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Don Williams is a prize-winning columnist, short story writer, freelancer, and the founding editor and publisher of New Millennium Writings, an annual anthology of literary stories, essays and poems. His awards include a National Endowment for the Humanities Michigan Journalism Fellowship, a Golden Presscard Award and the Malcolm Law Journalism Prize. He just finished a novel, "Oracle of the Orchid Lounge," set in his native Tennessee. Publishers or agents may inquire via email. His book of selected journalism, "Heroes, Sheroes and Zeroes, the Best Writings About People" by Don Williams, is due a second printing. In 2007, he gave up his weekly column at the Knoxville News-Sentinel rather than see it cut back to every-other-week by editors who endorsed Bush-Cheney.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011 "Brisk, but with feeling'--my ET Hall of Fame remarks (1 comments)
On Oct. 20, I was inducted into the East Tennessee Writers Hall of Fame, an honor I thought would never come my way, as my writings, tho popular, had been highly controversial in the region. I'd walked away from my column of 21 years at the Knoxville News-Sentinel rather than agree to stop writing about national issues. This was the elephant in the ballroom, last Thursday, and I felt I had to acknowledge it. Here's my speech.
Friday, May 6, 2011 Obama at Ground Zero--How Executing Osama bin Laden Brutalized Us All (11 comments)
And if we've come to this, applauding like chimps for acts of barbaric bloodletting that took place in front of the slaughtered man's 12-year-old daughter and others, then we are at ground zero on the evolutionary scale.
We shot the suspect in the heart and head, then threw his body in the sea. Tell me how this makes the past decade of needless war, lies, torture and waste any easier. To me it's just more of the same.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011 Fear and Loathing in the Twilight Zone of Talking Heads (2 comments)
I'd always wondered what it's like to play guest commentator on a newsy show tuned in by thousands or millions. I found out last Thursday. It's Fear and Loathing meets The Twilight Zone.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011 Why Obama's right on Libya but Bush was wrong on Iraq (28 comments)
Start with the lies. President Obama was forthright last night in telling Americans and the world why we must intervene in Libya. No one could doubt the evidence he used to build his case of opposing a bloodbath. The evidence was everywhere before our eyes. This was not true of Bush and Iraq. The reasons he concocted for going to war did not pass the sniff test.
Monday, March 28, 2011 Atoms for War, Atoms for Peace: Only Japan knows both sides of nuclear coin (2 comments)
Only God--if anyone--knows how critical this crisis can become, but it's bad enough to render Japan a poster child for extremes of nuclear madness experienced by humans to date. So how did Japan go from target of war nukes to willing participant in nuclear madness.
Friday, June 18, 2010 Cheney-Bush still gushing toxic history into our world (7 comments)
In 2003 I wrote, "If George W. Bush had run for president on a platform of making the world uninhabitable for humankind, he could scarcely have done better at starting us down such a path." Even now oil gushes from a hole in the bottom of the sea, thanks to Bush, Cheney, Halliburton and BP.
Friday, June 18, 2010 Cheney-Bush Still Gushing Toxic History Into Our World (3 comments)
In his second administration--two wars and a million deaths later--Bush demoted Cheney, but by then it was too late. Cheney had unleashed forces that will haunt the world for decades if not centuries. Even now oil gushes from a hole in the bottom of the sea, thanks to Bush, Cheney, Halliburton and BP.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010 Crunch Time--Tell Tennessee to Save Global Treasures
You can make a difference if you ACT NOW. Vast forest carbon wells, species migration routes, rivers and spawning grounds have been put at risk by a hesitant state legislature.
Friday, April 30, 2010 Obama and that old June, croon, spoon moon (1 comments)
It's astounding that Obama intends pulling the plug on President Bush's plans to return us to the moon by about 2020, with no cut in spending. I'm no Bush fan, but his moon plans were based on designing a program reminiscent of Apollo, which gave us damn near all the tools a space-faring nation needs to explore the entire solar system.
