“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
For audio version click here The streaks of light are only beginning to cut divides in the southeastern sky when I lumber out most mornings to arrange the feed and check the water. Almost always, a breeze is striking the yard from the north. Pulling my heavy collar around my throat, I do my chores — sunflower seed and thistle to be poured into feeders and draped across the ground and an old picnic table; suet to be dropped […]
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For audio version click here I could call the game Stalin Cuts the Cheese, and within a minute or two at most he would have the name of Stalin firm in his memory, and every time after this moment when I would say the word, his eyes would meet mine with that border collie glow, and he would be ready to run. Conscience will not permit me to use that devil’s name so instead I […]
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For audio version click here The gusting wind swung out of the northwest and swept over the little boys who rolled on the ground, laughing. Other children ran after the dog who carried a chewed-over blue Frisbee and looked delighted to be chased. We were standing on the hillside under gray clouds patched together with threaded light. Parents and cousins, uncles and aunts, smiling at the benign chaos and catching up. Inside my sister’s house […]
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For audio version click here I almost feel wordless. My expressions of outrage or grief or sadness seem useless and banal when confronting the granitic reality of the 28 murders. I’ve noticed the same effect in some commentators on TV – a hesitation, a stuttering, an uncertainty about their language, but I also know that by our nature human beings cannot be silent for very long. We cannot refrain from trying to figure this out, […]
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