Sicut Cervus

I'm listening to Palestrina's Sicut cervus now. If I could write something merely a fraction as beautiful as this before I die, I would truly would have accomplished something.

I'm Back

Well, it has been a while, hasn't it? Post-Election resolution: post something at least once a week. After Tuesday's result, I can really say that America has begun to redeem itself. But the process is just beginning, and we have much more work to do.

Ethan Zuckerman on Journalism in a Digital Age

I found the Ethan Zuckerman's piece on how to finance "digital" journalism that is especially costly (e.g., investigative or international pieces) to be both instructive and hopeful. If we are truly creating an environment where "citizen journalists" are everywhere, we can't ignore the importance of this issue.

Obama

Well, this long, arduous, tortuous primary season is finally over, and the Democratic nominee is Sen. Obama. Unlike many others, I honestly believe that the Democrats will have no difficulty uniting around Obama and whomever he chooses as his running mate--the prospect of a third Bush term in the person of the ancient, sclerotic, hypocritical John McCain is literally unthinkable to long-suffering Americans who worry about losing (or have already lost) their homes, whether they'll have a job tomorrow, and whether climate change is making our world unlivable.

This time

This time, too, will go
and sharpen its teeth
on the spine of the soon
dead, dreams
will go and will not
be quiet.
And there is beauty
in that going, in the torrent
not teeth now, but flood
off the back of time
and its going.

Hello

After a bit of a hiatus, I have decided to continue the conversation (with myself). Difficult as it is to believe, this is our second spring in New York City, and what better way to memorialize that realization than by inscribing it on my blog? Here's to you, New York. I never thought that we'd make it this far.

Chomsky Destroys WFB (RIP, I suppose)

Watch it (circa 1969?):

Birdie I

This time, as she waited, dressed, on edge, ready, the hearse did not stop. There were no familiar footsteps on the porch, no knock at the door. For a long time, Birdie sat there and wondered. She could hear the air around her breathe. She could just see the dust motes in what was left of the light coming through the curtains. She waited, she wondered, and then she knew.

Obama?

Congratulations, I suppose, are in order for the Senator from Illinois who talks a good game. However, I remain deeply suspicious that we're not just getting more of the same from the good Senator Obama. If you follow the money and look at the "folks" who are bankrolling his campaign, they are barely distinguishable from Hillary's major backers. I remain an Edwards supporter. The working poor desperately need an advocate who will speak truth to power, and Edwards, I'm afraid, is the closest thing we've got in this increasingly arid political landscape.

End of Term Blues?

You know, in addition to the usual year-end, year-beginning blahs to which I usually succumb, it has occurred to me that I just may miss the euphoria associated with turning in the last of my grades, finishing that daunting stack of term papers, and settling in for a long winter's nap. Then again, life may actually be better--more real--without such euphoria. Instead, life just is. A performance and the joy, not the euphoria, associated therewith.

On this first day of the new year, health, happiness, and peace to all.