“Dusk Therapy” I parked near the cabin just a few feet from a sheer drop and set the emergency break so a quick jolt—an earthquake, a strong wind—wouldn’t send the car careening over the cliff. I was expectant, but also beginning to worry a little bit: This cabin was so far away from everything. Through the front window of […]
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A Stranger in the Soup Kitchen Spills the Beans I have a friend, old and retired, who keeps busy helping the poor. Let’s call him Ted because he wants to remain anonymous. Some of his ideas, he says, wouldn’t make many of his neighbors happy. Ted has had problems of his own in life. No need to list them. He managed to […]
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Long Before ISIS Thirty years ago, long before ISIS started executing Kurds, Muslims and Christians, I hired a Pakistani Muslim as an art director in Chicago. I was an Irish Catholic editor putting out a small national magazine. I hired him because his work samples were good and he had worked for the United States embassy in Pakistan for […]
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Meeting Dad Again by Donal Mahoney My father emigrated from Ireland to the United States in the early 1920s. He had been released from Spike Island by the English who “occupied” Ireland at that time. Spike Island was the “Guantanamo” of that era, located just off the coast of Ireland. It was there the English warehoused prisoners of the […]
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“I can’t stand a naked light bulb, any more than I can a rude remark or a vulgar action.” Blanche DuBois, in A Streetcar Named Desire Rarely if ever, anymore, do I hear people say they have some “marketing” to do, rather it is “food shopping” or going to the “supermarket.” Marketing nowadays refers predominantly to the promotion OF products […]
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In God They Tru$t “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond […]
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Part of the mission statement of the Lakota Grandmothers Truth Tour reads: “Wagunpi Woashake Ikickupi (Lakota Elders Take Back Their Strength) is a grassroots movement to end the genocide of the Lakota people and support the full renewal of matriarchal leadership by Lakota Grandmothers on Pine Ridge and across the Lakota Nation. The movement also works to educate non-Natives about […]
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This is a case where the law is as dangerous to us as the criminals.” – Sherlock Holmes to Dr. Watson in “The Second Stain” Prelude: The stage depicts a halcyon summer day, except that in the background are two pools of water, one with nuclear radiation, the other with over 36,000 gallons of oil, plus natural gas hovering above. […]
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PIECE #1 Many human beings spend a lot of time online. Some look to self-educate as well as connect with others worldwide. The number of internet users from 2000 to 2012 increased over 2 billion. Yet those online are only about 34% of the global population.1 Thus, about 66% are not e-connected. For those fortunate enough to be reading this, […]
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There’s no way to structure this coherently. They are random observations that might help explain the mental processes. But often, I think that we look at the academic problems of poverty and have no idea of the why. We know the what and the how, and we can see systemic problems, but it’s rare to have a poor person actually […]
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