Author

Diane Roberts

Diane Roberts

Diane Roberts is an 8th-generation Floridian, born and bred in Tallahassee, which probably explains her unhealthy fascination with Florida politics. Educated at Florida State University and Oxford University in England, she has been writing for newspapers since 1983. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Times of London, the Guardian, the Washington Post, the Oxford American, and Flamingo.

COMMENTARY

FL’s U.S. senators fight phantom communists, Gestapo as the world burns

By: - August 15, 2022

It’s been a while since we checked in with Florida’s two brilliant and attractive U.S. senators, Rick Scott and Marco Rubio. First of all, they are both very upset about that terrible, horrible, no good, very bad FBI attack on Mar-A-Lago which happened for no reason other than the president took some boxes of paper […]

COMMENTARY

Talk about ‘fake news’ — a look into FL Power & Light’s covert campaign against the free press

By: - August 1, 2022

Truth? Overrated. I mean, how the hell do you monetize it? Even worse, what if it gets in the way of the right people having the right power? That’s why a well-ordered country needs a well-ordered media. You know, like in China. Or Turkey. Or Russia. The “free press” thing is a problem. So-called journalists […]

COMMENTARY

The impending miseducation of Florida’s schoolchildren

By: - July 25, 2022

As a great president once asked, “Is our children learning?” Well, is they? It don’t look good, what with government schools forcing them to become communists, hate America, and vote wrong. But never fear: Florida’s governor’s fixed that mess with new rules stopping those union-loving, Toni Morrison-reading, evolution-accepting, comfortable shoe-wearing, foreign movie-watching, gay-coddling teachers indoctrinating […]

COMMENTARY

American democracy is in danger, and we’re running out of time to save it

By: - July 8, 2022

They taught us the Union won the Civil War. They taught us wrong. The South won the war. Yes, Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865, and told his soldiers to “furl the flag, Boys.” But that flag hasn’t gone anywhere. The Jan. 6, 2021, insurrectionists waved it inside […]

COMMENTARY

We looked to the Supreme Court to protect our rights; now, it is taking them away

By: - June 27, 2022

The United States of America is no longer a free country. Women are no longer full citizens with equal rights. The theocracy also known as the U.S. Supreme Court has decided that our bodies don’t belong to us. Anyone who is or can become pregnant will be a ward of the state, captive of a […]

COMMENTARY

Republicans seem to have decided they don’t like the democracy thing

By: - June 20, 2022

Important things we now know, thanks to the January 6th committee: White House Chief of Staff and election fraudster Mark Meadows suggested Italian satellites may have sabotaged Trump votes. The Proud Boys have nothing to be proud of. The sad camo. The backwards ball caps. The racism. They wrote up a nine-page plan to occupy […]

COMMENTARY

GOP’s approach to gun violence: Stupidity, cruelty, fear of ‘replacement’

By: - June 8, 2022

It took Ron DeSantis 11 days to say anything publicly about the mass shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde (and Tulsa and Ames and Chattanooga and Philadelphia). Maybe he was too busy disenfranchising Black voters or boasting about how Florida is rolling in money (a lot of it courtesy of Joe Biden) while also vetoing contraception […]

COMMENTARY

As the nation’s body count continues to mount, the NRA and its acolytes party on

By: - May 30, 2022

Despite what the braying anti-Roe Right wants you to think, America is not pro-life. This country is pro-death. Fetuses and firearms: that’s what makes America America — that and the ability of an 18 year-old to buy military grade weapons. At least 21 shot dead in Uvalde, Texas; 10 shot dead in Buffalo, N.Y.; a […]

COMMENTARY

London calling: ‘People seem more nervous now. … Maybe it’s the perilous state of democracy

By: - May 20, 2022

LONDON — I first came to the U.K. in 1981 as a student and have lived here on and off (more off of late) for the last 40 years. I have never seen people more anxious than now. The 1980s were an extravagant, greed-is-good era kicked off by the “fairy-tale” wedding of the Prince of […]

COMMENTARY

U.S., U.K. vie to outdo each other in misogyny

By: - May 9, 2022

LONDON — Which country hates women more, the U.S. or the U.K.? In America, a woman will apparently soon be forced to carry a child to term, even if she was raped, even if she was trafficked, even if she can’t care for the kid, doesn’t want it, and having it means ruining her life. […]

COMMENTARY
Banned books

We don’t talk enough about the positive side of our history of racism and genocide

By: - April 25, 2022

It’s a known fact that books can turn children gay. Say your 9th grader comes into contact with “Rainbow Boys” or “All Boys Aren’t Blue” — boom, it’s all over. That kid is now a certified Friend of Dorothy. Let your child near a book such as “Almost Perfect” by Brian Katcher, and, before you […]

COMMENTARY

Conservative white men are losing their grip

By: - April 11, 2022

Republicans are angry. So very, very angry. Deranged White Man Syndrome has not yet been listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, but it’s just a matter of time. Seriously, these dudes (and they are mostly male-gendered persons) are on a rampage of rage and loathing which cannot be healthy. U.S. Sen. […]