On May 19, country singer Jason Aldean released “Try This in a Small Town,” a song from his upcoming album. The song contrasts big city violence with small town law and order: “If you’re looking for a fight, try that in a small town.” The video was even more graphic, contrasting a performance clip of Aldean singing and playing in front of the Maury County courthouse in Columbia, Tennessee with news footage of city slickers rioting, looting, and burning the American flag.

Watching politicians like Ron DeSantis ignore climate change while the nation cooks is like being trapped in the backseat of a car - windows up and locked - with a crazed driver who won’t stop smoking. Coughing falls on deaf ears. Complaining makes him chain-smoke. Explaining the science of carcinogens and lungs makes him twitch and light cigars - simultaneously.

Recently my friend Fred Fejes, professor emeritus at Florida Atlantic University and an authority on Florida’s LGBTQ History (“Gay Rights and Moral Panic”), delivered a lecture titled “Queer by the Beach: The History of the Fort Lauderdale LGBT Community.”

The U.S. Supreme Court’s June ruling in 303 Creative v. Elenis was “profoundly wrong,” wrote Justice Sonia Sotomayor in her dissent, where she also pointed out the harmful message it sends to children with same-sex parents.