“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 Liam is running flat out in a long curving line over the uneven ground of the enclosed paddock; when he stops, it is sudden, his muscles quivering as if he were an arrow just thunked into wood. His tongue lolls out the side of his jaw, and he leans forward, jerking his head to track noises and movement I can neither see nor hear. He hesitates only for a few […]
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You Can Listen Here The division has been there since I was a child. I ached to walk by myself in woods and along streams, and spent hours outside wandering, but I loved the return home to dinner and the warmth of knowing I belonged somewhere. In college I attended parties and sat at bars, but I relished the long walks back to my apartment in the cold, all the turmoil disappearing with each block. […]
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You Can Listen Here Last week Gerald Conti wrote his resignation letter . After almost 40 years, he will no longer teach (except as a substitute). He will no longer serve. He insists that “I am not leaving my profession, in truth, it has left me. It no longer exists.” His reasons for leaving: “data driven education” that contributes to “testing and evaluation systems that are Byzantine at best and at worst, draconian.” Yes. True — in the […]
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You Can Listen Here When William Stafford came upon this stanza in William Blake’s poem “Jerusalem”, his method of writing gained a process: I give you the end of a golden string,/ Only wind it into a ball,/ It will lead you in at Heaven’s gate/ Built in Jerusalem’s wall.” Stafford believed that “every thread” would lead writers, readers and the contemplative to an insight, often a profound one; an epiphany waited at the end […]
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