A group of us were recently told that there is nothing quite so unappealing to young adults as a bunch of discouraged-looking old people. To which I replied in sotto voce, “There is nothing quite so discouraging as a group of young adults dependent on how we look to them.” Still, I get the point.…
An old friend of mine and I used to joke about levels of discouragement like they were circles in Dante’s Inferno. The absolute lowest level, we decided, was resignation, not despair. With despair, one still looks back at what is lost to us. Resignation even quits looking back. We will never have what we want,…
On Tuesday night people in Wisconsin and Michigan had opportunities to hear the art of obfuscation in the form of two State of the State addresses by Governors Walker and Snyder. Both had some heavy lifting to do related to their disastrous records in office. Though both of them created messes in office that will…
I have postponed this particular post for a couple of weeks to get some distance from the fever pitch of debates about it in December. But how can anyone really write about truth-telling without commenting on Christmas? Seriously, can we let go of The Elf? We all know the one to which I refer. Santa.…
Fictions are remembered, too, and they are not stored any differently in the mind from other experiences. They are experience. Siri Hustvedt, Living, Thinking, Looking: Essays For many years I have wondered how poor and working class people in the U.S. can be so regularly persuaded to vote against their own self-interests. Election after election we…
My father was one of those men who sit in a room and you can feel it: the simmer, the sense of some unpredictable force that might, at any moment, break loose, and do something terrible. ― John Burnside, A Lie about My Father: A Memoir I must have been about seven or eight, certainly no more,…
I just want to celebrate another day of living. I just want to celebrate another day of life. – Rare Earth, Peter Rivera Ronnie and Jazzy and Kofi and Rudy and Carlos and Everett and Anthony and Anthony and Mark and Mark and Mark and Dan and David and Ray and Jeff and Todd and…
The man who has no imagination has no wings. – Muhammad Ali The fact is, I was never too bright in school. I ain’t ashamed of it, though. I mean, how much do school principals make a month? – Muhammad Ali In June, it seems that gardening, graduation, marriage, and gay pride are what we are…
Thus, in sharing stories, we have the potential for forging new relationships…. – Dyson, A. H., & Genishi, C. (1994). The need for story: Cultural diversity in classroom and community. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English. This week I have been contemplating the mediating power of words as I blog about community building. This exercise…
First this: On Saturday evening, a beautifully coiffed woman outside the Seattle Repertory Theater clutched her phone in what looked like a last minute call just before curtain. She wore what appeared to be a darn good knock off or a real Channel suit, that kind with the short jacket, narrow shoulders, and tweedy weave…
Creating Community for Everyone 