art

Secret Weapon Against Fascism: Ourselves

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Happy International Workers Day, everyone! All over the world, on grand and small scales, people are celebrating the majority in every society: workers and would-be workers. Every day, in my work as a teacher, I see that the belief in fairness continues to flourish among the majority, the baristas and servers, the nurse’s aides and clerks, the dishwashers and groundskeepers. It’s a complex situation, of course. Workers can be hard on one another, proud of their endurance under extreme conditions.

Education

April 4th and 5th: Catch the Wisconsin Fire

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The fires of democracy continue to burn brightly in Wisconsin. Recall campaigns are racing along, and a recent community meeting in Milwaukee, usually a sleepy, ill-attended affair, boasted several hundred attendants. When their representative, Chris Larson, one of the “Wisconsin 14” showed up, they jumped to their feet in a standing ovation. Neighborhood listservs are boiling with activity. On Facebook and in a thousand union and church meetings, people solidify their connections with each other and their commitment to recover and strengthen our precious democracy.

Politics & Society

Special Dispatch: Solidarity in Wisconsin

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Special Dispatch: Solidarity in Wisconsin
In Jordan, teachers protested this week for the right to form unions. In Wisconsin, they fought to keep that right. The stakes and the dangers in Jordan are enormously higher, but it’s a sad irony that we find ourselves sliding down to the status of a country that doesn’t even pretend to be a democracy. I wish with all my heart for these dangerous struggles in the Mideast and North Africa to bear real and lasting fruit, that in each of these cases, justice will prevail. And I’m proud of my home state.

General News

The Perils of Privilege

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The Perils of Privilege
At the college where I teach, I get free parking: prime spots right on the edge of campus. Should my designated places fill up, I can help myself to any student space. Nice deal. For me. How is student parking?

Culture

Three Cheers for the new Huck Finn

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Auburn University professor Alan Gribben has just come out with a revised version of Huckleberry Finn from NewSouth Books that replaces the N-word with “slave.” Wow, the reaction! Typical of many critics is Michael J. Kiskis of Elmira College who says in a newspaper interview, “I don’t think you should change a writer’s text” (So much for translation!) “It changes the tone and intention.” When he teaches the book at the college level, he notes, “We talk about the context” and adds, “It’s not enough to just say ‘well, everybody used this language in the 1880s’.’ That’s not true.”

Culture

Gratitude: What a Chore

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Why is it so hard to be grateful? In the churches of my childhood, the ministers would intone, “Let us give thanks,” perhaps after the collection plate had been passed, and we would all bow our heads and go through the motions. I don’t remember feeling actual gratitude. But that wasn’t for lack of reminding. A hymn too exhorted us, “Count your Blessings.

Culture

The Tea Party, a Middle Class Mob; and a Return to the Fifties

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In April, I was riding the DC Metro to the Capitol Mall, when several Tea Party demonstrators got on and sat a few seats away from me. The first, a young white man, wore red-and-white striped shoes with blue tops and other Uncle Sam garb; the young, white woman with him carried a hand-made sign on which was glued an old document titled “The Constitution” and the words, “Miss me yet?” Their origins, judging by hair, clothes, accent, and where they got on seemed to be lower middle class church goers. Not rich. Not sophisticates.

Culture

The Uses of Unemployment: Art

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“AIDS is the best thing that ever happened to me.” Those words from an exhibit a decade ago at the California College of Arts, struck me speechless. I stood, riveted to the wall-sized set of panels. The honesty and courage of the words and images impressed me profoundly. I felt I was in the presence of something significant and wholly unexpected, something I would have thought impossible.

Culture

Unemployment, Fear, and What We Can Do

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A manager in a failing department store runs to the bathroom and throws up, consumed with the fear of losing her health benefits which, even with COBRA, will cost too much. A teacher wakes up multiple nights a week with his whole body clenched, dreading that California’s annual pink slip won’t be retracted this time. A factory worker grieves the loss of friendship and socializing at work as much as the lost income. Very likely everyone reading this knows someone who has recently lost a job. Unemployment is a strange word; defined negatively, it fails to convey the meaning of an often devastating experience (though one that, together, we can mitigate).

Culture

Quality of Life, the Tea Party, and Jack Kornfield

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What is a High Quality of Life? I once lived for an entire year as an exchange student with a British family in Bristol, UK. Their house, one end of a three-house row, contained three bedrooms, one bathroom, small living and dining rooms, and a tiny kitchen, too small for eating in. They owned one car, a little Vauxhall, and one TV, yet considered themselves well able to feed, house, and entertain a stranger for an entire year. By American middle-class standards, this family was practically poor, yet their four children received great educations.