Lessons

The lesson of the Holocaust is the facility with which most people, put into a situation that does not contain a good choice, or renders such a good choice very costly, argue themselves away from…

An Option for “Unworthy Victims”

On Norman G. Finkelstein, The Rise and Fall of Palestine: A Personal Account of the Intifada Year First published in the National Catholic Reporter, fall 1997 Some years back, the political critics Noam Chomsky and…

Theme of Class #2: From Up in the Air

In our Thursday evening class, Walking Together without Fear: Reading and Writing with Alice Walker, we pondered the following reflections from Alice Walker, Denise Levertov, and Fred Branfman. 1. Alice Walker, Thousands of Feet Below…

This I Know Is True

If you stay in relation to writing (rather than zoning out for six years) and you connect with writing friends, read, listen deeply, you will write what you want but most likely never the way…

Dear Srimatiji

You often said to me When we were face to face in Chicago “No worry” So I write to you far away With beaming confidence “No hurry”

Patience

There are years that ask the question and years that answer. — Zora Neale Hurston

Ramadan (Guests)

Dear Night Who’ll Endure More Than Fourteen Hundred Medical School Nights We do home-stays here Like many before us And some will continue after we leave Breaking the fast at Abu Hamid’s home On the…