A Brief Review of Bill O'Reilly's "Confronting America: What Has to Change" by Chuck Trunks (Trunks Art)

Nampa, Idaho - November 12, 2026 - Bill O’Reilly is proud of his country and himself. He’s written or cowritten twenty #1 bestsellers and is considered the most successful historical author in the world. He’s the creator of the “No Spin” concept on his Fox News show, The O’Reilly Factor, which aired for over twenty years from 1996 to 2017. I’ve read eleven of his books, the last one being his most recent, Confronting America: What Has to Change. Mr. O’Reilly is 77 years old—still lucid and rational enough, in my opinion, to have realized years ago that our country is on an unavoidable collision course with the same deplorable atrocities that destroyed every one of the empires that came before us. While the internet, quantum computers, and artificial intelligence may have initially captivated us with their potential, the reality of these innovations has instead hastened America’s inevitable decline, plunging it into a dystopian hellscape characterized by manufactured scarcity, deceit, and exploitation.

18 years ago, when I still believed I could make a living as an artist, I created a pen and ink piece titled “Stars and Stripes.” Like all my art projects, it came with an abstract explaining the intention behind the work. In it, I likened America’s then-problems to having cancer—detected early enough, the malaise could be surgically isolated and removed; otherwise, one would later find themselves fighting for their life through months of devastating radiation and chemotherapy treatments. To me, our country’s problems moved from being localized abominations to a systemic malignancy decades ago, where, at this point, nothing short of a series of miracles could possibly save us. Whereas the author of Confronting America believes there’s still a chance to turn things around, I say, “Nothing is coming to save us.”

I admire Mr. O’Reilly’s journalistic and engaging writing style; I’ve learned so much from him over the years and only regret that he wasn’t my high school history teacher—but his latest book read more like an improbable dream sequence in a romantic comedy than a viable approach to reset America’s present course. He suggests things like raising academic and behavioral standards in elementary, middle, and high schools to better prepare young people for careers and civic life rather than dependency or the justice system; supporting and honoring two-parent households, emphasizing the critical role of present fathers; and implementing laws and systems requiring drug addicts to get clean and re-engage as productive members of society. As coherent and logical as his recommendations are on paper, they quickly unravel as fantasy given that America’s Constitution has regressed from “We the People” to “I the Person,” leaving me with an unsettling image of Mr. O’Reilly attempting to herd cats.

Despite what I’ve written here, I still recommend reading Confronting America—not as a comedy, but as a “what our leadership should’ve done when they had the chance.” I may not be aligned with Mr. O’Reilly’s political and religious affiliations—or anyone else’s for that matter—but I can relate to his steadfast belief in owning one’s mistakes, his adherence to living by the Golden Rule, and, of course, his Irish feistiness.

-Chuck Trunks

“This work was written independently by the author without the use of generative AI.”

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All my books can be found on Amazon. 💓💓💓

Trunks Art moved from Columbia, South Carolina, to Nampa, Idaho, in 2025 and has made this city his home and writing inspiration.

To see more of my work, please have a look at more posts or email me at chucktrunks@gmail.com. Or, visit my website at www.trunksart.com.  Also, you can find me on Instagram (chucktrunks) and Facebook (Chuck Trunks).

 

A DIFFERENT TAKE: "Not If, But When" by Chuck Trunks is a 900-word opinion piece about the future of the human race.

 

Nampa, Idaho - November 9, 2026 - Please allow me to paint a picture for you. It’s 11:59 pm on New Year’s Eve. You’ve plunked your middle-aged body on the couch to await the final countdown of what’s been a tumultuous year, beginning last January 1st—12 long months ago. In late February, you developed an infection—single-celled organisms across most of your body. By mid-November, they festered into complex, multicellular life forms, giving rise to an array of roaming dinosaurs a month later. They walked, ran, swam, and flew all over your body until you caught the worst cold of your life, an icy malaise that seemed to last forever but was gone after only a couple of weeks, taking the pesky dinosaurs with it by December 26th. Unfortunately, your renewed vitality lasted up until 30 minutes ago, when a particularly nasty virus—modern humans—laid claim to your body’s healthy resources, building its first cities with less than two seconds remaining until the start of the new year. But you’re not worried—not since you’ve outlasted every single invader, shaking each and every one of them off like irritating fleas.

