March Forth!

I’m not sure the first time I realized this day, March 4, is the only day of the year that doubles as a poem.  Poetry is, by nature an illusive combination of feeling and fact.  It is mysterious, powerfully so.  It is anchored in words, also pretty imprecise when it comes down to it.  There is certainly reality in it; otherwise poetry would never catch our attention at all, but it’s bigger… Read More

Working for a Living during Black History Month in Wisconsin

In January of 2009, Nick Minnis sat in a coffee shop watching the street scene on the corner of 28th and E. Burnside in Portland, OR.  We got into a conversation about change.  Nick said, “I’m not a politician.  My world is small.  I work, I provide, and I sleep…very little.”  He laughed.  I don’t know whether Nick is in a union.  I do know he is a working man, a laborer…. Read More

What Accents Have to Do with World Peace

The bald eagles are nesting in northern Wisconsin.  To see them is a privilege.  This sense of privilege – really, of awe – is not new in humans.  And the birds deserve it.  Their power and dignity, their grace and comfort with majesty can only be met with appreciation of the highest order. Then there’s everyday eagle speak.  Not the famous war cry that echoes through canyons, but the way eagles chat… Read More

Egypt, Chicago and the Year of the Rabbit

Today is the second full day of the Chinese New Year.  We leave the year of the White Tiger to enter the Year of the Golden Rabbit.  I am not Chinese, but my Chinese-American friends tell me the rabbit symbolizes graciousness, kindness and a sensitivity to beauty.  They say Chinese astrology predicts this is to be year of peace and collaboration. Associated with the beginning of the lunar calendar, the festivities of… Read More

Seeing Privilege

It’s going to take a while.  I don’t want to speak for blacks, but from my perspective being a black man with what I have observed in my lifetime, I will feel as though I’m going to be shortchanged because of the history behind us.  I will feel that until I see some definite improvement.  If  they tell you that you can be equal, but you never make any gains, you’re going… Read More

Tucson, 9/11 and a Publication Date (!)

It’s happening!  The EX:Change project’s interviews from early 2009 are going into a book.  The tentative title – You Say Change, We Say….   And Loud Mouth (http://www.loudmouthpress.org/) is the perfect publisher – a nonprofit in Brooklyn devoted to issues of social importance.  Here’s one thing they say about themselves.  “Our projects offer an innovative, creative and artistic perspective on important topics that concern the entire human family.”  Cool, huh?  Fortunately, the… Read More

Procrastination and a Nation’s Hostility Habit: When a Congresswoman has Been Shot in the Head

It is shortly after 1:00 in the afternoon in the Starbucks on 28th and E. Burnside in Portland, Oregon.  It’s Adam’s last day as a barista here.  He’s off for a full-time gig in a fusion restaurant downtown.  My friend Doug just walked by and came in for a chat.  He’s a bartender who, for the first time in two decades, didn’t have to work New Year’s Eve.  “Nothing more renewing than… Read More

We are Different & We are the Same: Voting from Here

The United States is voting.  Or at least that’s an option for the next four days. Because of the way my mind works…I’ve been thinking about that.  Voting. In the past 48 hours or so I’ve been in more-than-passing conversations with people – all American citizens – who, in the history of our country would not have been eligible to vote.  That means they were variously (or in some combination) immigrants, women,… Read More

Gay Teen Suicide: Yes, Listening is a Matter of Life or Death

I’m from Texas.  I haven’t lived there for 22 years, but I am from Texas.  And I love very much about the State.  There are also things – particularly things political, educational and environmental that get me a little crazy about my homeland. Then this week I found a you tube video that made me so very proud to be from Texas – proud of the elected member of the Fort Worth… Read More

What the Land Holds Up

Just home to Portland from a week in the Texas Hillcountry. I did lots of my growing up on the land that stretches out either side of the Guadalupe River.  This week I returned to that river and those hills to see friends I hadn’t seen since all of us were 15 years old.  That’s a long time. There’s a word used to describe this aspect of human systems – equifinality (thanks… Read More