Updated to add this link, in which Chelsea Manning spoke more clearly about her case than she felt able to do at Penn. (Forgive the deadname in Atlantic’s title; it was before she came out to the world as the assured young woman you see above. The photo above was taken on November 29, 2017,Continue reading “The day I finally met Chelsea Manning”
Category Archives: Philadelphia
Iraq and a hard place
All this Manning talk has distracted me from writing about this amazing mural, powered by the singular organization Warrior Writers. They’re poets, essayists, performers and visual artists of all stripes, mostly from what their director calls “veterans who’ve served since September 11.” Together with the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program, they produced this testimonial a half-mileContinue reading “Iraq and a hard place”
Some news and a promise
I almost literally crawled under a rock toward the end of the year, in an effort to finally get this book completed. I can now report honestly that it’s almost there. (For a cheat sheet on its ultimate shape, check out my draft introduction at the book’s own site.) Some bits and pieces from aroundContinue reading “Some news and a promise”
for more Mount Airy news….
go here, from now on. As the book’s publication year approaches, I need to give more energy here to its concerns. But I did want to let you all know how the move came out! I’ve mentioned, methinks, that I’ve had a longstanding not-so-secret crush on the City of Brotherly Love (and sisterly affection) forContinue reading “for more Mount Airy news….”
the Mount Airy thing with feathers
As Woody Allen said many years ago:”How wrong Emily Dickinson was. Hope is not the thing with feathers. The thing with feathers is my nephew. I must take him to a specialist in Zurich.” What hope has is claws. If you told the girl from that Times article that she would soon be living inContinue reading “the Mount Airy thing with feathers”
not the way I wanted into the Times
Because people keep asking: yes, that’s me. I’d volunteered to talk to Joyce Wadler mostly hoping for some free publicity to Women’s Voices for Change.org, not realizing that my little joke about the commercial made me quotable enough to be the lede of the story. For the record: she mistook my monthly net pay fromContinue reading “not the way I wanted into the Times”
call it love or call it reason
More flotsam from my life-on-Mars phase: I didn’t know this video existed, until now. I wish I had a clip of Ochs’ performance at the first Winter Soldier (two years later than this TV appearance) but this is good enough for now. Knowing that the vets in Detroit heard Ochs’ anthem, just before four daysContinue reading “call it love or call it reason”
can you hear me major tom?
So I’ve been of late calling myself “Billy Pilgrim,” when people ask me how I am; digging tenaciously through those mad years we call “the Vietnam era,” which I subtitle as “When Everything Blew Up and Everything Grew.” What, she’s not done yet? Not yet, not when I spent nearly three weeks with the likesContinue reading “can you hear me major tom?”
non-state of the union, semi liveblog
You know you’ve spent too much time doing nothing but write when you show up at a party of sorts – the Philadelphia Drinking Liberally, featuring cool folk like Duncan and Jeremy and Roxanne – and end up fading into the background. You know you’re hanging out with bloggers when you realize its been wayContinue reading “non-state of the union, semi liveblog”
If you're mad about Rick Warren, get out tomorrow and light up the night.
I was going to try to write about Rick Warren being asked to give the inaugural invocation, which yesterday pulled me from my bookwriting stupor back into that November 5, no we can’t! fury. And as you see above, I wasn’t alone: As Michelle Goldberg puts it so pleasantly in The Guardian: He is aContinue reading “If you're mad about Rick Warren, get out tomorrow and light up the night.”
I Ain't Marching Anymore 