Of course, I’m describing our beloved Earth—its first 4.5 billion years scaled down to a single calendar year. Isn’t it interesting to conceptualize how humans have only recently entered the frame? It is indeed mind-blowing, but my mind isn’t focused on single-celled organisms, multicellular life forms, dinosaurs, or even human beings; I’m interested in the lobe-finned fish called tetrapodomorphs, better known as prehistoric lungfish, who evolved out of the primordial soup to move between water and land. Now these little guys pique my curiosity and inspire my imagination:

“Hey! What’s up, Stan? Where do you think you’re going?” asked Clyde, flailing his nubby fins against the soft mud. “I thought you were going to stay here with me, soaking up the sun and taking in all the eye candy.”

Stanley stopped and rolled his big fish eyes at his disappointed wingman. Ever since their juvenile teeth fused into tooth plates for food grinding when they were just wee little fingerlings, Stanley and Clyde spent most of their spare time together chasing the all-important lady lungfish. Sarcastically, he replied, “My bachelor pad isn’t going to build itself, you know?” He continued undulating toward a thicket of small shrubs and ferns growing underneath a stand of softwood river trees 30 feet from the reed-filled swamp. Stanley approached his chosen target, propelling himself using his fleshy pectoral and pelvic fins to dig through the spongy earth, his tail dragging limply, leaving a trail of flattened dirt behind him.

Clyde rolled uncomfortably onto his scaly underside to watch his friend slither away. He could still feel the undigested mixture of algae, worm, and crustacean in his stomach, a concoction that made him feel sated but bloated under the sun’s warmth. He shouted toward Stanley. “Your new love nest seems a bit too far from the swamp! Aren’t you worried about being eaten alive? Rumor has it that lungfish taste pretty good!”

Stanley laughed, causing his gills to expand and contract. He raised his head and gulped the humid air, filling his lungs with life-sustaining oxygen. “You’re such a scaredy-cat, dude. Don’t you know lungfish are on top of the food chain in both the swamp and on land? Come on, Clyde—educate yourself! Not a single species has a more developed brain than us, and—get this—we’re like the only ones with a freaking backbone!”

I’m certain I’ve given the cucumber-sized lungfish far too much credit, but even if I’ve outraged a few monocle-wearing paleontologists, I feel confident that Homo sapiens weren’t the first nor will they be the last dominating species on Earth. Did the squishy lungfish rule the planet back then? Maybe. Did a wild and woolly water-borne organism evolve to thrive on exposed rocks, thus preceding the tetrapodomorphs as the reigning species two billion years earlier? My Magic 8 Ball says, “As I see it, yes.”

The point I’m trying to make here is that Homo sapiens—modern humans—are merely the “soup de jour” in the grand scheme of things. I don’t know how long rock-clinging organisms or lungfish dominated primitive Earth; however, history books and Google report that dinosaurs existed for 165 million years. Comparatively, modern humans have only been around for 300,000 years. I don’t know about you, but I have a hard time imagining our species surviving another 100 years, let alone existing through countless eons to match the dinosaur’s tenure. If you don’t agree with my sobering outlook, then you obviously don’t go out much or waste hours on the internet—and you certainly don’t have any social media accounts. In that case, I applaud you!

Atmospheric change may have wiped out early multicellular organisms; predators could have turned lungfish into a delicacy; and the Ice Age most likely put the kibosh on dinosaurs—but what will be the reason behind the end of humanity? It’s not a question of “if it will end,” but rather “when and how it will end.” Earth is still roughly 500 million years from crossing the midpoint of its expected lifespan. Will anything be left on Earth to celebrate the milestone? I envision a vastly intelligent species holding balloons and wearing party hats. They just won’t look or act anything like human beings.

-Chuck Trunks

“This work was written independently by the author without the use of generative AI.”

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All my books can be found on Amazon. 💓💓💓

Trunks Art moved from Columbia, South Carolina, to Nampa, Idaho, in 2025 and has made this city his home and writing inspiration.

