July 2020: As the book approaches publication WITHOUT an introduction, I decided to repost this from ten years ago, when it was still under the aegis of UC Press and Chelsea Manning was still imprisoned at Quantico. The book evolved as well, but the themes below whisper from between its pages. It’s been a long timeContinue reading “Notes toward an introduction”
Category Archives: women
Leo Tolstoy, Phil Ochs, Joan of Arc and other ghosts
On Twitter awhile back, I saw a challenge: “Describe your job in four words. I answered: “I talk to ghosts.” I mostly meant as a gonzo-historian, something I specialized in long before the Internet : the smell of microfilm rolls of decades-old newspapers still in my nose. Now, give a woman JSTOR ass and goodContinue reading “Leo Tolstoy, Phil Ochs, Joan of Arc and other ghosts”
The day I finally met Chelsea Manning
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”
when gender-dissent got serious
My book has a quiet backbeat of gender-dissent, separate from but not irrelevant to its years of conscientious objectors, mutinies and warrior writers. From the beginning, we had women dressing as men to fight, from the Revolution to the Civil War; we had women codebreakers and nurses during World War I and II, and anContinue reading “when gender-dissent got serious”
Pi Day news: some rational writing to go w/the irrational number
Assorted items, w/good news provided by Father Philip Berrigan, WWII veteran and angelic troublemaker thereafter, and his 21st-century successor Col. Ann Wright.
these might be giants: report from Fort Meade
I went back to Fort Meade this week, more than two years after Manning was first brought to court. Now in dispute during these last pre-trial motions before the court martial, now scheduled for June 3: those two-plus years. If there’s not another delay, that means that Bradley Manning’s court-martial will begin almost exactly threeContinue reading “these might be giants: report from Fort Meade”
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”
Just read. Leon Panetta, there’s an epidemic on and your job to deal with it.
At Common Dreams, Annette Bonsignore asks the questionI hadn’t got around to: ” Will the Media Give Leon Panetta the Same Pass Provided to Robert Gates on the Military’s Rape Epidemic?” She lays out the challenge very well: The media now has an opportunity to confront and question the next Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who wasContinue reading “Just read. Leon Panetta, there’s an epidemic on and your job to deal with it.”
A draft? part two: “send me to Iraq and not my mother.”
I’m strangled by multiple deadlines today. But needed to hail Dwayne Betts, writing at Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Atlantic site: Right now my moms is at an airport in Maryland waiting on a plane to send her to Germany, then to Kuwait, then to Iraq. She turns fifty years old on Thursday. At first, I thought sheContinue reading “A draft? part two: “send me to Iraq and not my mother.””
Roman Polanski: The 1970s Are Over, Thank God.
This week’s arrest of Roman Polanski felt weirdly unsurprising. It fit somehow with all the flashbacks to 1969 the media’s treated us to this year — as that TIME cover put it, “From the Moon to Charles Manson.” What will the 1970’s reminiscences be like, one wondered? Maybe like this. But who really remembers 1977?Continue reading “Roman Polanski: The 1970s Are Over, Thank God.”
I Ain't Marching Anymore 