Office of Blame Accountability

Love is encouragement. Kindness is not weakness. Freedom is scary because, if I am truly free, I can’t blame anyone.  These three statements came as small gifts over coffee and tea this morning with my friend Jim.  You may recognize him from earlier blogs.  Sayings like these are as natural, even essential to Jim as heartbeats. This morning we were talking about being people in relationships – love partnerships, friendships, kinships, acquaintanceships… Read More

Video of this Week’s Book Release Event

Books shipped on October 1.  By Thursday night at Annie Bloom’s Bookstore in Portland, OR the word was out enough to draw a full house for the first public reading from 100 VOICES – AMERICANS TALK ABOUT CHANGE.  We were thrilled with the turn out and completely delighted with the fact that the store sold out of books. Now, thanks to the talent and generosity of friend and volunteer, Jesse Combs here… Read More

Book Release Invitations!

   I just sent this email to the 504 people on my “EX:Change Friends and Family” list.  Cool number, huh?  504. These are the people who, along the way — as I drove the highways of U.S. in early 2009 and in the time since have befriended me and the EX:Change project and asked to be kept updated.  In ten days, what was once only and idea on a cold and rainy New Year’s Eve will show up… Read More

Book Publication and Press Info – YAY!!

One of the things about straddling the generations of print and electronic media is that I still don’t quite understand the genre of “blogging.”  That means I don’t know if I’m within or outside of convention with this particular post.  Now that I think of it, it’s quite possible the idea of any convention relative to blogging isn’t even relevant to the genre which is probably very cool.  Whatever the case, here… Read More

Everyday Desperate Measures

During the work week between 6 and 7 a.m., it’s a different kind of quiet on the streets of downtown Portland. All last week I walked downtown to catch the bus.  The weather was warming, the air softer to the touch.  I liked it. That time of morning, delivery people dot the grid of city streets.  They roll dollies with boxes of produce.  They use fork lifts to move reams of paper… Read More

Things that are More Important

Obama released his birth certificate.  Kate and William finally walked the aisle.  Then the phone rings yesterday.  One of my dearest of dears doesn’t know what to do.  She is a hair’s breadth from ending it all. They are unmistakable when they show up, these things that are more important.  Yesterday, regarding this week’s focus on the part of the news media Dan Rather said Come on, gang.  Really? or something to… Read More

Libya, a First Draft, and Pondering Truth

Back in the 2000, my friend Amy Schutzer published a novel she titled Undertow http://www.calyxpress.org/books.html.  She considered another title:  What Version of the Truth Do We Tell? I’ve just finished the first draft of 100 Voices:  Americans Talk about Change. Really!  The first draft toward publication in September, 2011.  That’s amazing enough, but the reason I mention it here has to do with truth.  It has to do with the incredible candor… 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