Follow via email
Archives
Categories
Tags
- Advent
- Arizona
- Book of Common Prayer
- books
- cancer
- cemetery
- Christmas
- coming of age
- connection
- definition
- discrimination
- education
- etymology
- First Amendment
- free speech
- friendship
- Globe
- healing
- history
- identity
- Kairos
- language
- Lent
- literature
- love
- meaning
- memories
- mentor
- metaphor
- ministry
- mot juste
- music
- Orwell
- photography
- poem
- poetry
- politics
- religion
- semantics
- student
- teacher
- Thomas Wolfe
- word
- World War I
- writing
Tag Archives: identity
Fatty, Fatty, Two by Four
A fat child For the illumination of those who didn’t bear the sting of the taunt that inspired my title, let me quote: Fatty, fatty, two by four, Couldn’t get through the bathroom door, So she did it on the … Continue reading
Yellow Fleas
The end of Reconstruction in 1877 gave birth to the Solid South. In both Presidential and state politics, the South retained its essentially single-party identity until the passage of the Civil Right Act in 1964. During that time, Southerners would … Continue reading
Posted in current events, education, free speech, history, language, news, politics, sexual harassment
Tagged discrimination, education, First Amendment, free speech, history, identity, politics, religion
2 Comments
Reconsidering the American Consensus–and Rehabilitating the 1950s
The Mering thesis and the roots of consensus history At the University of Arizona in the mid-1970s, John V. Mering inculcated his disciples with a devotion to the consensus historiography whose bedrock was The American Political Tradition: And the Men Who Made It … Continue reading
Posted in books, critical thinking, current events, education, history, politics
Tagged education, history, identity, mentor, Orwell, politics
Leave a comment
Something Old
I still have the tattered Golden Book of Nursery Tales (1948) and Mother Goose Book of Nursery Rhymes (1953) presented to me at birth. At a time in my life when preserving the past evidently mattered less to me, I removed the … Continue reading
Posted in cemetery, education, history, language, memories, photography, World War I
Tagged cemetery, discrimination, history, identity, language, memories, photography, World War I
2 Comments
Erasing History: The 2017 Version
“In February 1948, the Communist leader Klement Gottwald stepped out on to the balcony of a Baroque palace in Prague to harangue hundreds of thousands of citizens massed in Old Town Square. That was the great turning point in the … Continue reading
Posted in education, history, language, literature, politics
Tagged Communism, education, First Amendment, history, identity, Kundera, Liu Xiaobo, Orwell, politics, truth
2 Comments
Metatext: Memories in the Margins
Two weeks ago, on March 18, I saw The Sense of an Ending on the second day of its run at the Cameo Art House Theater in Fayetteville. In 2011–specifically, “Thanksgiving 2011, Lake Mattamuskeet” according to my notation on the flyleaf–I read … Continue reading
Posted in books, friendship, history, language, memories, movies
Tagged coming of age, connection, friendship, history, identity, language, memory
Leave a comment
Choices, Choices: The Quandaries and the Quagmire of Identity Politics
My 56-mile commute to and from work has spawned the bad habit of scrolling through my emails at stoplights. A few days ago, I made a mental note to return to an article whose provocative title I noted only briefly; it … Continue reading
The Many Gifts of Music
Preferring the feel and the smell and the fillable margins of real books, I had never listened to an audio book until I received one as a Christmas gift from a dear friend seeking to relieve the tedium I experience on … Continue reading
Biology, Destiny, and the Politics of Dys-
I am aware that when Freud pronounced his now-vilified dictum of biological determinism, “anatomy is destiny,” he was referring specifically to sexuality, which is not my subject here–at least not my only subject. However, because I like to be well … Continue reading
Posted in language, politics, sexuality
Tagged definition, disability, discrimination, identity, issue, language, meaning, politics, race, sex
2 Comments
E Plebnista: A Sardonic Meditation on American Greatness
Twenty long days have passed since I last put thoughts to words and words to (virtual) paper. I have not written about the gleeful euphoria with which I anticipated the election of 2016, the exquisite pain with which I learned of … Continue reading