I can’t shake these lines from Stasik’s “Lullaby for the Enemy”:
You wanted this land
Now mix with it
You are my land now
Sleep, sleep, sleep . . .
Category: Commonplacing
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Fifteen years ago, I wrote a short post encouraging students to write for themselves on a regular basis:
Writing is hard work for almost everyone, no matter how talented or inspired. Writing is thinking. Good writers do not usually have finished ideas that they then type out. The process of writing and revision is an act of thinking and discovery. . . .
A couple days ago, a tweet by a disaster historian came across my timeline that summed things up perfectly:
That Scott Knowles expressed this thought on Twitter reminds me that tweeting can also be a form of writing as thinking. This felt particularly true to me back in the 140-character-limit days; however, even with 280 characters and easy threading, Twitter can foster regular reflection, concise expression, and ongoing rephrasing and revision. Moreover, it affords plenty of opportunities to practice these things in conversation with others. Maybe that is what keeps me coming back, especially whenever times feel more topsy-turvy and worrisome than usual.
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We blame the virus for the disastrous condition of our schools the catastrophic state of our hospitals the ruinous structure of our workplaces the collapsing authority of our institutions so we need not acknowledge the virus is not cause but revealer of our society’s frailty.
@PlaguePoems -
In the United States in the year 2021, you, as an American citizen, do not necessarily have the right to vote.
You do not necessarily have the right to teach or to learn about matters of race, gender or anything else state lawmakers consider “divisive concepts.”
But you do have one absolute, sacrosanct, inviolate, God-given, self-evident and inalienable right: the right to refuse a coronavirus vaccine — and to infect as many people as you can.
Dana Milbank (Washington Post) -
. . . As senators and House members trapped inside the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday begged for immediate help during the siege, they struggled to get through to the president, who—safely ensconced in the West Wing—was too busy watching fiery television images of the crisis that was unfolding around them to act or even bother to hear their cries for help.
“Six Hours of Paralysis” (Washington Post)” -
“In fact, the more who die, sometimes the less we care,” [Paul] Slovic said in an interview. In greater numbers, death becomes impersonal, and people feel increasingly hopeless that their actions can have any effect.
“Statistics are human beings with tears dried off,” Slovic said. “And that’s dangerous because we need tears to motivate us.”
William Wan and Brittany Shammas (Washington Post)