To see more of my work, please have a look at more posts or email me at chucktrunks@gmail.com. Or, visit my website at www.trunksart.com.  Also, you can find me on Instagram (chucktrunks) and Facebook (Chuck Trunks).

A DIFFERENT TAKE: "The New Boogeyman: A.I." by Chuck Trunks is a 500-word opinion piece about the recent surge in news stories regarding the future of A.I.

Nampa, Idaho - November 5, 2026 - “Why now?” I asked myself. Over the past month, I’ve noticed a surge in news stories about the impending prominence of Artificial Intelligence (AI). I checked in with several friends to see if they had noticed the same thing. They concurred, so I continued my questioning. “Do most of the stories appear to lean toward a dystopian outcome?” Unanimously, they replied, “Absolutely.” With the sanity check tucked in my pocket, I set out to think more about why a collection of wildly wealthy owners of media outlets, who also own and utilize AI technology, would allow such fear-stoking stories to propagate and unsettle the minds of millions of their fellow Americans. Wouldn’t that harm their interests? Oddly, my mind came to rest on the many battles I’d read about between the United States Army and Native American tribes across the western frontier in the late 1800s.

More often than not, tribal warriors, led by battlefield tacticians like Crazy Horse, Red Cloud, and Cochise, found themselves grossly outnumbered. By using the cover of darkness, they gained an advantage through the age-old stratagem of psychological warfare, which aimed to weaken the fortitude of US soldiers as they lay wide-eyed in their tents. The young soldiers, whose whole lives lay before them, listened to the methodical beating of drums, which seemed to surround their camp. Randomly, shrieks and high-pitched yelps pierced the night, instilling doubt and fear in their minds; no longer did they know what to expect in the morning. The war chiefs understood that the white man’s army wouldn’t turn tail and run; however, they understood the power of leveraging their enemy’s imagination against themselves—a documented ploy dating all the way back to the 5th century BC in Sun Tzu’s book, The Art of War: “Through you we learn to be invisible, through you inaudible, and hence we can hold the enemy’s fate in our hands.”

Where the destiny of AI is concerned, I agree with Yuval Noah Harari that we, humans, are the future cows in an AI-controlled world. In recent YouTube videos, the history professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem explains how cows are completely aware of our human presence, yet they have no understanding of the monetary system that controls their day-to-day lives. He believes that in the coming decades, as AI takes over our financial and political systems, we will recognize the AI entities but fail to grasp the superior complexities of the systems that govern us. So, yes, AI is coming—along with its predicted dystopian hellscape—but I believe it’s not imminent, nor is it ready to take over the world.

Again, I pose the questions, “Why now?” and “Why is it so foreboding?” Now, when I come across news stories and videos about the impending AI apocalypse, I hear the distant sounds of drums and high-pitched screeching, trying desperately to make me quit even before the real fight has begun. 

-Chuck Trunks

“This work was written independently by the author without the use of generative AI.”

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All my books can be found on Amazon. 💓💓💓

Trunks Art moved from Columbia, South Carolina, to Nampa, Idaho, in 2025 and has made this city his home and writing inspiration.

To see more of my work, please have a look at more posts or email me at chucktrunks@gmail.com. Or, visit my website at www.trunksart.com.  Also, you can find me on Instagram (chucktrunks) and Facebook (Chuck Trunks).

A Brief Review of Katherine Boo's "Behind the Beautiful Forevers" by Chuck Trunks (Trunks Art)

Nampa, Idaho - October 28, 2026 - Behind the Beautiful Forevers (2012), by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Katherine Boo, is an extraordinary book I won’t ever forget—much in the same way I recall John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath (1939) whenever I hear of struggling families or Siddharth Kara’s Cobalt Red (2023) every time I come across a story about marginalized populations whose collective desperation is exploited for profit. Adding to the incredulousness of Behind the Beautiful Forevers is that it’s written by a Caucasian woman from Washington, D.C.—with blonde hair and blue eyes, no less—who immersed herself in a Mumbai undercity (slum to you and me) for nearly four years, from 2007 to 2011.