Saturday, March 20, 2010 A Nation of Wolves and Sheep
First, I urge you to support healthcare reform by contacting your U.S. representative
Thursday, February 11, 2010 Celebrating My Country Within-A-Country
there were times when I didn't recognize my country anymore, and more than once when I've heard somebody say, "America, love it or leave it," I considered leaving.
Thursday, January 21, 2010 Mysterious friend calls Obama out
Flamboyant friend calls out not only Obama but supportive columnists... "kind of like the orchestra on the Titanic..."
Wednesday, January 6, 2010 At Last We've Entered the New Millennium... Sort of (2 comments)
Start with the cultural. "Avatar," the flashiest and most popular new film in years proffers a message born of a Whole Earth mentality... Other indicators offer hope as well, but dark tones pertain.
Friday, December 4, 2009 I can't go along just because it's Obama's war (7 comments)
If Osama bin Laden's still alive, he must be laughing. He's damn near bankrupted us. Yet, instead of cutting back, Obama's upping the ante.
Thursday, November 26, 2009 Go ahead, hug that tree and give thanks (2 comments)
It may be impossible to say anything truer about happiness than this: Giving thanks is the key to happiness.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009 Say No to a New Nuclear Bomb Plant (3 comments)
If you love our world, drop everything for ten minutes and visit http://www.Y12SWEIS.com. Leave a comment there telling the US government to get behind a vision embraced by unlikely bedfellows who have envisioned a nuclear-weapons-free future. Specifically, ask our politicos and bureaucrats to drop plans to build a ruinous new weapons complex in Oak Ridge, TN.
Thursday, November 5, 2009 On Obama's role in New Millennium Writings (1 comments)
Perhaps childishly, some of us looked to the new millennium as a time when humans would emerge from our planetary nursery and set aside childish things such as war, economic hooliganism and environmental abuse. Our species would graduate to embrace the shining chalice of our Whole Earth and drink deep her royal blue promise. It hasn't quite worked out that way.
Friday, October 9, 2009 Obama wins Nobel Prize... but can he live up to it? (4 comments)
President Obama's selection for the Nobel Prize, announced this morning, caught many by surprise, but can he live up to it?
Monday, September 21, 2009 To all the late lamented boys and girls of summer, come back, go away, come back... (2 comments)
When John Lennon died my youth curled up and fed itself to Grief. Doubtlessly millions took one or another of the many public deaths of spring and summer, 2009, in just such personal ways. In any case, the list is incomplete, status-based, broken on both ends. Still, here it is...
Wednesday, September 2, 2009 Kennedys' dark tragedies never eclipsed their lofty lunar glow (1 comments)
Even as astronauts navigated their way toward the moon a quarter-million miles distant, JFK's younger brother Edward took a short drive toward a dark drink of water with a young woman not his wife. Mary Jo Kopechne drowned. The event robbed the moon of Kennedy luster, and Edward of any real chance at the presidency.
Friday, August 21, 2009 On 'death panels,' 'socialized medicine' and other red herrings (4 comments)
Ain't it a shame our so-called liberal media is obsessed with "death panels" of fevered imaginations rather than death panels that exist in the real world, notably in our present health-care system?
Thursday, August 6, 2009 Our mountains are not for sale (7 comments)
Sen. Lamar Alexander's bill would halt the practice of blasting the tops off mountains to get the dirty coal. Miners threaten to boycott Tennessee tourist areas, such as the Great Smoky Mountains. To which I say, please do. We don't want you near our mountains.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009 Obama As Spock? Beam Me Up Scottie (3 comments)
Newsweek recently featured a cover story suggesting Obama must be a Vulcan. Let's hope not, at least not in director J.J. Abrams' dark film. In the Sixties, kids like me believed the Whole Earth as seen from space just might be our salvation. Star Trek was not only symbolic but catalytic of such change. Each Friday it offered new ways of understanding The Other. This movie embraces the dark side.
Thursday, May 14, 2009 Shout it from the rooftops--Al-Libi--keep his torture story alive (4 comments)
Al-Libi was living proof that torture doesn't work. Now he's dead proof. It's up to us to keep his story alive, for al-Libi was tortured into telling lies that Bush/Cheney used to start a war that killed, damaged and displaced millions.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009 Suddenly Public Debates Turn Toward Sanity (2 comments)
Just when you began to wonder whether public debate would ever be conducted on sane ground again, lo and behold the world changed.
