I was born during the bicentennial year of 1976, so when I was young, I would imagine the year 2026 as a gigantic celebration. I would turn 50. The country would turn 250. With the typical self-centeredness of youth, I thought we would celebrate these milestones together, or something like that. What an amazing American…
Our friends fled the home where they spent most of their lives because they no longer felt safe. Flying in the middle of the night to avoid detection so that they wouldn’t be detained. As they saw others in their same situation arrested, separated from their families, sent to concentration camps here and abroad –…
“Which is a more progressive goal — a world in which only thirteen per cent of black people (instead of twenty-four per cent) live below the poverty line or a world in which none of them do?” Walter Benn Michaels, an academic and literary theorist, poses this provocative question to force our consideration of whether…
I turned 50 today! It’s many different things to reach a half-century. It’s being old, as my daughter would tell me, and still being young. It’s being grateful for what has come before and grateful for what’s to come. It’s reflecting on challenges I’ve faced and being apprehensive about those I have yet to face.…
Unprovoked attacks on Iran. A sustained assault on immigrants and those who try to protect them in US cities. Abandoning the government’s basis for regulating CO2. Cutting funding for basic assistance programs and scientific research. Slashing taxes for wealthy elites. Bankrolling a genocide and using it as an opportunity for real estate development. It has…
Who is a domestic terrorist? Is it the person who pulls the gun and cocks it? Or the person who steps in front of that gun? Is it the person who skirts the law to earn some money to feed their family? Or the person who vilifies and dehumanizes them? Is it the person who…
A familyRuns from danger and, Finding no door open, Climbs in through the window.Once inside, they behave as all The other families do:Looking for food, A place to lay their heads, Jobs to afford those necessitiesAnd maybe set a little aside for the children. They simply want a place for themselves, But always it hangs…
Our family tells a story that, in 1848, my great great grandfather Patrick stowed away on a boat from Ireland to the USA at the age of 14. This was during what we call the Irish Potato Famine but which the Irish called the Great Hunger. During this time, more than 10% of Irish people…
Everyone knows that our political system is broken. Scratch that – almost everyone knows that our political system is broken. Mmmm, I’ll try again. What looks broken to most of us is actually working very well for a select few. That about does it. Our government is set up to protect the interests of wealthy…
I feel our humanity leaching away with each passing day. I feel it seeping from our collective body with each preschool teacher detained in front of their students. With each person dragged from their car and hauled off to a detention center. With each door ICE agents knock down without a warrant. With each person…
Entwining 