discord and often hate. They dismiss the constitution. If they dislike a law they just ignore it. They either distort the truth or outright lie about the economy, about immigration, about abortion, about Planned Parenthood and all the other social and moral i...