Max McCoy

The American home is the seat of our democracy. Today's gilded, shame-filled halls of power are not. • Kansas Reflector Paint rollers and used brushes and wooden stir sticks crusted with a cheerful shade called “morning blossom” are in a pile on the wooden porch, waiting for the job to resume come daylight. Every so of...

My @kansasreflector.com column today. kansasreflector.com/2025/08/17/t...

In 1922 a Kansas paper gave readers an inside look at the Klan. The evil it exposed was timeless. • Kansas Reflector This was a reimagined Klan, a movement that had been sweeping Main Street America in a wave of nostalgia and bigotry.

My @kansasreflector.com column today.
kansasreflector.com/2025/08/10/i...

Was just on CNN this morning talking about my
@kansasreflector.com columns on Hiroshima and my memories of my 1986 interview with Yoshito Matsushige, who took the only known photographs on the ground the day the bomb fell. Thanks to host MJ Lee and the @cnn.com crew.

Looking skyward at 6:15 pm from our home on Constitution Street. It was at this moment, 80 years ago, that the atomic bomb detonated over Hiroshima (it's already tomorrow in Japan, owing to the time difference, so it was 8:15 am Aug 6 there).

It's been 80 years since the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Time to raise some L. • Kansas Reflector It was such a peaceful morning that Yoshito Matsushige could scarcely believe it was wartime. Matsushige, a 32-year-old newspaper photographer who had been up most of the night before covering air rai...

My @kansasreflector.com column today.

Yep, I remember some of that. Wish I'd had another 1,000 words and two more days to work on the column.

Thanks, Diana.

My town is the new unemployment capital of Kansas. But have you tried the water? • Kansas Reflector Emporia's unemployment stats shot up this summer. Unemployment here is now greater than the state average of 3.8% or the national, 4.1%.

My @kansasreflector.com column today.

kansasreflector.com/2025/07/27/m...

Can an 87-year-old superhero from Kansas still be relevant? Yes, if it's Superman — and his dog. • Kansas Reflector I haven't paid much attention to the Superman franchise in years, but in the last few weeks I've been pondering the nature of heroes and myth and just why things seem so hopeless in America. What woul...

My @kansasreflector.com column today.

kansasreflector.com/2025/07/13/c...

America has a tradition of breaking promises and displacing people. Migrants are the newest target. • Kansas Reflector Two hundred years ago next month, a trio of white commissioners met with a group of Osage leaders beneath the tallest oak in a mile-wide grove here and, for $800, purchased safe passage and free use o...

My @kansasreflector.com column today.

Even the loneliest of highways leads back home • Kansas Reflector From home on Constitution Street in Emporia, I am within walking distance of the route Time magazine called the "backbone of America."

My @kansasreflector.com column today.

kansasreflector.com/2025/06/29/e...

Meet the controversial activist who has shaken Colorado’s water world and made 2025 a banner year for its rivers Gary Wockner doesn’t hesitate to go after fellow activists he believes aren’t doing enough to combat the giant institutions that control Colorado’s water

Meet the controversial activist who has shaken Colorado’s water world and made 2025 a banner year for its rivers

Our immigration cops have donned masks. Time to ask what they — and we — are hiding. • Kansas Reflector More often than not, ICE agents have their faces covered. It's a distinctly un-American look, one that is likely to terrify the migrants being sought for deportation and just about everybody else who ...

My @kansasreflector.com column today.

In a forthcoming memoir, a Kansas writer sees the land and herself anew • Kansas Reflector It's a rainy June evening and I'm on the phone with Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg to talk about her new, forthcoming book.

My @kansasreflector.com column today.

No 24-hour National Weather Service in Goodland, Kansas? We'll all pay, one way or another. • Kansas Reflector The NWS Goodland office is among eight locations that had reduced their hours, or were planning to, because of cuts to the government.

My @kansasreflector.com column today.

The first rule of ICE Club? Don't talk about ICE Club. And treat all migrants as criminals. • Kansas Reflector ICE doesn't like to talk about how much it pays facilities, or to have any of its contractors talk about how much they make per day.

My @kansasreflector.com column today.

The carnival of American politics is dizzying. Yet here we stand. • Kansas Reflector I have at times warned of uncharted terrain and at others admitted fear, but now I must convey an existential cultural exhaustion.

My @kansasreflector.com column today.

kansasreflector.com/2025/05/18/t...

Two Kansans on Knife 13 were among the last casualties of Vietnam. They died on a rescue mission. • Kansas Reflector It serves as a reminder of the heavy price to be paid by those doing the fighting when impractical or even impossible orders are given.

My @kansasreflector.com column today.

A rural Kansas county is postcard perfect. Its for-profit jail is a way station to deportation hell. • Kansas Reflector For years the 148-bed detention center, owned and operated by the county, has been a major source of revenue.

My @kansasreflector.com column today.

The Sprawl rolls an analog printing press onto the streets of Calgary | The Sprawl Print a piece of local history—by hand!

Sunday read for 1) its enabling parts: an opportunistic find, niche community goodwill, caring and creative hands, and meticulous attention to detail and 2) sparking joy: Jeremy's unique eye to see in something antiquated a remedy for a contemporary social need.
www.sprawlcalgary.com/pop-up-lette...

Expand the night-vision hunting season for Kansas' top varmint? I'm rooting for the coyotes. • Kansas Reflector The latest campaign in the war on coyotes came Thursday, April 24, from the Kansas Wildlife and Parks Commission.

My @kansasreflector.com column today.

A theocrat's prayer to end democracy • Kansas Reflector It was a time of great and fervent excitement. By act of Congress, citizens were asked to turn to their Creator in supplication.

My @kansasreflector.com column today.

A century ago, an explosion of free thought burst from Kansas. It filled pockets — and minds. • Kansas Reflector On my desk is a printing block from one of the Little Blue Books, produced in the millions by the Haldeman-Julius plant in Girard, Kansas.

My @kansasreflector.com column today.

This Kansas town knows prisons. It doesn't want a for-profit company opening a 'hell hole' for ICE. • Kansas Reflector But there's one detention facility that Leavenworth city officials don't want. It's the for-profit prison that would hold ICE detainees.

My @kansasreflector.com column today.

When night comes, we might all be listening for Radio Free Kansas • Kansas Reflector Lately you've discovered that it's more difficult to find information you used to take for granted as a dystopia descends.

My @kansasreflector.com column today.

When power went out in our Kansas home, I pondered political disaster. Our only hope is self-rescue. • Kansas Reflector This essay is an attempt to convey the current mood, at least at our table. There may be others who feel as I do.

My @kansasreflector.com column today.

Trump Lawyer Stonewalls Judge on Deportation Flights: Live Updates

"I don't care what the judges think."

The constitutional crisis is real. It's here. And it could end our democracy.

You don’t know who we just disappeared to El Salvador. Think about that.

Afraid of letting Satan loose in the Kansas Statehouse? Then check your religion at the door, too. • Kansas Reflector A cynic might say that it's too late to dedicate the Capitol to Satan because the majority of lawmakers have already sold their souls.

In my kansasreflector.com column today, I talk to a friend of the devil. This one is generating some heat.

From Halloween pranks to political dissent, there's more to eggs than just the price • Kansas Reflector Eggs occupy a special place in politics, whether thrown in displeasure or used as a breakfast excuse to meet with legislators.

Eggs of protest. My @kansasreflector.com column today.