Culture and Arts

In this current period of my life, with my morning journaling as sacred as a religious rite, I also read a page taken from past years. I do this because I want to learn my patterns — worries that never came to pass, prophetic musings, and other buried gold. Because of my daily journaling and the The Rookie Caregiver blog I was writing at the time, I had been able to release most of the shadows, fear, and grief. more »

The precipitating event of the lives intertwined like threads in primitive needlework is the tragedy on their wedding eve of a fatal explosion that destroys the young couple, sons and a lover. The bereavements leave behind survivors who are forever changed. Even the landscape where the exploded house once stood is forever wiped out. Each chapter is told from the point of view of one of the individuals whose existence has been altered beyond their own and others’ comprehension. more »

Jo Freeman writes: I went to that party after writing this story in a tent sponsored by the Alliance for American Manufacturing, which has comfortable couches and free drinks. The AAM is an alliance of the National Association of Manufacturers and several unions, including the United Auto Workers, of which I am a member (via Local 1981 — the National Writers Union). Their slogan is KEEP IT MADE IN AMERICA. The Donald might agree with that. more »

"Political conventions attract strange bedfellows. Over the weekend preceding the Republican Convention, two other conventions met to talk about issues that were almost polar opposites to those of the Republicans. Both were held in black Baptist churches. The traditional Sunday protest march was small and peaceful."    more »