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Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Governor Jan Brewer, Immigration, Memoir, Politics, Racial Profiing, SB1070, Seamus Heaney, Sectarianism
America – a no-go area.
In his first ten days in office, the President of the United States has shown us that the lessons of history do not apply to him. Swiftly and proudly, he has signed a string of Executive Orders, the most recent barring citizens of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen from entering America for at least 90 days. He’s not done yet. The order – signed on International Holocaust Remembrance Day – also calls for a review of more countries to be added to the ban; a suspension of America’s refugee program; a ban of all Syrian refugees; and, a call for new immigration screening procedures. “Extreme vetting,” he barks. My preoccupation…
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In Every Thing Give Thanks . . .
Several years ago, my friend and I enrolled in a college photography class. This was not something to check off a bucket list, just a little thing I had been meaning to do for about thirty years. I had never made the time for it until a cancer diagnosis shifted my priorities. Until then, I had been oh so busy being busy, bemoaning the pace of life as a woman trying to play equally well the roles of mother, wife, daughter, sister, best friend, teacher, all the while wishing Tom Petty would show up on my doorstep and beg me to be one of his Heartbreakers. I wanted to be the photography instructor’s favorite. Like me, she…
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a magic world – remembering lou reed
They say you die three times. First when your heart stops. Second is when you’re buried or cremated. And third is the last time someone says your name. Laurie Anderson, 30th Annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Lou Reed. I’m reminded of a moment on the day he died when I noticed my daughter’s fingers catch the sun spilling through the window. Graceful and elegant. And for a minute, everything stopped. Just a twinkling ago, she first discovered her beautiful hands. For me, her besotted mother, it was a magical milestone in her development. She was surely the first child to ever make such a discovery, those slender fingers in…
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Sexual Harassment, Harvey Weinstein, & Calling our Shots
It shouldn’t take the Harvey Weinstein story and the ever-growing list of allegations against him to purge forever those predators and perverts and power-crazed men from Hollywood or Washington DC or my hometown in Northern Ireland – but perhaps it will. Such men are around every corner – on Wall Street and Main Street, in the White House and the schoolhouse, in our churches and our universities, in the military and the media. And given the response on social media of thousands of people who are sharing their own sexual harassment experiences with the #MeToo hashtag, such men have been there for too long, their abuses of power and women camouflaged by the sad and systemic…
