Announcements

Laura Weis shared this with me from a class we had 12 years ago at SLU; this led to her going to  hear Dan Berrigan at Cook Hall. I’m not the only one who keeps…

Walt Whitman and Dear Layla

Dear Rebecca, Sarah, Matthew and Patrick, Joanie French and I took the Amtrak train to Texas in the summer of 2005 for a family wedding. Along the way and back, I read the Library of…

Dear Isabel (Letter/11)

Wednesday 1 July 2015 Dear Isabel End of page 12 and all of page 13 You WERE paralyzed with fear.  Fear comes and goes. You can write anything you want. You can go outside the…

Dear Isabel (Letter/7)

Friday 26 June 2015 Dear Isabel Happy Friday, you’ve finished one week at the new job. Page 8, top paragraph  I take back what I said yesterday about boycotting the word “solidarity.”  That first sentence…

Dear Isabel (Letter/6)

Thursday 25 June 2015 Dear Isabel And so I continue…. Page 6, paragraph 1 The needs you mention here (arising from your journalistic writing in a specific place) aren’t peculiar or idiosyncratic—all humans have the…

Dear Isabel (Letter/5)

Wednesday 24 June 2015 Dear Isabel Page 5 Ah, claridad in El Salvador, because it is (seems?) so black and white.  Your description of what living there, amidst violence, gives you is powerful; e.g., “vulnerability is…

Dear Isabel (Letter/4)

Tuesday 23 June 2015 Dear Isabel Page 4, line 3 Have you, with all your white privilege, ever led the space of  non-whites? Did you simply choose journalism because it made you feel special and…

Dear Isabel (Letter/1)

Saturday 20 June 2015 Dear Isabel What an honor to receive your letter. It could be published AS IS on a blog. You could give it as A TED Talk. (18 minutes!)

Because We Say So

Dear Kelley, I’m delighted that you inquired about where to start with reading Noam Chomsky. I look forward to discussing Hegemony or Survival with you in a  couple  of weeks. Back in 1986—those horrid years…