About Joseph Mussomeli

Joseph Mussomeli is Senior Contributor at The Imaginative Conservative. He served for almost thirty-five years as an American diplomat, including tours in Egypt, Afghanistan, Morocco, and the Philippines. He was the U.S. ambassador to the Republic of Slovenia and the Kingdom of Cambodia. Before entering the U.S. Foreign Service in 1980, he worked as a Deputy Attorney General in New Jersey.

A Day of Private Infamy: An Alzheimer Odyssey Postscript

By |2024-03-15T17:13:06-05:00March 15th, 2024|Categories: Joseph Mussomeli, Love, Timeless Essays|

August 1, 2021. A date of little import in world affairs. A day of savage sorrow, forlorn failure—and exhilarating liberation—for me. Few days in my life have I ever looked forward to so eagerly. None had I ever dreaded more. My eagerness was and remains unseemly and obscene. My dread, overwhelming and persistent. No more lies, no [...]

Keeping Asian-Americans in Their Place

By |2024-02-22T05:58:52-06:00February 21st, 2024|Categories: American Republic, Education, Joseph Mussomeli, Liberalism, Politics, Senior Contributors, Timeless Essays|

We should not try to right one historic wrong by committing a new one. After enduring over a century of white racism, now the Asian-American community must cope with a more subtle but just as sinister form of liberal racism: the harsh Orwellian reality that in modern America all minorities are equal, but some minorities [...]

The Eve of the Eve: A Christmas Story

By |2023-12-23T14:36:14-06:00December 22nd, 2023|Categories: Christmas, Culture, Fiction, Joseph Mussomeli, Senior Contributors, Timeless Essays|

It was still dark outside when the boy awakened and his thoughts immediately turned to the gifts that would be awaiting him under the tree downstairs. This year, like every other year he could recall, the tree was a little too tall for the ceiling and leaned precariously toward the fireplace opening. In his younger [...]

“Sometimes”

By |2023-09-08T17:43:50-05:00September 8th, 2023|Categories: Love, Poetry|

sometimes, i am unsure how to survive surviving. i miss the chance to be better for her, better, kinder, truer, more patient, more loving more selfless. and i am so happy these days, so miserably happy. i have so much happiness and a surfeit of blessings: stalwart friends and steadfast family; new life and new [...]

“Burn the Ships”: Secrets and Lies

By |2023-07-07T18:24:57-05:00July 7th, 2023|Categories: Audio/Video, Joseph Mussomeli, Love|

We are all born naked, but soon enough find ourselves wrapped in swaddling secrets. We learn to hide things and obfuscate, if not outright lie, about what we do and what we really want and even who we are. Our hypocrisies, infidelities, and staggering stupidities are woven into silken sails that allow us to effortlessly [...]

“Napping with Dementia”

By |2022-07-04T12:59:25-05:00July 5th, 2022|Categories: Joseph Mussomeli, Love, Poetry|

Yesterday, At the home, Not her home, I found her sleeping Lying soft upon the mattress Curled up fetally on her left side, As almost always for 40 years past. I had forgotten, utterly the soft heaving of her breast, I had forgotten, totally that stone-calm face hiding a hundred hurts and a thousand worries. [...]

“Trees and Other Things”

By |2022-03-20T15:29:15-05:00March 20th, 2022|Categories: Joseph Mussomeli, Poetry, Senior Contributors|

Battered and barren, slammed against cast iron sky, Ignored and forgotten, Their dazzling leaves now a distant sorrow. Still beautiful. In a December fast fading. She walks, head bowed and listing, Uprooted, Upright nevermore. But still beautiful. This December dying fast. Crippling thoughts Fracturing time, Slammed against winter facts, I whimper. I fall. The year ending and no new beginning. The Imaginative Conservative applies [...]

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