On a walk through Laurelhurst Park, I run into … well, first the bouncy affectionate force field of a German Shepherd named Roman and then the woman at the other end of his substantial chain leash, my friend Raquel. “Hi!” we both call out at the same time, finally able to identify one another across the giddy animation of 75 pounds of smiling, jumping, licking canine. “Roman!” Raquel’s voice is stern as… Read More
I think it’s time to say ENOUGH! I want to say that on two levels. FIRST –> I and we (women and men) have had enough of you who persist in the archaic notion that you have dominion over women simply because of the differences in our genitals. Really? I know and understand from experience how difficult it is to have unearned privilege questioned. It feels like you’re losing something –… Read More
Of late a good deal of national opposition has arisen around the words “build it.” Some months ago, our president made a point in a public (and arguably campaign) speech about the labor that supports most, if not all of the social activity in this country, including business. Some folks heard his comments as indicating they shouldn’t get credit for their work. The media and campaign publicity machines got hold of the… Read More
NOTE: An opposition in public discourse occurs when opinions on a given matter appear sharply polarized. E.g., global warming is a problem: there’s no global warming. From one view, opposition makes for intractability. From another it makes for opportunity. Listening and speaking across difference – the willingness and skill for that – makes the difference. A few trending Oppositions in admitted editorial rendering (i.e., I like all of us am biased by… Read More
Today is the third above 70 degrees in Wisconsin. Locals clearly love it. So do I. And … really? 70’s in late winter here in a U.S. state that shares a rather large lake (Superior) with the Canadian state of Ontario? Maybe it’s the Texan in me who can’t imagine anyplace else acting in total defiance of the seasons. Maybe it’s my vigilant interest in our reading the trends to avert calamitous… Read More
I’ve just spent the past three days crossing the Southern tier states of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama into Georgia. I’ve spent precious time with relatives – kin by birth and kin by choice and community. Along the slow roll of land falling toward and then rising up from the Mississippi River’s reliable flow I found story after story, learning after learning. In the three years since I last drove these Southern highways… Read More
The people I’ve talked with in Texas this week say two things. My friend Cindy, a white business woman in Grayson County sums up one of those things. “The divisions in this state are so strong, I don’t think we’ll ever be able to talk to each other. It just starts out hateful with neither side willing to back down.” As she talks, she describes how community proceeds in spite of the… Read More
Yesterday, well south of the GOP caucus hubbub, I had one of those two-hour conversations you want to remember for the rest of your days. Not so much the words, although the stories were as precious as sunshine…really, but the feeling of it. Sara Bernice Moseley has been an inspiration to countless women and men across the 94 and ½ years of her life. She is and always has been grace in… Read More
It looked like a done deal to lots of folks who are paid to make authoritative calls on such things. Chances were slim, they said a week ago, that Gingrich, Perry or Santorum could stage a comeback in the South Carolina primary that took place last Saturday. It’s heard of, but none of those campaigns appeared anywhere near as strong as Romney’s given the current playing field with its corporations=people, money=free speech rulebook. Enter… Read More
Here we are. In crisis. Together. The truth of the oft cited Chinese logograph for crisis is that it holds two characters, one connoting danger and the other signifying a point of uncertainty, a critical moment, a point of profound and unsettling change. This is vastly more realistic than the more New Age rendition that misattributes the notion of opportunity to the second character. We are in crisis. These years are more… Read More
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