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A Look at Rebecca Traister’s New Book, ‘All the Single Ladies’

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By Susan Grigsby / Daily Kos

Rebecca Traister’s new book, All the Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation, opens with an examination of the treatment of Anita Hill by the Senate Judiciary Committee during the hearings on the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court.

Rather than refute any of her charges of what came to be known as sexual harassment, the conservatives on the committee and in the media attacked Ms. Hill. It was suggested that she suffered from erotomania or had certain “proclivities” (according to William Safire, this word, used by Senator Alan Simpson, was “a code word for homosexuality”).   [Read more…]

Book Review Of Bill Walton’s “Back From The Dead”

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By Ernie McCray

I didn’t know until I read his book that he was a musician, but I’ve known for a long time that he’s someone who’s attracted to the sounds of music, that he has been a player in the Grateful Dead scene for decades. I’ve known that he’s a lifelong learner, a man who’s constantly growing and questioning and shining a light on things that need tending to in our world. And his writing details somewhat poetically how he’s “thrown it down,” all out, throughout his life, in spite of forever having to endure an almost unbelievable array of crippling injuries and intense pain.
  [Read more…]

‘Always Fly Away’ : Teaching Children to Be Smart, Strong and Safe

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Milena (Sellers) Phillips’ book “Always Fly Away” is not the work of someone who has made a career of writing books for children. This brightly illustrated book written for elementary school children is a reflection of how the author herself has come to understand the world as much as it is a children’s story.

“Always Fly Away” acknowledges the necessary transition that takes place when young children want to start exploring the world with an ever growing degree of independence. It also helps to develop the critical judgement that young children need to recognize when a situation doesn’t feel right and what to do when this happens.

Phillips spins a story that retains the joy and mystery of a child’s explorations while providing ways to assure that the exploration is as safe as possible. It is a remarkable story because she personally experienced the devastating death of her nine year old son Jonathan Sellers.   [Read more…]

Geo-Poetic Spaces: Making Love

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Outside a village
at the end of life’s busy road
an elderly couple
is making loukoumades

Squeezing barehands of dough
into moist spoons
  [Read more…]

Now They’re Coming After the Librarians

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By looty / Daily Kos

The British burned down the first Library of Congress in 1814. Two hundred years later and some Republicans seem to want to do it again.

Rep. Diane Black (R-TN) is, as I suspect most people know, a Teahadist moron. But it takes a special kind of moron to piss off librarians. That’s exactly what she did this morning, with the announcement that she would introduce a bill in Congress, mandating that,

“The Librarian of Congress shall continue to use the terms ‘Alien’ and ‘Illegal aliens’ in the Library of Congress Subject Headings in the same manner as they were in effect during 2015.”

  [Read more…]

Evening News

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Raphael
is 22
He has managed to cross the border to El Norte
through a dark tunnel
across the wide field of flowers,
has paid for his safety with a year of saving pesos.   [Read more…]

Experience and Explosive Situations

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Scrolling down my facebook timeline
I found that someone had written words in line
with the idea
that Hillary’s lengthy experience
in foreign policy
makes her a better choice than Bernie
for the presidency.
The words went thusly:
“Consider… North Korea hits South Korea
and Tokyo simultaneously
with ballistic nukes.
I think Hillary could deal with it.
Bernie is unproven.”   [Read more…]

Geo-Poetic Spaces: Idyll of Pomos

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Eyes closed into hands
touching the womb

Grass grows greener
where the goddess of Pomos
bent legs in birth
arms stretched out
over infant earth   [Read more…]

Is It All Coming Together?

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Is it all coming together,
or all falling apart?
I can’t tell anymore.
I came with love,
but can’t find your heart.   [Read more…]

Change We Can Believe In

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By Ernie McCray

Obama first sold young people
on “Change we can Believe In”
and now Bernie
has them thinking along those lines again
in deeper ways
and I love watching their faces
at his rallies when he says to them
“Change comes from the bottom to the top.”
Their faces light up
as he teaches them how
they might best proceed
as they strive to meet
their world’s desperate needs.   [Read more…]

Geo-Poetic Spaces: Personification of Wind

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Smoke
hangs over the globe

Blame it on winds
personified by names
originating in uncrossed deserts
howling: seas

Winds
that are said
to carry
a sandstorm of maladies misfortunes   [Read more…]

Geo-Poetic Spaces : My Life In Cyprus

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Look
at Spartan me
washing socks by hand
hanging myself out to dry

Subsiding on Lahmajoun
and clay cups of Cypriot poetry
blacker than aniconic stone   [Read more…]

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