Thursday, April 9, 2009 'It could've been all different, Jack... You got to believe that' (1 comments)
But those who would try and take the measure of their humanity as we march our Bernie Madoffs to guillotine or country club prison could do worse than read Inman Majors' novel, The Millionaires (W. W. Norton, 2009, $24.95.).
Wednesday, April 1, 2009 You say the New Deal didn't work? Prove it (29 comments)
The usual suspects declare that Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal didn't end the Great Depression. World War II ended the Great Depression, they cry in harmony, and so we shouldn't buy into President Obama's stimulus spending plan. But what was WWII if not the ultimate in spending, jobs and protectionism?
Friday, February 13, 2009 Terrorist in my home town 'with up so floating many bells down'
An out-of-work truckdriver brought a guitar case into a Unitarian church where I teach, pulled out a shotgun and shot eight people. He smiled as he pleaded guilty Monday to killing two and wounding six last summer because he hated liberals. Don't tell me our former president kept us free from terror.
Thursday, January 22, 2009 Obama as Savior? He'd better be (4 comments)
Our challenges are existential, not in some mysterious, intellectual way, but in the sense that our very existence--as a nation, a species, as individuals--has been put at risk. And it's been put at risk mostly by forces that have grown from the darkness inside our own hearts.
Monday, December 22, 2008 Go ahead, hang a shining star upon the highest bough and... you know... (1 comments)
I pose a question from the Ghost of Christmas Past. Did you "hang a shining star upon the highest bough" or merely "muddle through somehow" this Christmas season? It's important to answer.
Saturday, December 20, 2008 A word about Easter Island and other calamitous feedback loops (16 comments)
Like islanders who fed their entire beautiful world to stone idols, we feed ours to idols of commerce, high finance, fossil fuel and armaments, hastening our own demise.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008 Just How Blessed Am I Anyhow this Thanksgiving?
Around Thanksgiving 2005 I gave a talk "On Moonwalkers and Tree Huggers" at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, a talk I wrapped up with the following life-altering advice....
Friday, October 10, 2008 On Obama and the Fears We Dare Not Name, Revisited (2 comments)
It's time we named our darkest fears, regarding Obama. Here's mine: Sarah Palin's fear-mongering just might get him killed.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008 At Last, Talking Heads Acknowledge Obama Won (3 comments)
What a relief. Maybe the media's been chastened for pretending the last two debates were draws, even when snap polling told all with eyes to see that Obama owned the first presidential and Joe Biden won the one and only vice-presidential debate.
Friday, October 3, 2008 Biden wins debate, yet MSM insists on calling it a tie (10 comments)
Joseph Biden won 51 percent to 36 percent over Sarah Palin among undecided voters in an early CNN poll based on random sampling, and yet...
Tuesday, September 30, 2008 Rebel Repubs tell Bush Where to Stick It, and Markets Plunge
Yeah! Attboy! Attagal! Tell Wall Street where to stick it. We'll not throw good money after bad. Your orgy of high-living at our expense is over.
Wow, that felt good. Now, what I really think
Thursday, September 11, 2008 So many pigs, so much lipstick--the sad legacy of 9/11 (2 comments)
Each year we dress 9/11 in red, white and blue and trot it out for vigils by candlelight and excruciating video. And each year such shows become less meaningful as we recall what we did in the name of 9/11.
Friday, September 5, 2008 McCain's heroic story isn't the whole story; questions need asking (8 comments)
It won't be easy to challenge a living icon of military heroism, as McCain is positioning himself, but a baker's dozen questions need asking before it's too late. Is MSM up to the job?
Tuesday, August 26, 2008 Hillary Supercharges Convention with Electrifying Support for Obama
"I love you. I love you. I love," former President Bill Clinton mouthed toward Hillary shortly after she began speaking Tuesday at the Democratic National Convention in Denver. And as she finished, many in the hall were chanting the mantra aloud. "We love you Hillary." Ah, what might've been.
