“In such a world of conflict, a world of victims and executioners, it is the job of thinking people, not to be on the side of the executioners.”- Camus
You Can Listen Here: A confluence of lovely occasions might release us from our hourly mugging in the American tribulation, and so hundreds of vultures in a kettle the size of which I have never seen, circling over us north to south on this white cloud afternoon, was a wonder and a joy. Then Johnny Cash came on the radio singing Ghost Riders in the Sky and a momentary amnesty was delivered to us, and it felt good just […]
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You Can Listen Here: I had a dream a few nights ago about returning to school. This, after six years gone. I was standing in a hallway between deep currents of high school students. I faced a big window that looked north to the baseball field. The noise of the hallway was deafening. I felt such alarm, almost panic. All I remember thinking was, “I’m not ready. My room isn’t ready. What will I […]
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You Can Listen Here: When they grow excited, the children who rise from their pillows sometimes totter about as if they were auditioning to wear the Godzilla costume for a tiny-scale remake. Some go all out in offering prompted animal sounds, lifting their heads and closing their eyes and letting go their loud mewls and screeches and growly combustions. Then they follow my hand as I push down all the chaos and lift my […]
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You Can Listen Here: It is more important than it has been during my lifetime to affirm a love of country — love — not frat-boy braying, not proto-nazi wannabe nationalism, not predatory, mercenary f*** em’ all I got mine economics, not brain-dead grumbling resentment of anyone unwhite, but love, that abiding affection, that appreciation of sacrifice and actual heroism and the daily calm of democratic institutions, that yearning for us to be as […]
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