[NOTE: Viral Video from title — http://www.votevets.org/home] [later NOTE: It’s 10-16 around 10:00 PST — the headlines I see say it’s over. This is a relief. Now the clean-up starts. And, by way of apology for any implication that furloughed Federal workers were not experiencing significant financial and professional stress (but rather were only on “paid vacation”), I offer this link to the real stories of real people — all Federal employees severely… Read More
On Friday I had the opportunity to speak briefly with a small group of friends and colleagues about social justice. It was a time that qualifies for sure as a moment in the story of my life. And the particular narrative of that time is transition – big transition – so big that I’m not yet prepared to write about it here. Odd, since this is the place I write and… Read More
I saw my highschool friend Tim Taylor at a reunion a few years ago. Last time we’d spoken we were both 15 year olds. When we chatted this time, it was September in Kerrville, TX – homecoming weekend. The world class heat of the Texas summer had softened so we could stand around outside catching up on where the decades had taken those fresh-faced teens who will forever populate the halls of… Read More
Not that the number was that sky-high to begin with – although of late there have been readers from India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Israel and Brazil – even one reader from Sierra Leon. I don’t know if all of the countries represented by readers on this little blog are also represented at the Olympics. I can’t because of a lot of things. A lot of work, for starters; and then there’s the super… Read More
Ben Merens (host of WPR’s At Issue) was in Milwaukee, Wisconsin when we talked last week. I was on my friend’s landline; the landline a necessity for hooking into the WPR technology if you’re too far away to be sitting across the table from Ben. She lives a few blocks away and was out of town visiting family in New York, but said “Yes. Use the phone. That will be great!” So I… Read More
My youngest sister just posted this on facebook. Every single person in the picture is a mother now – a fact both astonishing and not. In this photo the mom is my mom, our mom. Here, somewhere in a field in south central Texas, she sits forever 33 with her four little girls, lined up by age. I’m the oldest, the one in all yellow. Also in that forever way, I know… Read More
Sometimes I turn to internet sources for news updates. Huffington Post, NYT, stories posted to facebook, local papers’ websites for learning about where I am along the road. Often there are stories with photos of crowd scenes. Some are international, but I’m thinking today of domestic stories – Occupy, Tea Party, vigils, protests on the National Mall or at statehouses across the country. In the case of crowd photos from the U.S.,… Read More
No, Geraldo. It’s not the clothing. It’s about looking under the hoodie. mc By now, most Americans are aware of the death of Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old young man who was visiting his father’s home in a gated community of Sanford, Florida. Trayvon lost his life to a single gunshot fired by a man who lived in the same community. At the time the fatal shot fired, it was dark. Trayvon, who… 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
There’s a spirit of listening – an inclination to learn – and for all but the most shy, a powerful desire to make social contact, to communicate, to hang out. EX:Change and the 100 Voices book (www.loudmouthpress.org) turn out to be living records of this spirit. I thought I was starting a project to learn about change – about what a popular word in a particular time meant to the people using… Read More
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