Friday, August 8, 2008 Bush puts big Double-I brand on Olympics--Insulting Incoherency (1 comments)
Just hours ago George W. Bush put his distinctive brand on the 2008 Olympics in China. You know the brand. It marks all Bush initiatives. The big Double-I. Insulting Incoherency.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008 Church shootings and candle lights vie beneath 'Bible black' skies (1 comments)
The sky was Bible black and ringing with thunder last night above Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in West Knoxville. You know it as the building where Jim D. Adkisson carried a shotgun inside a guitar case Sunday morning and shot nine people during a children's performance of the musical "Annie." None of the children were shot, but two adults later died.
Monday, July 21, 2008 Can you feel it? America's turning red, white and GREEN
From T. Boone Pickens to kids building windmills while Christians turn green, the signs are clear, Miss Tipping Point has entered the building.
Monday, July 14, 2008 Fannie Mae mess is just latest layer on Chef Dubya's tottering cake (1 comments)
This is only the latest layer in a tall leaning cake historians will someday deconstruct like archaeologists at a dig to try and figure how we could've allowed such a chef as George W. Bush in the kitchen to begin with.
Monday, July 7, 2008 On Barack Obama and 'the art of the possible' (3 comments)
You hung it all out there for your latest hero, Barack Hussein Obama. So how does he repay you? He does the utterly predictable thing and steps down off the pedestal you put him on.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008 Three reasons Obama will beat McCain; charisma, charisma, charisma
He's tall, youthful, chiseled, athletic, sincere and exotic. When has either party offered such an attractive nominee? Go down the list.
Johnson? Nixon? McGovern? Ford? Carter? Dukakis? Mondale? Obama's the rock star of politics. His time is now.
Saturday, June 7, 2008 What a sweet, gracious, generous speech; Hillary endorses Obama! (29 comments)
Hillary Clinton can flat deliver a speech, and her latest is for the ages, because there was nothing flat about what she said or how she said it Saturday shortly before 1 p.m., when she endorsed Barack Obama and pledged to work her heart out for him!
Saturday, May 24, 2008 Is Obama big enough to ask Hillary onto ticket despite RFK gaffe (2 comments)
Asking Hillary to be his running mate would demonstrate an almost transcendent big-mindedness, largeness of spirit and good will on Obama's part, and that's what he's been running on isn't it?
Monday, May 5, 2008 Hillary's Words Provide Cover for Bush War Crimes (1 comments)
Should George W. Bush send missiles screaming across ancient Persian skies in coming weeks or months, he might well cite remarks by Hillary Clinton when justifying his latest crimes.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008 It was just laying there--a scoop in broad daylight (10 comments)
Robert Gates' confession that his mistakes brought on 9/11 and our war in Afghanistan was ignored by Big Media, and so I scooped it up. Not the first time....
Tuesday, April 29, 2008 Barack knocks Rev. Wright's remarks out of the ballpark (34 comments)
It might've been strike 3 for Barack Obama, but he knocked the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's comments out of the ball park in about as clean and forceful a swing as you're likely to see in the World Series of politics.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008 Bush Defense Secretary Admits 9/11 Was Blowback (20 comments)
Last week, Defense Secretary Robert Gates made the following jaw-dropping statement: "We were attacked from Afghanistan in 2001, and we are at war in Afghanistan today, in no small measure because of mistakes this government made."
That's an astonishing confession, even if mine was the only jaw that dropped.
Saturday, March 29, 2008 If McCain, Hillary and Obama all face Strike 3, is it really baseball? (1 comments)
You want to cry out, "Say it ain't so, Barack. Say it ain't so...."
But Casey's at the bat, the pitch is on its way. And there is no joy in Mudville....
Since I wrote those words in my last column, both Hillary Clinton and John McCain made blunders that could be called Strike Two.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008 With Obama at the bat, is there no hope for joy in Mudville? (2 comments)
You could see it coming from the top deck. Obama's had 20 years to take aim at this pitch, but like Casey in Ernest Lawrence Thayer's perennial classic, "Casey at the Bat," Obama let it sail right across the plate. Until Tuesday that is...
