A festival of peace
“I ran away from my foster mother, became homeless, lived on the street for three years. Because I was handicapped I couldn’t get into an apartment building to get out of the snow. Your skin feels like it’s on fire when you’re that cold. I’d stand in the doorway, where bright lights shine on the manikins, and psych myself into believing I could feel the heat coming off the light bulb.”
We get, in all, twelve minutes of Daisy. The above words are a condensation of one of those minutes. The other eleven are just as intense, just as shocking, but spiritually soaring, as this wheelchair-bound woman — she contracted polio after swimming in a polluted lake — talks matter-of-factly about a life that seems like it should be broken beyond repair. She talks about her abusive father, the beatings, the flowers on the bedspread (her only toys), her “bright light” spiritual vision in an iron lung. Her words made me cry, not because of the horror, but because she was so happy, so full of a transcendent gratitude for nothing less than life itself.
We get, in all, twelve minutes of Daisy. The above words are a condensation of one of those minutes. The other eleven are just as intense, just as shocking, but spiritually soaring, as this wheelchair-bound woman — she contracted polio after swimming in a polluted lake — talks matter-of-factly about a life that seems like it should be broken beyond repair. She talks about her abusive father, the beatings, the flowers on the bedspread (her only toys), her “bright light” spiritual vision in an iron lung. Her words made me cry, not because of the horror, but because she was so happy, so full of a transcendent gratitude for nothing less than life itself.
Kvetcher in the Rye
In the sixth grade, the Boys' Vice-Principal threatened to suspend me from school unless I stopped carrying around The Catcher in the Rye I think because it had the word "fuck" in it. Since the Boys' Vice-Principal hadn't read the book - and I don't think he'd ever read any book - he couldn't tell me why.
But Mrs. Gordon was cool. She let me keep the book at my desk and read it at recess as long as I kept a brown wrapper over the cover.
I think J.D. Salinger would have liked Mrs. Gordon. She wanted to save me from the world's vice-principals, the guys who wanted to train you in obedience to idiots and introduce you the adult world of fear and punishment. Mrs. Gordon wanted to protect the need of a child to run free.
That's, of course, how the word fuck got into Salinger's book. For the 5% of you who haven't read it, the main character of the book, Holden Caulfield, tries to erase the f-word off the wall of a New York City school. He doesn't want little kids like his sister Phoebe to see it, that somehow it would trigger an irreversible loss of her childhood innocence:
But Mrs. Gordon was cool. She let me keep the book at my desk and read it at recess as long as I kept a brown wrapper over the cover.
I think J.D. Salinger would have liked Mrs. Gordon. She wanted to save me from the world's vice-principals, the guys who wanted to train you in obedience to idiots and introduce you the adult world of fear and punishment. Mrs. Gordon wanted to protect the need of a child to run free.
That's, of course, how the word fuck got into Salinger's book. For the 5% of you who haven't read it, the main character of the book, Holden Caulfield, tries to erase the f-word off the wall of a New York City school. He doesn't want little kids like his sister Phoebe to see it, that somehow it would trigger an irreversible loss of her childhood innocence:
Welcome to the Saudi Arabia of Coal
Political satire and drama comes to the Columbus Performing Arts Center, Saturday, Feb 6, with the help of the Available Light Theatre company and the Phoenix Theatre for Children. The play, "Welcome to the Saudi Arabia of Coal," is about life in the coal fields of Appalachia where men and women chain themselves to heavy machinery to stop mountain top removal mining, and where others try to protect, sometimes violently, jobs the mining industry provides.send comments
"It's totally possible to conceive of an evening of theater that will be entertaining and moving but also have relevance to something very current,†said Matt Slaybaugh who writes and directs for the theater company and teaches at the Columbus College of Art and Design.
"It's totally possible to conceive of an evening of theater that will be entertaining and moving but also have relevance to something very current,†said Matt Slaybaugh who writes and directs for the theater company and teaches at the Columbus College of Art and Design.
Don't call it a
This isn't defense.
The new budget from the White House will push U.S. military spending well above $2 billion a day.
Foreclosing the future of our country should not be confused with defending it.
Unless miraculous growth, or miraculous political compromises, creates some unforeseen change over the next decade, there is virtually no room for new domestic initiatives for Mr. Obama or his successors, the New York Times reports this morning (February 2). send comments
It isn't defense to preclude new domestic initiatives for a country that desperately needs them: for healthcare, jobs, green technologies, carbon reduction, housing, education, nutrition, mass transit . . .