Through two matriarchal families—one Hindu, the other Muslim—Boo tells the story of Annawadi, a trash-strewn settlement of intense squalor and fierce competition, situated beside an international airport and surrounded by luxury hotels. On display are Boo’s suck-you-in journalism skills—honed from years of writing for the Washington Post. Imagine a swampy bit of land half the size of a football field with 3,000 residents living inside 350 rickety shacks built and fastened together using scavenged materials from trash heaps and construction sites in Mumbai’s burgeoning overcity. Imagine yourself or loved ones having to continue to work despite suffering from chronic illnesses that could be remedied with one trip to see the doctor. Due to rampant and widespread corruption at all levels of daily living, imagine being unable to trust anyone from those in authority to fellow slum-dwellers sharing the same wall of corrugated sheet metal. Now, imagine living in these deplorable conditions, yet still possessing the same hopes and dreams that anyone in the United States would have for themselves and their family members. Sadly, you don’t need to use your imagination. Slums like Annawadi exist in India today, revealing a level of suffering I didn’t think was possible in the new millennium.    

Will any of this go away—even as Boo’s literary spotlight on India’s poorest of people continues to garner acclaim and outrage? Of course, it won’t—and not because India, or the United States, or any other country is governed by evildoers; it’s just how the world works and always has. To me, it appears that the most callous, cruel, and self-serving are the ones who aspire to and achieve positions of power and control, leaving those who are collaborative, empathetic, and compassionate to wallow in thankless servitude. There’s a line in Behind the Beautiful Forevers that stood out to me and explains much of what I see in my little corner of Idaho, which I suspect is the same in much of America these days. Zehrunisa says to her thoughtful son, Abdul, “Displaying kindness or soft-heartedness is a tactical error that makes you vulnerable to being exploited by others.” I hate knowing this fact of life, but at the same time, I also have nothing to complain about. I don’t live in Annawadi.

-Chuck Trunks

“This work was written independently by the author without the use of generative AI.”

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All my books can be found on Amazon. 💓💓💓

Trunks Art moved from Columbia, South Carolina, to Nampa, Idaho, in 2025 and has made this city his home and writing inspiration.

To see more of my work, please have a look at more posts or email me at chucktrunks@gmail.com. Or, visit my website at www.trunksart.com.  Also, you can find me on Instagram (chucktrunks) and Facebook (Chuck Trunks).

A Brief Review of Tom Perotta's "Ghost Town" by Chuck Trunks (Trunks Art)

Nampa, Idaho - October 23, 2026 - Ghost Town (2026) is a coming-of-age story that left me weepy-eyed and pining for the good old days of innocence. Tom Perrotta, The New York Times best-selling author of The Leftovers, is close to my age, so when he wrote about what life was like in the early to mid-1970s for a young boy, he nailed it. But not only that—the New Jersey setting of Ghost Town is situated less than 100 miles from where I grew up in Philadelphia. The only thing I didn’t like about the book is its title. If I didn’t read the back cover, I would’ve left it on the library shelf. Thank goodness I didn’t.

The format and narrative of Ghost Town reminded me of what a script from ABC’s The Wonder Years (1988-1993) might’ve looked like since the story of 12-year-old Jimmy is told through his older self. Perrotta’s clever novel follows Jimmy, the only son in a middle-class family of four, who, during his last year of junior high, must deal with tragedy, bigotry, and peer pressure, as well as the normal teenage angst one can expect from budding puberty. To disclose more about the story would only ruin it for those who haven’t read it. Suffice to say I laughed out loud, wiped away a few tears, and nodded knowingly.

If J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye were to have a baby with one of John Hughes’ movies from the 1980s, say Sixteen Candles (1984) or The Breakfast Club (1985), or with Rob Reiner’s Stand by Me (1986)—the literary offspring would have the look and feel of Tom Perrotta’s Ghost Story. I simply can’t imagine anyone (at any age) not enjoying this heartfelt novel.

-Chuck Trunks

“This work was written independently by the author without the use of generative AI.”

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All my books can be found on Amazon. 💓💓💓

Trunks Art moved from Columbia, South Carolina, to Nampa, Idaho, in 2025 and has made this city his home and writing inspiration.

