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.
Month: January 2017
From Thich Nhat Hanh’s First Book Published in the USA, 1967
The more American troops sent to Vietnam, the more the anti-American campaign led by the NLF becomes successful. Anger and hatred rise in the hearts of the peasants as they see their villages burned, their…
I Get by with a Little Help from My Friends
Morning Correspondence, Cafe Ventana, thanks to Katya Madges
Bourdieu on Algeria
The somewhat exalted libido sciendi that drove me, rooted in a kind of passion for everything about this country, its people and its landscapes, and also in the dull but constant sensation of guilt and…
Poem of the Day: Bertolt Brecht
Those who take the meat from the table Teach contentment. Those for whom the taxes are destined Demand sacrifice. Those who eat their fill speak to the hungry Of wonderful times to come. Those who…
American Ingenuity
[Daisy Cutters were] so named because they were designed to explode just above the ground so the main force of the explosion was horizontal in order to cause the maximum destruction at ground level. The…
A Writer and His Readers
And nothing would make me happier than having made it possible for some of my readers to recognize their own experiences, difficulties, questionings, sufferings, and so on, in mine, and to draw from that realistic…
Role Model
“You’re in love with impossibility.” –Ismene to Antigone from an Australian production
McNamara and Co./2
I’d chain all of the politicians to that haunting Vietnam memorial and have them read—slowly—every name aloud. Then the war would end for me. Take all of them, all of them who gave us the…
McNamara and Co./1
In his 1995 book, In Retrospect Former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara [translation: former Secretary of Aggression) Made an apology to the American public For the harms brought to the country Because of his unwillingness…