The Burrow

I was 18 when I joined the Mobilization Against the War in the March on Washington, D.C.  Four of us drove from Ithaca to the home of a professor friend of a friend who welcomed a dozen or more of us, strangers in need of a free bed, into his huge home.  We sat in his backyard, under the stars, and tried to articulate our need to be there. Because it was a need.  Our friends were being drafted when their grades fell.  We played cards with a friend who ate next to nothing, avoiding a 1-A classification by being too thin.  Bombs were being dropped on innocents and Communists alike, awful bombs raining napalm and Agent Orange on a country that wasn't threatening us for any reason other than we were there, threatening them. There were some principled legislators, elected officials who made a difference.  I was in the audience when Sen. Frank Church spoke out about the war, making a case I could understand and repeat to Daddooooo, who took the other side. ...

Jeff Flake and his wife shared the stage with Gabby Giffords and her husband.  It was the anniversary of the day we were shot.  The mall at the University was transformed into an outdoor cathedral.  The symphony was there.  Calexico was there.  The survivors and the family members were there.  We were united in grief and resolve and remembering.  After the ceremonies, TBG and I went back on stage, so that he could thank Mark Kelly for the kindnesses he'd shown us in the hospital, all those months ago.  Right then, it didn't seem like much time had passed at all.  It was recent.  It was real. While the guys were talking, I was taking pictures.  Mrs. Flake and Ms. Giffords were trying to get a picture of themselves by holding a cell phone at arms length.  You know that shot; you've probably taken dozens of them, yourself.  They were happy to accept my offer of help, and that was how I came to take several pictures of two c...

Today is the final class of the semester.  We've gone from The Dawn of Time through the Persian Wars, the Peloponnesian War, the Sicilian Disaster and the fall of democracy.  Today, we'll examine Socrates, and then it will be done. The texts sit on my bookshelves all year 'round.  Aristophanes, Euripides, Plutarch and Plato smile at me as I open the file drawers beneath their perches. Shakespeare must have had similar tomes on his shelves; would that the ancients had inspired me to his heights.  The biographies in Plutarch were the source of so many of Will's works; my thousand word screeds don't come close to his efforts, no matter how I try. That's the glory of it all, I think. I've learned the basis of might makes right .  I've studied how a comic play can bring down a philosopher (cf. Aristophanes's The Clouds  and Socrates).  I've seen how bombast and bellicosity can sway a population, and I've marveled at how little has changed ov...

The Mall was packed.  As far as the camera could see, there were people.  Big people and little people of all colors and genders and sexual orientations were huddled together, standing in front of the Capitol, watching our government transition. The poet spoke Spanish.  The old white guy only sang one verse and a chorus.  The young blonde raised chills as she hit the high notes and filled the air with song.  The gorgeous superstar, followed everywhere by her equally famous superstar husband, filled our national anthem with meaning. The President spoke briefly, pointedly, inclusively.  He reminded us that we are all in this together, that big projects take big visions, that we still have work to do.  His girls, adorned in shades of purple, listened carefully.  His mother-in-law, in the only orange coat I've ever wanted to wear myself, and his wife, stylish in black, nodded sagely. The Vice President could barely contain his glee, and his wife...

We had no money, my friends and I, back in the middle-1970's.  Not Mitt Romney no money , where Dad and his gazillions were just a phone call away.  I'm talking graduate school, work three jobs, share the newspaper, no money . Our cars were old and our apartments, older still.  We had parents, but they were busy keeping roofs over their own heads.  We were on our own and we knew it.  We were lucky to be living in Chicago, a mecca for no-cover blues bars on Halsted Street, where Buddy Guy and Junior Wells and their friends amazed us for the price of a few beers. We splurged when The Grateful Dead came to town, it's true, but for the most part our entertainment happened away from the bright lights and the glamor of downtown. If we went downtown, it had to be opening night of a movie.  We stood in line for the late show of Robert Altman's Nashville, chilly, 37 years ago last weekend according to IMDB .  The faces on those who were...

Newt Gingrich is the bachelor party; Mitt Romney is the wedding.    Thus saith CNN.   Perry lost on ability not personality, the Republican strategist continued.  There was also some mention of back surgery gone awry and implanted stem cells which didn't alleviate the discomfort but I wasn't paying that much attention to the words because I was stuck on the image of a potential President of the United States of America being likened to a bachelor party. What have we come to? I don't care if he buys his wife nice jewelry or if he takes lavish vacations; living well is the best revenge, after all. What worries me is his moral character.   The Washington Post debunked the deathbed divorce papers  story, saying the discussion was no surprise to either party and that Gingrich’s marriage to Battley had been troubled for many years before it dissolved 31 years ago, both parties have said. So, she was neither hurt nor dead.  That was good ne...

And it really wasn't that hard at all.   No, seriously, it wasn't.  I didn't have anyone to argue with me about the finer points of retiring at 68 or 70, no one screaming in my ear that this first generation of black millionaires ought to be able to establish their own dynasties, free of the burden of estate taxes.  I was not lobbied by irate octogenarians railing at me to keep my hands off their medicare/social security/disability checks.  No baleful 20-somethings wandered through my thoughts, wondering when their government would be ready to deal with their needs and their futures.  Amster and her fellow medical malpractice attorneys were no where to be found, apparently busy seeking financial compensation for their clients' disastrous outcomes at the hands of (a very few but I still want to know who they are) inept practitioners.  There were 16 pundits allowed onto the monitor since they were linked to the original puzzle, but that was it. I tried...

This series of reprinted posts is a tribute to my mother, Esther Tamara Rukasin Annis, who died on December 5, 2013.  Fresh posts will resume sometime soon.  For now, I hope you'll spend the time with us as we remember our mom. It's election day.  I took myself to my polling place and walked right into a voting booth (after proving that I was who I said I was by presenting my driver's license) and was finished in 3 minutes.  It was vaguely unsatisfying.  The room was empty except for the poll workers and me.  It was lonely voting without another citizen to share a smile and a civic connection.  A low turn out is probably bad news for the candidates and issues about which I care, but that wasn't what was going through my head as I inked in my choices.  Instead, I was wondering about the lack of respect for the privilege of being a citizen of these United States of America which obviously exists in this precinct.  The franchise was fo...