“The blues world — the contemporary American mainstream scene and its discussants — has a race problem.” Several years ago, when I wrote that opening sentence for my new book, Whose Blues? Facing Up to Race and the Future of the Music (2020), I’d already seen signs of serious discontent…

Between March 2002, when I purchased the Honda from Max Tarnishovsky in New York City, and May 2013, when I sold it to Stacey Boone in Oxford, Mississippi with 372,000 miles on the odometer, I racked up a total of 210,000 miles. …

The question on the minds of everybody who follows politics right now is: Why would Donald Trump stoop so low as to insult Hillary Clinton for her bathroom breaks during a recent Democratic Presidential debate? Isn’t that so far beyond the pale that it’s just….un-Presidential in the extreme? …

Dear Fellow Citizen: You’re not supposed to exist, but you do. Politically, you might locate yourself somewhere on the line that runs from center-right to flag-waving conservative. You may be evangelical, or you may be a crusty atheist. I wouldn’t be surprised if you described yourself as an independent. (I…