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Friday, November 6, 2009
Barriers, a Film-Poem
9:12 am est
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Max Movie
1:46 pm est
Bingo Poem
1:41 pm est
Monday, March 30, 2009
Ben's Movie
8:22 am est
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
7:40 am est
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
President Obama
Inauguration Day.
1:54 pm est
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Crushed Blueberries
In the grocery store, five days before Thanksgiving, you can cut the hostility with a knife. Instead of people shopping alone,
and in peace, with their lists and private thoughts, as was their habit during the week, couples are at it, for this big shop,
together. There are both husbands and wives, and sons with their elderly mothers. A recipe for disaster in a crowded store
on a frigid Saturday morning. There is one impatient man with a goatee, and his frail, overweight mother, well into her eighties,
very hard of hearing, with a few canned goods in her shopping cart, who stops in the soup isle, and says, “I hate how they
do this,” and then takes the can of broth from his mother’s hands and shoves it back on the shelf, telling her how it was
labeled to look like the name brand. “They do this to confuse people.” He suffers with her through rest of the store, as she
shuffles up and down each isle, until we meet again when he pulls a box of plastic bags from the shelf. “You only need ten
plastic bags, that’s all, right?” And she nods, yes, of course. No more than ten. He throws them into the cart—like the rest
of the people in the store who toss groceries over the handle, not with any care, but with an indifferent heave on this particular
morning. And the husbands and wives glare at each other across the turkeys covered in frost, trading sarcastic comments about
what they need to buy, or not, and who will get it, or not. And the eyes roll. And the hands grip the carts with white knuckles,
tight fisted. Ready to punch, except for the crowds and security cameras. There was that kind of violence in the air, along
with the blueberries out of season at the checkout, crushed under the wheels of the cart.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Map of Leadership
See Photograph by Michael Nichols
We’re all worried about the economy, stressed, anxious, maybe even depressed, with Wall Street no better than a house of cards,
with one bank failure tumbling after another, resulting in a global credit crisis, and in the past two years more than a million
homes lost to foreclosure, and now early signs of dreaded deflation, along with the three big American car manufacturers in Washington begging lawmakers for massive loans, which they have little
hope of receiving this year in their efforts to avoid bankruptcy and further economic meltdown. And it’s not just the American
automakers, Toyota will cease all North American production for two days next month to work through excess inventory. More Americans are losing their jobs
every day, to collect unemployment (if they can even get through the long waits at the overwhelmed unemployment offices), while other Americans who have been unable to find work, despite months of trying, and hundreds of
resumes, fear losing their benefits in the near future. And in the throes of a severe recession, some even say standing on
the brink of a depression, we heard the voice of our President-Elect on his weekly radio address, reminding people that, “we
can steer ourselves out of this crisis -- because here in America we always rise to the moment, no matter how hard.” It was
a short speech, only about three minutes, and if you didn’t hear it on the radio, you could have watched it on YouTube. Obama
finished with the reminder that, “in this country, we rise or fall as one nation; as one people. And that is how we will meet
the challenges of our time -- together.” It is about rising, and coming together, instead of splitting apart, and losing the
social capital that comes with work and economic success. When under tremendous stress, it is all too easy and human to fall
apart, to panic, to retreat to our separate dark corners, our living rooms with the television glowing, where we can keep
score with the latest economic indicators on the cable news crawl. Yes bad news is everywhere, like jagged rocks in the worst
river rapids anyone has ever shot on a leaking raft. But we all have paddles, and if we put them in the water and pull together,
maybe this time we won’t crash. Still, we won’t be able to navigate this river without the map of solid leadership, as we
suffer the whirlpools and waterfalls in the months and years ahead.
11:35 am est
Monday, November 10, 2008
Lend A Hand
An editorial in today’s New York Times reminds Americans of President-Elect Obama’s call to change, and of the hard work ahead
in “remaking this nation.” People have been and continue to be receptive to this message of service. The Obama campaign was
an example of what community organizing could do on a national scale, from the grassroots up. In the face of this disastrous
economy, and uncertain future, what better way to strengthen our nation than by continuing this spirit of volunteerism. No
effort made is too small to be felt. Collecting canned goods to help the local Boy Scouts’ food drive, donating to food pantries,
it all makes a difference. It only takes one hand to lift another, before we’re all standing.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Paradigm Shift
This presidential election has resulted in a fundamental paradigm shift in politics. White is now black. Old is young. We
have a new model, a new exemplar. Minds previously fossilized by the calcification of partisanship have been released by a
new spirit of cooperation, and yes, intelligence. As F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in his essay “The Crack-Up,” in 1936, “The
test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain
the ability to function.” This is in contrast to George Orwell’s term, “doublethink,” defined in his book 1984 as the “ability
to hold two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously and accept both of them.” Like the ability to see both the
face and the vase, the American people were able to see both sides of the political equation in this election. They held both
candidates’ ideas in mind at the same time. And they functioned, and voted.
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