Near the end of Flannery O’Connor’s classic short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” an old woman gets drawn into bargaining for her life with a killer. The Misfit, as he’s known, is escaped from prison and rampaging, wounded, through the world. In his own mind, he’s been wounded by God: he can’t […]
Read morePaula Deen and American appetites.
“Southern or not, we all live somewhere on a continuum between Tofurky and Terducken.” — Bob Rini Today the news broke that Paula Deen has Type 2 diabetes. <Pause for Inner Moral Battle that probably ends with Guilty, Helpless Succumbing to Pithy/Catty Line about Oh, The Irony.> Me, I immediately flashed on the recent MLA […]
Read moreLittle bitty Christmas trees.
“I’ve been a pastor for more than 15 years, and I am still amazed at folks in nursing homes, many unable to remember the majority of their own lives, who will begin to sing and nod and clap when they hear Christmas carols. O the power of music, on them and on me.” – Amy […]
Read moreThe emotional surge of the charity splurge.
Back in September, as I was experiencing my first tentative steps into relative debt-free-ness, I received an email from a friend about a concert her husband was co-producing in Manhattan to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, called “Music After.” Anything you can send, she said, would help. I gave a small amount […]
Read moreThe CI meets Facebook.
Guess it was bound to happen eventually — the CI is now live on Facebook. Visit the page and click “like” if you have a Facebook account – I’d appreciate it! Periodically I’ll post random photos or links as “bonus tracks” to the regular postings here. Thanks as ever, y’all, for your love and support!
Read moreMakes me wanna holler.
Looking at this video makes me wanna holler. College students peacefully occupy a public space. Policemen ordered in by the university chancellor demand they leave. Students remain where they are, linking arms and bowing their heads. A policeman whips out a can of pepper spray and then marches down the line of huddled, bowed, […]
Read moreLearning to submit?: Economies of womanhood, personhood, and love.
I believe that what rules us is less the material world of goods and services than the immaterial one of whims, assumptions, delusions, and lies; that only by studying this world can we hope to shape how it shapes us; that only by attempting to understand what used to be called, in a less embarrassed […]
Read moreOccupiers and pseudo-Victorians.
This afternoon was held the first-ever meeting of “Occupy Decorah,” organized through the Northeast Iowa Peace and Justice Center. We gathered with signs reading everything from POWER TO THE PEACEFUL to IN GOD WE TRUSTED, IN WALL STREET WE BUSTED to REINSTATE GLASS-STEAGALL to I DON’T WANT TO BUY THE KOCHS A WORLD to WE […]
Read moreGardening in reality.
“A garden, you know, is a very usual refuge of a disappointed politician.” — Alexander Hamilton, 1802 (qtd. in NY Times, 9/15/11) As a society, we’ve got a reality problem. A know-nothing right-wing anarchism designed to starve government to death while enriching the anarchists’ own careers is being accorded a respectability and freedom of movement […]
Read moreSeptember 11, in my own backyard.
I can’t remember when this country has ever been so afraid, even more than it was in the days and months following 9/11. Except that what is clouding our hearts and our minds and our lives right now is not immediately recognizable as fear. Even as their average constituent swallows hard and keeps looking for […]
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