Latin America Reading Group

Julia Thomas, Mary Shannon and I are beginning a Latin America Reading Group.  Our first book will be Che Guevara’s The Motorcycle Diaries. We hope to meet up in mid-October at Café Ventana, and will…

The Asian Mind/The American Mind

1. The following remarks are from Captain Ted Shipman, a U.S. intelligence officer in South Vietnam: “You see, they do have some–well, methods and practices that we are not accustomed to, that we wouldn’t use…

Impossible Debt?

1. Now they languish under our bombs and consider us, not their fellow Vietnamese, the real enemy. They move sadly and apathetically as we herd them off the land of their fathers into concentration camps…

A Brief Consideration of Napalm

1. American Heritage Dictionary Napalm, incendiary material used in bombs and flame throwers. Developed during World War II, napalm is a mixture of gasoline (sometimes mixed with other petroleum fuels) and a thickening agent. The…

Given the Transition Ahead

May you be curious May you be wide-eyed May you reach for notebook when stomach flipflops May you remember how many people think of you May you always be at home at the address of…

Ko Un

1. Ko Un‘s Ten Thousand Lives is a remarkable sample in English of his twenty-volume work in Korean, known as Maninbo.  In his early years, he was a Buddhist monk.  Later, he was part of…

Walk Out Walk On

One friend is increasingly bored and dissatisfied with her Christian Sunday church services. Another left her job of teaching 175 high school students a year in the public school system to volunteer for three months…