When a nation becomes obsessed with the guns of war, social programs must inevitably suffer, Martin Luther King Jr. pointed out. We can talk about guns and butter all we want to, but when the guns are there with all of its emphasis you dont even get good oleo. These are facts of life.
The new budget from the White House will push U.S. military spending well above $2 billion a day.
Foreclosing the future of our country should not be confused with defending it.
Unless miraculous growth, or miraculous political compromises, creates some unforeseen change over the next decade, there is virtually no room for new domestic initiatives for Mr. Obama or his successors, the New York Times reports this morning (February 2). send comments
It isn't defense to preclude new domestic initiatives for a country that desperately needs them: for healthcare, jobs, green technologies, carbon reduction, housing, education, nutrition, mass transit . . .
When a nation becomes obsessed with the guns of war, social programs must inevitably suffer, Martin Luther King Jr. pointed out. We can talk about guns and butter all we want to, but when the guns are there with all of its emphasis you dont even get good oleo. These are facts of life.
Don't call it a "defense" budget
This isn't "defense."
The new budget from the White House will push U.S. military spending well above $2 billion a day.
Foreclosing the future of our country should not be confused with defending it.
"Unless miraculous growth, or miraculous political compromises, creates some unforeseen change over the next decade, there is virtually no room for new domestic initiatives for Mr. Obama or his successors," the New York Times reports this morning (February 2).
It isn't defense to preclude new domestic initiatives for a country that desperately needs them: for healthcare, jobs, green technologies, carbon reduction, housing, education, nutrition, mass transit . . .
"When a nation becomes obsessed with the guns of war, social programs must inevitably suffer," Martin Luther King Jr. pointed out. "We can talk about guns and butter all we want to, but when the guns are there with all of its emphasis you don't even get good oleo. These are facts of life."
At least Lyndon Johnson had a "war on poverty." For a while anyway, till his war on Vietnam destroyed it.
The new budget from the White House will push U.S. military spending well above $2 billion a day.
Foreclosing the future of our country should not be confused with defending it.
"Unless miraculous growth, or miraculous political compromises, creates some unforeseen change over the next decade, there is virtually no room for new domestic initiatives for Mr. Obama or his successors," the New York Times reports this morning (February 2).
It isn't defense to preclude new domestic initiatives for a country that desperately needs them: for healthcare, jobs, green technologies, carbon reduction, housing, education, nutrition, mass transit . . .
"When a nation becomes obsessed with the guns of war, social programs must inevitably suffer," Martin Luther King Jr. pointed out. "We can talk about guns and butter all we want to, but when the guns are there with all of its emphasis you don't even get good oleo. These are facts of life."
At least Lyndon Johnson had a "war on poverty." For a while anyway, till his war on Vietnam destroyed it.
Congressman Payne: I won't oppose war money because Obama's president
Congressman Donald Payne (D., N.J.) has voted against war funding bills for years. Last summer he was one of 32 heroes to vote No under intense pressure from the White House to vote Yes. When I asked him a couple of years ago to sign onto impeaching Bush he immediately said "Sure!" and he did it.
Today I asked him if he would commit to voting No on the next $33 billion for war. I asked him privately, just after he'd given a long speech to a Progressive Democrats of America conference in New Jersey, a speech about how much he opposes the wars.
Payne told me that he didn't want to commit to voting No on the next "emergency war supplemental" because Obama is president, echoing Jan Schakowsky's comments last June when she made a similar reversal.
"Congressman Payne," I said, "aren't the bombs the same? Isn't the dying the same?" He agreed and told me I was preaching to the choir.
"And is the only difference that a different person is president?" I asked. "Yes," he replied.
Today I asked him if he would commit to voting No on the next $33 billion for war. I asked him privately, just after he'd given a long speech to a Progressive Democrats of America conference in New Jersey, a speech about how much he opposes the wars.
Payne told me that he didn't want to commit to voting No on the next "emergency war supplemental" because Obama is president, echoing Jan Schakowsky's comments last June when she made a similar reversal.
"Congressman Payne," I said, "aren't the bombs the same? Isn't the dying the same?" He agreed and told me I was preaching to the choir.
"And is the only difference that a different person is president?" I asked. "Yes," he replied.