Cultures
Understanding Opens The Heart To Loving
When you understand, you cannot help but love. And when you love, you naturally act in a way that can relieve the suffering of others. ~Thich Nhat Hanh I see two causes of the fear permeating society and driving hate wedges between all strata of society. The first is people lack compassion for themselves and […]
To See Beauty, See Like a Child
Youth is happy because it has the capacity to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old. ~Franz Kafka A child has a magical ability to see a person, not their color, not their shape, not their deeds and misdeeds. They see through to the purity of the soul. As […]
The Sorrow of War: A Novel of North Vietnam by Bảo Ninh
Justice may have won, but cruelty, death, and inhuman violence have also won. ~Bảo Ninh, The Sorrow of War: A Novel of North Vietnam I picked up the book, The Sorrow of War: A Novel of North Vietnam, in my ongoing quest to read around the world, to read books not originally published in English, to […]
The Poverty of ISM Thinking
Pastoral scene of the gallant South The bulgin’ eyes and the twisted mouth Scent of magnolias sweet and fresh Then the sudden smell of burnin’ flesh ~ Strange Fruit, Billy Holiday I make it a practice to read books outside the mainstream, revolutionary and counter-revolutionary works, ideas seeping from the underground and in the wide […]
Celebrating Differences
It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences. ~ Audre Lorde Imagine, if you will, a life in which we, you, me, everyone, ate only one thing. There were no other options. Every day, every meal, day after day, year after year, we ate […]
Mother of Exiles
“Give my your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” ~Statue of Liberty, 28 Oct 1886 In elementary school, I was taught Lady Liberty stood on our shore welcoming immigrants […]
¡Viva La Revolución!
The world was changing its skin; something had to change. ~Carlos Fuentes These words by Fuentes were penned with reflection on the revolutionary times at the tail end of the 60s with emphasis on the turbulent year, 1968. 1968 was the year the young had their innocence stolen with the murder of Bobby. It was […]