Wednesday, March 5, 2008 Obama swamped by perfect storm as Hillary blows in
Barack Obama ran into a perfect storm of bad publicity, scandal, crossover Republicans, energized women, a resourceful and hard-working opponent in Hillary Clinton, and remorseful media bending over backwards to throw her a lifeline.
Sunday, March 2, 2008 CAN WE TRUST OUR GOVERNMENT TO PROTECT OBAMA? (1 comments)
A lifetime ago a friend asked, "What do you make of Barack Obama?"
My unrehearsed response: "When I see Obama, I see a dead man walking. Do you honestly believe they'll ever let him be our president?"
"They who?"
Saturday, February 16, 2008 Obama Would Rid the World of Nukes, Hillary's Not So Clear. What Say You? (3 comments)
It's a deal-breaker for those with the imagination to envision a future in which the world is not put at risk by human folly. Hillary won't call for a world without nukes. Obama did so long ago. Naive? Not according to Kissinger, Shultz, Nunn and Perry, four Cold Warriors calling for an end to the age of nukes.
Thursday, January 10, 2008 On Obama and Fears We Dare Not Name (2 comments)
We've known others who swept America off her feet with youthful looks, charisma and idealism. How well you know their fate. So let's leave it at this: When I look at Obama's family, I can't bring myself to believe America will allow these sweet, attractive people of color to occupy the White House.
Friday, January 4, 2008 Obama, Edwards wash away Hillary's bogus claim of "change"
Friday morning I heard Hillary say this: "When we talk about change, we need somebody who won't just SAY change... What we need is somebody who can PRODUCE change, just like I've been doing for thirty-fiiiiive years." Never has a phrase sounded so tired.
Saturday, December 22, 2007 Though sailing blind, still the pilot cries 'Full speed ahead' (2 comments)
The crash and oil spill at the Golden Gate Bridge might be the perfect metaphor of Dubya's presidency, if there were only a board of pilots to hold Bush accountable.
Monday, November 12, 2007 Lessons from the past and our ever-dawning future
Knowledge that the US meddled in Iran, gave Pakistan the bomb and the means to deliver it should inform future policy decisions.
Friday, October 19, 2007 Al Gore drew a circle that brought us all in...
Let us now praise biased judges, vote suppressors, mudslingers and superficial media for casting Al Gore from the circle of power in 2000. They just might've helped save the Earth. Al Gore drew a circle that took them all in.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007 Bush's War Has Only Begun
Once again, America is swallowing a big, fat lie.
Friday, August 31, 2007 A Coal Miner's Last Words Resonate Still
Even before 9/11, Bush's arrogant tactic of appointing foxes to run henhouses alienated many of us.
Bush has placed energy and arms merchants in charge of foreign policy, lumber executives in charge of forests, polluters in charge of the EPA, a yes-man in charge of justice, and he named Stickler--a former mine executive with a flawed saftey record--Mine Safety Czar. I wonder if he's read the dying words of a lost miners....
Thursday, August 23, 2007 Dear Dubya, So You're Saying Vietnam Just Didn't Go On Long Enough (6 comments)
Dubya,
Good for you. You've finally admitted what some of us have been saying since 2003. Iraq is like Vietnam.
Of course your memory of Vietnam's a lot different from most of ours. You could say it's new and improved. Like most works of creative nonfiction--
Friday, August 10, 2007 The Simple and God-Awful Truth (1 comments)
I'm supposed to speak truth to power, but can't seem to work up the old outrage, though there's no end of things to get angry about. Just now it's all beside the point. Just now I want to bask in memories of Edisto... a darkly bright island.
Thursday, August 2, 2007 On Williams Jennings Bryan, the Monkey Trial and False Patriotism
What chance did I have in a town where a majority believe Adam and Eve rode to church on dinosaurs. To this day, the sort of Biblical creationism Bryan defended holds sway in this country. Like jingoistic patriotism, it's a sort of tribal truth. True even if it didn't happen.
