This month I will be turning 70 years old. When I turned 50, I decided to prepare for the date by celebrating each month prior to the actual date. After all, I reasoned, I experienced my 50th August 11 months before I experienced my 50th July. These early celebrations put the actual day into a new…
My late husband, Paul Mandracchia, loved to vote and nothing could dissuade him from doing so. Those who knew Paul were aware that the last several years of his life it took him forever to get dressed. Often there were three of us in on that project. Usually Jose or Anneke or Leslie joined me…
Your heart is full of fertile seeds, waiting to sprout. — Morihei Ueshiba A friend asked me a while back if I ever got tired. I responded that most nights I fall asleep within ten minutes of putting my head on the pillow, so yes, I get tired. His probe went a bit further then.…
Somewhere along 16th Street, a block or so south of Oklahoma Avenue in Milwaukee, WI, in September, 1958, I took one of my early steps in becoming a sex educator. I do not remember exactly with whom I was walking home from school, but I do know two of three of us were boys. Today…
A couple of weeks ago I titled a blog post Sorry, Not Sorry and the statistics for readership shot up. I am not sure it was the title that caused the spike or my fetching photographs or pithy comments, but I will hazard a guess that at least a few readers were snagged by the…
Chip Berlet and Frederick Clarkson have argued that “It would be nice if conservative White evangelicals called off the Culture Wars that they started and continue to aggressively pursue. It would be even nicer if liberal (and even some progressive) pundits stopped prematurely announcing the end of the Culture Wars and the demise of the…
When I was a boy learning about life and community in a poor area of Milwaukee, I saw and experienced eating dirt. Although I don’t recall if there were specific ages when we were inducted into the practice or were no longer eligible for it, I do remember what it looked like. The boy expected…
This week I started writing my daily blog posts with the premise that there is a lot of work to go around in developing robust, active, engaging communities where people really stick to each other. I sat down and quickly identified two dozen things people could be doing to build and sustain communities. (The full…
I saw the whole of Baltimore From May until December; Of all the things that happened there That’s all that I remember. – Countée Cullen (1903-1946), Incident This final stanza of Incident by Countée Cullen is remarkable on its own and the culmination of an outstanding poetic story told in 12 lines. Ever since I…
How ready are we to address the sources of racism, acknowledge the effects of racism, and change both for good? This past weekend, my friend Rudy laid out the history of race and racism is simple and elegant terms. He calmly explained the origins of the construct of race in the slicing and dicing that…
Creating Community for Everyone 