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A Poem for Michael and Christopher, Act Two, Door into the Dark, Postscript, Seamus Heaney, The Underground
After Heaney & Looking Forward
Whether it be a matter of personal relations within a marriage or political initiatives within a peace process, there is no sure-fire do-it-yourself kit. There is risk and truth to yourselves and the world before you. And so, my fellow graduates, make the world before you a better one by going into it with all boldness. You are up to it and you are fit for it; you deserve it and if you make your own best contribution, the world before you will become a bit more deserving of you. ~ From his remarks to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill graduates, May 12, 1996 I cannot adequately convey the inestimable…
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Alex Haley, Charlottesville, James Baldwin, Nazis, People Get Ready, Race in America, Racism, Trump, White Supremacy
How to Be A Racist – An Object Lesson
We may be able, handful that we are, to end the racial nightmare, and achieve our country, and change the history of the world ~ James Baldwin. I came to Arizona in the late 1980s. Something of a cliché, considered part of the “brain drain,” I was a well-educated immigrant who had over-stayed her welcome in America and subsequently found a waitressing job. With my Northern Ireland accent and the right amount of naiveté about Arizona, I was the main source of amusement for many of the men who stopped by for a beer after their shift at a nearby manufacturing plant. Young and fearless, I charmed them with what they considered an…
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Coming of age, Dispatch from the Diaspora, La Mon House Hotel Bombing, Paris Attack, Rory Gallagher, Stiff Little Fingers, Terrorism, The Miami Showband, The Troubles, The Ulster Hall Belfast, Themes of childhood
A Moment of Silence for The Miami Showband
People often say that music was harmless fun. It wasn’t. It must have terrified the terrorists. When people came to see us, sectarianism was left outside the door of the dancehall. They came in, they were brought together and they enjoyed the same thing. They looked at each other and thought, there’s not much difference here, and nature was doing its course. That’s the power of music and I think that every musician that ever stood on a stage, north of the border during those decades, every one of them was a hero. ~ Stephen Travers It happened in the summer of my twelfth year, in the early hours of…
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Breast Cancer Advocacy, Breast Cancer Treatment, cancer, Cancer Language, Damian Gorman, John McCain, Memoir
P.S. Moxie is No Match for Cancer
I don’t know John McCain. I don’t know if he cried when he learned of his cancer diagnosis. I don’t know how he feels about expectations of him to beat it because, after all, he has proven – in the context of war – that he is a fighter: “Senator John McCain has always been a fighter. Melania and I send our thoughts and prayers to Senator McCain, Cindy, and their entire family. Get well soon,” says Donald Trump. From Barack Obama, “John McCain is an American hero & one of the bravest fighters I’ve ever known. Cancer doesn’t know what it’s up against. Give it hell, John.” McCain’s demonstrated toughness,…