To see more of my work, please have a look at more posts or email me at chucktrunks@gmail.com. Or, visit my website at www.trunksart.com.  Also, you can find me on Instagram (chucktrunks) and Facebook (Chuck Trunks).

NEW SHORT STORY: "Better Off" by Chuck Trunks (Trunks Art) is a 51-page novella about walking away from social media.

Nampa, Idaho - October 10, 2026 - An excerpt from the introduction of Better Off:

“Stop staring at them!” She had to shout over the heavy bass and thumping drums emanating from a stack of industrial-grade amplifiers surrounding the stage.

“I can’t help it!” He, too, had to shout over the music.

She pulled on his shirt sleeve like an admonishing mother and bellowed, “You’re letting them affect your evening, which is ruining mine!”

He pulled his arm away from her and shouted, “I’m sorry! It’s freaking mesmerizing to me, and at the same time, deeply disturbing!”

At 40, Cameron wasn’t one to attend concerts anymore, but Bon Jovi was a favorite of his on-again, off-again girlfriend Becca. They both liked the band, beginning in the mid-80s when their debut song, “Runaway,” became an overnight staple on every FM radio station across the country. His eyes drifted back to the foursome sitting five or six rows in front of him. Stadium-style seating gave Cameron a bird’s-eye view of the three young ladies and a young man who appeared to be the boyfriend of one of the phone-wielding girls. While his 20-something-year-old girlfriend texted and the other two filmed themselves reacting to the concert, he sat motionless, except for an occasional knee slap or head bob. Cameron sighed deeply. Four people came to the concert together, and yet each of them is having a separate experience from the other three. That’s crazy!

Despite Becca’s disapproving glare, Cameron continued surveying the crowd in front of him. While his and Becca’s phones were neatly tucked away in her car, he realized that the majority of the concertgoers were holding theirs, especially the women, no matter their age. Many were busy taking pictures and videos while others scrunched down in their seats, pecking away on their phones with both thumbs. From his superior vantage point, Cameron had a clear view of what was illuminated on several dozen screens bobbing in front of him, which, not surprisingly, were connected to social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, Messenger, WhatsApp, etc. If their phones weren’t dialed into social media, they were displaying the telltale screens of an Android or iPhone texting app. Cameron shook his head in disbelief. I can still remember when people actually talked to other people with their phones. The world is freaking upside down!

“Oh my god. Look over there,” said Cameron, gesturing toward a woman with yellow cornrows and long pink fingernails. “Now I’ve seen everything.”

Becca didn’t even try to mask her annoyance. “Really, Cam? I don’t know where you are, but I’m at a concert.”

Becca had a right to be exasperated. Bon Jovi didn’t come to the Pacific Northwest very often; plus, they were in the middle of playing “You Give Love a Bad Name.” The irony of the song title did not escape Cameron. Still, his attention was drawn to the woman in question, who was holding a selfie stick with one hand while the other waved around her face. Her phone, of course, was attached to the business end of the telescoping wand with a luminous ring light encircling it. Although his girlfriend was ignoring him, Cameron leaned toward her and said, “If you think I’m a terrible person to attend a concert with, take a look at that selfish lady with the ring light to your right. You literally can’t miss her.”

Cameron didn’t wait for Becca to respond. He scanned the faces of the people surrounding the inconsiderate egomaniac, especially those unlucky enough to sit behind her, where the glowing ring light was an unquestionable distraction. Secretly, he wanted nothing more than to see an usher confiscate her ring light or an annoyed Bon Jovi fan grab it and smash it at her feet. Instead, he watched everyone around her act like she wasn’t there, which Cameron chalked up as par for the course in a society where people are routinely attacked for standing up for what’s obviously right. Phones, selfie sticks, and ring lights have no place in a music venue that requires only a set of working ears, and yet here they are, including three or four more ring lights on the other side of the arena.

