Over the side of the Life boat
I got a call from my supervisor yesterday, my day off. I work for a not-for-profit organization providing services for disabled adults (mostly mentally challenged). The people I work with personally...
View ArticleThe Jordan is waiting.....
A statistic: 80% of developmentally disabled people experience abuse and neglect. Physical injuries, mental injuries, sexual abuse, and egregious neglect, often inflicted by family members, other...
View ArticleSick over health care reform
I am not a Democrat. I am way, way to the left of the American Democratic Party; Bernie Sanders is a moderate in my political spectrum vision. Nonetheless, I work hard to elect Democrats and that's...
View ArticleJust another murder-by-spreadsheet death
The media thinks it's funny, the fight over healthcare reform. Rick Sanchez was yukking it up, showing the various strident speeches from members of both parties. I guess he had a better day than...
View Article"Something fierce and imperishable...."
Something went wrong just before my friend Will was born, in a small city in the midwest, in the mid 1960s. The most likely cause: a mild prenatal stroke. It did not cause enough damage to be...
View Article"There's hope. You just can't have it."
This is an update on my friend, Will, who's story I told here: "Something Fierce and Imperishable...."It's not a happy update, and I need your help. I don't need money - I need ideas. And maybe...
View Article"They tell you about your rights. But they won't let you use them."
My friend Will uses this refrain repeatedly when describing his experiences with the "agency for people with disabilities" - I'll call it "The Agency" - that he's been with for 22 years. He's had to...
View ArticleTonight's right wing rant is different from other nights....
I frequently read Free Republic and other right wing blogs. It's no worse than my other job, cleaning an animal shelter. Well, yes, it is worse. But at least cleaning 40 litter boxes gives me some...
View Article"This muslime pervert needs to be shipped back to Kenya"
Given the fondness the mainstream corporate media has for the "Teaparty" movement, and their refusal to acknowledge the raw and revolting racism that runs through it, I thought it would be helpful to...
View Article"Ring the bells that still can ring...."
"Ring the bells that still can ring/Forget your perfect offering/there is a crack in everything/that's how the light gets in...."Leonard Cohen wrote those words, and they've been getting me through...
View ArticleWYFP? Into the Abyss edition
I debated - does this FP really belong here? Perhaps it's more appropriate for "Grieving Room." I also worried that it might sound a tad - well - unhinged. Kind of like Scott Fitzgerald's "Crack-up"...
View Article"Social welfare net" or Kafka - you decide
Any survivors of the US "social safety network" know well that to actually access and acquire a benefit, you must undergo a trial by humiliation, frustration, degradation, and endurance. My friend...
View ArticleNew Group: Chicago Suburban Progressives
Do you live in the Chicago Suburbs? There's a lot going on out here. Are you familiar with the DuPage Peace Through Justice Coalition? The West Suburban Faith Based Peace Coalition? DuPage Immigrant...
View ArticleChicago suburbs: "Don't tread on me"
I went to lunch today with an activist friend in DuPage County. On the way there, I noted two things. First, I passed three "Don't tread on me" flags, the symbol adopted by many "Teapartiers"....
View ArticleWho are you calling elitist?
Like many of you, I've attended many a meeting with fellow activists. Anti-war, pro-single payer health care, economic justice, all good causes, all good people. And with few exceptions, it tends to be...
View ArticleSuburban Subversives: Activism in the Suburbs of Chicago
I'm in DuPage County. And if you are familiar with Illinois, DuPage County is probably not what comes to mind when you think about progressive activism.There's a story my father tells. It might be...
View ArticleOnly through utter poverty shall we all be prosperous
Apparently this is the philosophy behind the right in the US today. Housing market collapse? Unemployment skyrocketing? Impose "austerity" measures on working people while enshrining historically...
View ArticleThe Soundtrack of Struggle
From the earliest time, music has provided the spirit of the labor movement. One of the concerns of the most politicized of the 1960s anti-war activists was that the music they listened to was not in...
View Article"Uniquely American...fantastic..get any sleep?"
That's George Bush's infamous response to the working mother who told him she worked three jobs.Bush, of course, while finding it fantastic, and thus reflecting the ruling class view that working...
View ArticleThe Dream that Depends on the Misery of Others
I was driving into Oak Park on Sunday. I was heading to a meeting of the New New Deal Project, a project dedicated to developing strategies for realizing FDR's "Second Bill of Rights" - the one no one...
View Article...And that's all I know...
If you've been through cancer treatment, for yourself or with a loved one, you know the secrets. Like a combat veteran, you're a member of a club you never wanted to join. But just as many of us...
View ArticleThe Right to earn, learn & live: the betrayal & the way forward
January 11, 1944. FDR was giving a state of the union address. In it, he called for a "second bill of rights", under which "a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all -...
View Article"The victors will be those who can the most endure...."
I remember a news story about a man who had somehow gotten his leg pinned between some downed trees. He waited, but no one came. He had a saw within arms reach and eventually, made the decision to...
View Article“Hatred is the coward's revenge for being intimidated.”
Welcome to Free Republic! America's exclusive site for God, Family, Country, Life & Liberty constitutional conservative activists!It's not "Redstate". It doesn't pretend to boast well-informed...
View ArticlePromises, And Pursuing Justice
I've written a lot about my friend Will, who died on October 6, 2010. "Friend" is such a nondescript word, overused, vague. It means everything, and nothing, and I am not sure it's the right one...
