Countering Chaos
Alexander Cockburn, A Colossal Wreck: A Road Trip through Political Scandal, Corruption, and American Culture Verso, 2013 Daisy Cockburn: When I was a teenager my father used to suggest I read the dictionary when I…
Share the Wealth with Sari Althubyani: Ramadan Kareem
Sari will share with us his various experiences of Ramadan, from his homeland in Saudi Arabia to United States in these last few years. Bring your questions or share your own experience of this time…
Active Participants in a Democratic Society or Effective Corporate Employees?
Alfie Kohn, What Does It Mean to be Well Educated? And More Essays on Standards, Grading, and Other Follies You only learn things and learn how to think if there’s some purpose for learning, some…
Share the Wealth with Jack McAtee: In But Not of The World
During this discussion we will try to make sense of these wild, strange, sad, wonderful, and terrifying times that we currently have the opportunity to live through. I’ll take a critical view on the current…
A Gift from Rob in Minnesota
Today I received a book, The Burglary: The Discovery of J. Edgar Hoover’s Secret FBI, from Rob Trousdale, who’s a part of the Catholic Worker community in Minnesota. (Some of Rob’s poems grace this blog.)…
Putting Marginalia to Use
for Danielle Mackey Eduardo Galeano, The Book of Embraces 31 Saturday October 2009 I reread this book for one reason: To see if it could help me generate some ideas as to form and content…
Writing Our Own Histories: A Spring/Summer Class
“First We Read, Then We Write” –title of Robert D. Richardson’s study on Emerson’s creative life “Something that you feel will find its own form” –Jack Kerouac, U.S. novelist and poet “You have to write…
Milosz’s ABC’s
Milosz’s ABC’s Translated from the Polish by Madeline G. Levine Listening last night to Natalie Long talking about Poland and mentioning Czeslaw Milosz reminded me of reading his ABC’s back in 2001. Around that time…
Reminder to Self
When you encounter those who are wicked, unrighteous, foolish, dim-witted, deformed, vicious, chronically ill, lonely, unfortunate, or handicapped, you should think: “How can I save them?” And even if there is nothing you can do,…
“It’s the Old Thoreau Tradition”
This morning I was reading a 1972 interview with poet Allen Ginsberg and came across the following exchange… YLP: I was surprised to see the importance young Americans grant now to the Do It Yourself…