Litany/2 (¡Presente!)

The following was near the end in the original version of The Book of Mev. Ignacio Ellacuría, engaged intellectual, credible witness, Fearless announcer of God’s Kingdom . . . ¡Presente! Ordinary eco-friendly folk, hallowers of…

Forget Pessimism

Just this morning I came across the following exchange with Noam Chomsky, which reminded me of what Steve said last night in his talk on Syria… Interviewer: Did you go through a phase of hopelessness,…

Take Your Pick/2

Pascal raised the question: How do you know whether God exists? He said, if I assume that he exists and he does, I’ll make out OK. If he doesn’t, I won’t lose anything. If he…

From Guatemala to Gaza

1. It was Ash Wednesday 1983.  In a darkened sanctuary with some lighted candles, an unfamiliar Catholic priest and several other people entered the sanctuary and sat in the front row.  The people wearing bandanas…

A Lifetime of Letters

The Letters of Allen Ginsberg, edited by Bill Morgan (Da Capo Press, 2008) I have a file titled “Noam Chomsky” that contains several letters from the linguist during the 1990s. I first began writing him…

Gaza: Toward Understanding and Action

Because of the extensive, though sanitized, U.S. news coverage of Israel’s bombing and invasion of Gaza, many Americans are paying closer attention to the Israel-Palestine conflict (those with access to Arabic news programming and Youtube…

Remembering the Nakba

Recently the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC sponsored an unusual exhibit, “Darfur: Who Will Survive Today?” Photographic images of the genocide in Darfur are flashed to incredible size at night outside on…