View ArticleA New New Deal - defending the public
It was January 11, 1944. FDR was giving his State of the Union Address. A Democratic president, but he wasn't talking about bipartisan compromise or "shared sacrifice". He was talking about a...
View ArticleSo what are you willing to risk?
Do you know the origins of the celebration of May 1, May Day, as a worker's holiday? (everywhere but the US, of course, where the origins of the day lie....) It is derived from the events surrounding...
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The velociraptor in the room
This one's bigger than an elephant and a lot more dangerous. It's spectre is invoked in the run up to elections, but is rarely spoken of otherwise. The power of the word used to be seriously...
View ArticleThe Scarlett O'Hara School of Politics
“I can do without your money,” she cried. “I’m making money out of Johnnie Gallegher’s mill, plenty of it, now that I don’t use free darkies and I have some money out on mortgages and we are coining...
View ArticleProfitable are the sick, for they shall be exploited
Good news for the shareholders in the mega pharmaceutical company, Bristol Myers Squibb: the FDA just approved the drug ipilimumab, also know as "Yervoy", for use in metastatic melanoma....
View Article"Feel so Near...." - pagan music 911
It's universal, transcends culture and language and class and for me, at least, is a lifesaver. For the past six months, I've felt little but anger and grief. I've tried to pray, to meditate, to...
View Article“Hatred is the coward's revenge for being intimidated”
George Bernard Shaw is the author of the quote on "hate" that entitles this diary. It came to mind when I was reading, in some awe, of Donald Trump's curious rise to the top of the GOP's popular...
View ArticleMy Dinner with Kyle, or the loneliness of the religious progressive
Is there anything lonelier than a progressive with spiritual - let alone mystical -inclinations? I was once the only non-fundamentalist Christian in a homeschool support group, and that was pretty...
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We don't all call dinosaurs Jesus ponies: The tale of a progressive homeschooler
Yes, I know the stereotype. Say, "Homeschooler" and this is what you think of :The Blue Jumper of Oppression.
View ArticleKosAbility: The Special, the Challenged, & The "R" Word
"Delayed""Cognitively impaired" Special / Retarded / Feeble minded / Moron / Simpleton / Imbecile / Cretin Idiot / ChallengedPick your category.These are only some of the labels, past...
View ArticleThe Lessons of Vinegar Hill, or why we can prevail
The sun was settin' the rocks on fire The fields blisterin' with the heat When the militia came marchin' through our town Knockin' sparks off the little streets The priest watched them from his front...
View ArticleWYFP: Doom & Despair edition
A shocking confession: I've never been known for my sunny, "glass half full" outlook. My daughter refers to me as "Daria", the cartoon character of gloom, angst, and bleakness. But even by my grim...
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Help! (please!)
I need some help - got a little to give? 'Cause I'm starting to fear...
View ArticleThe Fury of the Unhinged
"Kibbutz, why do you do this to yourself?", an online friend asked when I was sharing some comments and "news" from a right wing site.I'm not a masochist, truly I'm not. I monitor right wing sites...
View ArticleThe Wit and Wisdom of the Freepers
I like reading taglines. There are some great ones here on DKos. They are often inspiring, funny, revealing, creative. For example, Kossack Yameneko2 has this:"Politics should be the part-time...
View ArticlePursuing Justice, seeking help
It's a pretty old story. The fact that I was surprised by it speaks only to my naivete, much as I realized that only a white person could be shocked that votes were not being counted in Florida in...
View ArticleYou've got three minutes....
That's what the Illinois state representative told me when I pleaded to be included on the crowded speaker's list for the Illinois General Assembly House committee hearing on the abuse and neglect of...
View ArticleThy Kingdom Come....
I don't want to get into the reasons this child of secular Jews, with no interest in patriarchal religions ended up in a Christian homeschooling group. I've talked about it elsewhere. It happened,...
View ArticleAnti-Capitalist Meetup: And the eyes of the world are watching now
"When the union's inspiration through the workers' blood shall run /There can be no power greater anywhere beneath the sun / Yet what force on earth is weaker than the feeble strength of one / But the...
View ArticleThe Coop: a haven for the very, very nervous
Do other Kossacks imply you are a concern troll? Do you find your "but what about voter suppression!" posts being scorned? Do you remember going to sleep on that Tuesday night in November 2000...
View ArticleWhich side are you on?
Two Americas, John Edwards said, though he was hardly the first to say it. And while Edwards turned out to be a tragic disappointment, it was refreshing to hear a prominent national Democratic...
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The 3 a.m phone call: A uniquely American Story
The juxtaposition of the gun violence debate and my sister’s birthday occurs this April 10th. That's her birthday. Well – it would have been her birthday, if she had lived longer than 27 years.
View ArticleMy son needs a bone marrow transplant - I need your help (please read update!)
My son is 29. He has overcome significant learning disabilities to graduate cum laude from Chicago's Columbia College and to find work in a very difficult field, video editing. He was just about to...
View ArticleLonging for home..
I used to participate a lot on Daily Kos. I joined a long, long time ago, and found many wonderful online friends through this blog.I used to be an activist. I used to be a student at DePaul...
View ArticleFeel so near....
Most of the time, the atomization of our society makes us feel isolated, far apart from each other. Cyber friends are scoffed at, labeled "not real," while "meat" friends often disappear at the first...
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