Author Archives: Jason O'Bryan

It’s not often that I find myself in agreement with the 24-hour message of Fear and Impending Doom that has been emanating from Washington for the last five years. The Department of Homeland Security, with their colored wheel of danger and the continual image of terrorists plotting to kill anyone who loves freedom, more often […]

It’s fun to feign omnipotence and think how I would change Los Angeles if I could. I would certainly give the state more money, so it wouldn’t have to take its debt out on students and force me into month-long Ramen-fests. I would unclog the freeway, so that driving (ideally being faster than walking) would […]

“You are invited to attend the actual ending of my life.” So read the invitation to Karen Janoch’s physician-assisted suicide, sent to about two dozen of her closest family and friends. In April of 2004, Janoch ““ diagnosed with terminal liver cancer ““ decided that she wanted to die, and was able to do it […]

I was already one drink in, and working on a second, before I remembered that, for New Year’s, I had resolved to not drink so much. Maybe I forgot because New Year’s was almost two weeks ago, or maybe it was the hangover from the night before, but for whatever reason, my resolution had completely […]

Not since the height of the British Empire has any single country so thoroughly dominated the globe. The United States is far-and-away the strongest technological, financial and military power in the world, but to wield this power without any responsibility is absurd. We cannot treat the world as we did during the Cold War and […]

I would sooner take a power drill to my left temple than hear one more middle-aged Stepford politician talk about “the voting youth.” If I had a dime for every time some misinformed professional dilettante told me what I needed, what I had too little or too much of, I would have several million dollars. […]