Monday, July 9, 2007 On Scooter Libby, the War Dead, and Impeachment (1 comments)
The Scooter Libby case embraces the very sort of abuses King George III visited on America 231 years ago. It's about nothing if it's not about human rights abuses, war crimes, bearing false witness, lack of participatory democracy and worse.
Monday, July 9, 2007 Mileage Standards Fine For Chasing White Rabbits (1 comments)
At first glance the new mileage standards passed June 21 reflect a country waking up from nightmares induced by poor leadership on climate change and defense. But look through the surface glare, and you'll notice the bill is way too little, way too late, as greenhouse feedback loops begin unraveling this elegant Earth.
Friday, June 15, 2007 Free flowing money and a dammed humanity...
Is it right to allow free-flowing capital to cross all borders, while damming back the free flow of human beings at the same borders? Is it even practical?
Friday, June 1, 2007 The Hard Rain of Depleted Uranium is Already Falling (2 comments)
If ever a man's been 10,000 miles in the mouth of graveyard, Dr. Doug Rokke has, for when you really look into Depleted Uranium, as he has, time and space open wide to reveal tombstones of future generations.
Friday, May 11, 2007 Mysterious Friend Brings Parable of Springtime
I've had a revelation, a vision you could say, but I swear it's true, happened less than an hour ago. There's reason to celebrate.
Friday, May 4, 2007 See how they run--from the only questions that count (2 comments)
Only Kucinich, Gravel and Paul have asked these most crucial questions of all: Who's most likely to start a nuclear war? Should our leaders be held accountable for the quagmire we find ourselves in? For covering up evidence of global warming? Is there a way to break the cycle of war in the 21st century? We ignore them at our peril.
Friday, April 13, 2007 Logic 101 could break the cycle of war (1 comments)
Political Correctness from the right is far more damaging our country than PC from the left. Take the notion that opposing the war in Iraq is not only impolite but that it's damaging to our troops. People who say that fall prey to two logical fallacies, at least, and Big Media should not let them get away with it.
Monday, April 9, 2007 Our Three Stooges from the Middle East (5 comments)
Chant it like a mantra from hell. Three stooges lied us into war: A man named Curveball, whom we bribed. A man named Chalibi, who conned us. A man named al-Libi, whom we tortured into telling lies.
Saturday, March 24, 2007 Fire! Polite Applause
When a journalist acts courageously, it's as if someone stood in a crowded restaurant, shouted "Fire! Somebody do something!" and everyone applauds politely.
Friday, March 16, 2007 Khalid Shaikh Mohammed's Unbelievable Confession (1 comments)
Is Khalid Shaikh Mohammed guilty or innocent of the 30 or so allegations by the Pentagon. I don't know and neither do you.
Monday, March 5, 2007 Lots of money for terrorists (3 comments)
For some, new revelations that President Bush is funding groups linked to al-Qaeda prompts an awakening, for others it leads to a weird reaction known as cognitive dissonance. Then the name-calling begins.
Friday, February 23, 2007 21 Years and Snip--My Column Ends at the News-Sentinel (2 comments)
After 21 years as a weekly columnist in a red state, a message on the answering machine brought about the end of my career at The Knoxville News-Sentinel. Why looky here, Mama, I've made the honor roll.
Friday, February 9, 2007 2007 Already A Crucible for Change
Lucky '07 is casting off norms of the past--in politics, cityscapes, athletics, environment--and much more. Just in time.
Friday, February 2, 2007 Cracked? No, Iraq is an Omelet Face Down on the Kitchen Floor
Now our declared enemies in Iran---seek to make common cause with Iraq. This is a cracked egg? Unh-unh, this is a broken omelet face down on the kitchen floor.
Friday, January 26, 2007 My Plan: Getting Smarter Faster About the Middle East (9 comments)
If you're not ignorant, then answer me this. Why are we spending over $1 billion to build an embassy complex in Baghdad? I don't know the answer, and neither do you. That's called ignorance my friend.
Friday, January 12, 2007 Bush's Gamble; Your World (7 comments)
We'd best get ahead of the Neocon curve and deal them out of the game. Otherwise our world's headed for chaos. It's up to people like us.