Just as Bon Jovi began singing the chorus of “It’s My Life”—their big comeback hit from 2000—Cameron decided then and there that he needed more out of life than a full-time corporate job and a part-time girlfriend. Once again, the irony of the song title didn’t elude him. Deep down, Cameron knew he saw the world accurately, and from what he could gather, most people—especially the younger generations—were blindly marching toward the edge of a precipice with their faces glued to screens that distract, dull, and commandeer their minds. Social media is the single greatest propaganda and mind control machine ever unleashed on mankind, and they can’t see it. Cameron felt he had to do something—anything to wake them up from their half-dead stupor, reminding them that there’s more to life than a steady diet of trivial, often insidious, news and information.

Better Off picks up Cameron’s story two years after the Bon Jovi concert.

-Chuck Trunks

“This work was written independently by the author without the use of generative AI.”

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You can find Better Off on the “about” page of my website: www.trunksart.com. 

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All my books can be found on Amazon. 💓💓💓

Trunks Art moved from Columbia, South Carolina, to Nampa, Idaho, in 2025 and has made this city his home and writing inspiration.

To see more of my work, please have a look at more posts or email me at chucktrunks@gmail.com. Or, visit my website at www.trunksart.com.  Also, you can find me on Instagram (chucktrunks) and Facebook (Chuck Trunks).

A Brief Review of Albert Camus' "The Possessed" by Chuck Trunks (Trunks Art)

Nampa, Idaho - August 31, 2026 - Imagine how impactful a novel must be if it was written and published in Russian by a renowned writer in 1872, then rewritten in French as a three-part stage play by another famous writer in 1959, followed by its translation into English so a not-so-famous writer could read it in 2026. These were my thoughts as I read Albert Camus’ The Possessed, a theatrical adaptation based on Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel, The Devils, a fictional story based on real events about the corrosive nature of political violence, ideological extremism, and absolute nihilism, which both authors felt were the root of all evil. Dostoevsky and Camus were influenced by the turmoil of the 19^th and 20^th centuries, but as you’ll read in the following sample from The Possessed, this same scourge is alive and well in the present century:

LIPUTIN: Yes indeed. He proposes dividing humanity into two unequal parts. About a tenth will have absolute freedom and unlimited authority over the other nine tenths, who will have to lose their personality and become like a flock of sheep. Kept in the state of complete submission of sheep, they will, on the other hand, achieve the state of innocence of sheep. In short, it will be Eden, except that men will have to work.

SHIGALOV: Yes. That’s how I achieve equality. All men are slaves and equal in their slavery. They can’t be equal otherwise. Hence it is essential to level. For instance, the level of education and talent will be lowered. Since men of talent always tend to rise, Cicero’s tongue will have to be torn out, Copernicus’s eyes gouged out, and Shakespeare stoned. There is my system.

LIPUTIN: Yes, Mr. Shigalov discovered that superior faculties are germs of inequality, hence of despotism. Consequently, as soon as a man is seen to have superior gifts, he is shot down or imprisoned. Even very handsome people are suspect in this regard and must be suppressed.

SHIGALOV: And even fools, if they are very notable fools, for they might lead others into the temptation of glorifying in their superiority, which is a germ of despotism. By these means, on the other hand, equality will be absolute.

Camus’ theatrical adaptation of Dostoevsky’s The Demons is about the burgeoning socialist movements growing in Russia during the 1860s—decades before the Russian Revolution in 1917 following WWI—but The Possessed is more of a cautionary tale warning us that as long as we allow nihilistic despots to claim power and control, we cannot advance as a species. Camus’ words spoken during his acceptance of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957 give me hope to continue my own writing: “Whatever our personal weaknesses may be, the nobility of our craft (writing) will always be rooted in two commitments, difficult to maintain: the refusal to lie about what one knows and the resistance to oppression.”

-Chuck Trunks

“This work was written independently by the author without the use of generative AI.”

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All my books can be found on Amazon. 💓💓💓

Trunks Art moved from Columbia, South Carolina, to Nampa, Idaho, in 2025 and has made this city his home and writing inspiration.

To see more of my work, please have a look at more posts or email me at chucktrunks@gmail.com. Or, visit my website at www.trunksart.com.  Also, you can find me on Instagram (chucktrunks) and Facebook (Chuck Trunks).