What One Veteran Said
Vietnam veteran Wayne Smith: We were broken. I had so much anger and pain. I was crushed. I left like I had blood on my hands. I resisted calling the Vietnamese gooks and dinks, but…
Month: January 2017
What One Veteran Said
Vietnam veteran Wayne Smith: We were broken. I had so much anger and pain. I was crushed. I left like I had blood on my hands. I resisted calling the Vietnamese gooks and dinks, but…
Touching a Nerve
According to my FBI documents, [President Richard] Nixon was more obsessed with me than with the president of Russia. He was obsessed with this movie star that was working with the GIs. –Jane Fonda, from…
From Thirty Years Ago: Thich Nhat Hanh
Many of us worry about the world situation. We don’t know when the bombs will explode. We feel that we are on the edge of time. As individuals, we feel helpless, despairing. The situation is so…
Elie Wiesel and Worthy Remembrance
See, Wiesel has often made this claim quite explicit: I am above politics, my message is so precious and pure it cannot afford to be sullied by compromise. Such is the transcendent dignity of the…
Authors for Reading Alongside Svetlana Alexievich’s Secondhand Time
I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us. If the book we’re reading doesn’t wake us up with a blow on the head, what are we reading…
A Key to Understanding the Table of Contents to “Dear Layla Welcome to Palestine” from Our Friend Fellini
Do you like stories in which nothing happens, too? Well, in my film everything happens … OK? I’m putting everything in … Even the Sailor doing a tap dance. –8 1/2
On the Street Meditation
The swami told me to make japam while I walked and to give everybody I met on a street a mental blessing. You weren’t to think of yourself with a feeling of superiority, as a…
Share the Wealth with Julia Brucks: What Happens after an Eat-Pray-Love-esque Trip?
There is something about the light and air in France. Matisse spoke of the “Silver clarity of the light in Nice.” Van Gogh said, “The air in France brightens the thoughts and is good for…
Note from Claire
“To say ‘silence’ in Spanish, you have to say, ‘yes’ twice. Accept it. Just as it sounds without inquiring into it.” –see-lén-see-oh Claire was recently on a five-day Silent Retreat.