Intimations of spring (my first in the Midwest) are everywhere. It’s been amazingly warm, with passers-by in shirtsleeves. Yesterday on my walk I saw thick green clumps of narcissus and daffodil thrusting through the earth. The tips of branches that had very recently looked dead have now swollen into buds, smooth or fuzzy according to …
I grew up in a house without many books. Each volume in the single short bookcase my family owned stands out in memory, I suppose because each one had to be singular in some way to earn its place, something like a cabinet of curiosities. By the time I left home at 17, the bookcase …
My activist colleague sent me a message that appeared to be written in Martian: “ITOS BET SPOFTA?” is what he wrote, kindly providing the translation: “Is There One Senator Brave Enough To Speak Out For The Arts?” Judging from recent debate in the Senate, where the Right seems determined to snatch defeat from the jaws …
That cloud of energy that enveloped the National Mall this morning, the vapor of an simultaneous exhalation synchronizing the breathing of millions to the beat of one brave and honorable man’s heart! Hope was in the air and relief soared alongside, like two birds in flight: we survived eight years of George W. Bush and …
I’m in the midst of writing an article about public service employment for artists, an ideas whose time has once again come around. There are numerous proposals afloat and a semi-mysterious political process that will determine whether and how this idea will be implemented. I’ll be posting a link to my article and more information …
“This time”—my friend stood over a sinkful of dirty dishes, a stricken expression on her face—”I’m voting as if my life depended on it.” Extreme energies of hope and fear are rising and ricocheting over every city and town in the nation. I wish there were a way to harness a forcefield of this magnitude: …
Judging from my friends’ reactions (and the level of unrest in the Blogosphere and Punditstan), Sarah Palin’s nomination has unleashed a tidal wave of fear and despair large enough to sweep defeat from the jaws of victory—unless we can master this reactivity and get on with winning the election.
People keep sending me outraged emails about Barack Obama’s pandering to the reactionary Israel lobby, AIPAC, and on the merits, of course I agree with his critics. He has taken precisely the same hard-right line on Israel and Palestine as Clinton, McCain, and let’s see…. Oh yes, everyone I can recall who has gotten close …
A couple of weeks ago, Adam Liptak of the New York Times reported from the front lines of the U.S. prison-industrial complex: The United States has less than 5 percent of the world’s population. But it has almost a quarter of the world’s prisoners. Indeed, the United States leads the world in producing prisoners, a …
I have been trying to clear my mind of obstacles so I can think without the impediments created by attachment to things as they appear to be. If that sounds a little abstract, imagine a farmer prying stumps or boulders out of a field before plowing and sowing; or a painter smoothing and priming a …