25 things, post-election: Normally I shy away from posting anything too personal, but this time isn’t normal. A year and a half ago I was diagnosed with MS. My professional life came to an abrupt end. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, I currently have access to health insurance. The medication I take to slow the [...]
By Mary Petiet The man behind the counter glances between the potent spice mixes and my ten-year-old son. “You like this?” the man asks in a heavy Pakistani accent. He starts ringing up the sale, and cultures connect as my blond towhead grins widely and tells him he loves curry. When I was ten years old, [...]
By Kevin Patrick McCarthy Every day, impoverished buskers lay down a diverse soundtrack on the Pearl Street Mall in Boulder. Even as we studiously avoid their eyes, we’re ensnared in their webs of mood and memory. They count on our collective wondering and remembered joys. My favorite is a skinny longhair. His white whiskers are choppy, [...]
By Amy Abugo Ongiri Asa Sullivan didn’t want to go back to jail and he shouldn’t have had to. But, on June 6, 2006, neighbors in a rapidly gentrifying area of San Francisco called the police to report what they believed to be suspicious behavior. Though they did not have a search warrant, police entered [...]
Hi, Julie, Thank you for writing your essay, “March, interrupted: When plans go South” (Writers Resist, February 2, 2017 issue). Thank you for raising your pen in service of the movement and for speaking from a place of awareness and resistance. Thank you for lifting up hope in the face of all the fear and anxiety [...]
By Julie M. Friesen I’m at the center of the world right now, but soon I’ll go far right of center, to Southwest Georgia. My husband has lost a grandmother, and his mother has lost her mother. I need to be there, meaning I can’t be here. After November 8, a groundswell movement has given [...]
By Julie Harthill Clayton Two Saturdays ago, I stood, marched, cried, chanted and exercised my first amendment right “peaceably to assemble” with a diverse sea of humanity–500,000 or more–for the Women’s March on Washington. It was one of the most memorable and moving experiences of my life. Why did I march? Because “women’s rights are human [...]
By Rachel Federman We march because we want to send a message to refugees, to Muslims, to members of the LGBTQ and African American communities, to recent immigrants and to all women, but especially young girls. The message is this: We stand with them and we will fight alongside them. Because we believe in science. [...]
By Deanne Stillman “Who has read The Art of the Deal in this room?” Donald Trump last year at a Liberty University rally. "Everybody. I always say, a deep, deep second to The Bible.” Long before Trump requested a show of hands, there was someone who proclaimed her admiration for the book in an online forum. This was Laurel [...]
Dear daughter, Your body shook with tears as CNN declared him the winner. Numb and stoic, I held you, the circuits of my mind overloaded, broken, unable to process what I was hearing and seeing. I imploded with treacherous emotions. Comforting words eluded me. I called your father, for him to deal with your fears and [...]
By Robbie Gamble When I was seven years old, my parents escorted me into a room in a retirement home in Carmel, CA, to meet an old friend of the family. She was a slight, elderly woman with a friendly face and a clear strong voice, and she knew how to set a fidgety, slightly precocious [...]
Address in St. Paul at the Municipal Auditorium. October 13, 1948, worth revisiting today Mr. Mayor, and fellow Democrats of Minnesota: Tonight, I pay tribute to the liberal spirit of the people of Minnesota—in the cities, on the farms, in the forests, and in the iron country of this great State. In this center of practical [...]
By Eduardo Santiago In our house, November 25 is called Markmas because it is exactly a month previous to Christmas, and it is my husband Mark's birthday. He loves all holidays and adding another one is a tradition the rest of the family and all of our friends support. What should we call November 25th now [...]
By Marcia Meier I have been sleeping with the enemy for more than two years. Rob is a Republican. But on the morning after the election, he held me close as I sobbed and promised, “It will be okay.” He promised. But he doesn’t know. And nothing that has happened since that morning has made either [...]
By Susan Arthur The day, as I write this, is November 9, 2016. Yep, the day half of us in America wander about in nearly lobotomized shock at Trump’s win. We look for solace from each other, wonder what to do. There have been whispers for some time about moving to Canada. I hear the Immigrate [...]
