Reflections on the Eve of Bin Laden’s Death. I woke up this morning and read that Bin Laden was dead. It made me remember September 11th. The funny thing about September 11th is that all of us have a story. All of us Americans.
When a black man wants to comfort a white man who is feeling guilty about racism, there is a certain script he uses. It goes like this: “You know, I’m black. But if I’m walking alone at night, and I see a tall black man coming, I’m still going to cross to the other side…
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Recently my beautiful roommate Gabby made some remark about wishing humans would die so that animals could live in happiness. Not only that, but my dear friend Brent has started a fashionable trend of referring to any dish that contains meat as, “murder soup,” “murder pie,” etc. It’s enough to make an omnivore like myself…
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My friend Kara wore a shirt one day that said, “This is What a Feminist Looks Like,”and she was having fun giving people double takes. Apparently when people saw her shirt in the elevator they would look her over and make funny faces. She enjoyed the consternation it provoked among random passers-by. But why, I…
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“Mayor Robert Duffy One City Lecture Series:” Downtown! With exquisite politeness I was ushered to the coat room and presented with refreshments. Was it just me, or was a choir of angels blowing a heavenly fanfare over that FOOD? There were strawberry cream puffs shaped like swans, chocolate cream squares, miniature fruit tarts with…
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Lots of young mothers with babies ride the buses in Rochester. It was different in San Francisco. In SF, people from all walks of life would ride the bus; everyone from the crazy homeless man to the business executive in a crisp suit. But in Rochester, you can tell that the people who ride the…
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This Sunday a simple errand took all afternoon because I had to bike six miles (each way) through the wilderness to accomplish it. I enjoyed the leafy autumn part of the wilderness, with little squirrels and bunnies frolicking on either side. It was the man-made wilderness that got to me— an endless, concrete, suburban desolation,…
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A residential services charity gives teenage moms and pregnant teenagers a place to live. “We give the girls a place to live where no one will judge them,” the woman began her spiel to me and my Americorps friends. But then she went on, “Sometimes the girls come back to us two, three times, each…
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Some first impressions of Rochester NY, my new home. Home to Xerox and Kodak, Rochester used to be called Smugtown, USA, due to the wealth brought by industry and the complacency of its bourgeoise residents. But Kodak was outpaced by the digital camera, the wealthy fled to the suburbs, and the paint is peeling off…
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My friend Morgon graduated a year ahead of me, and has suffered deeply from missing all his college friends. He has posted many notes on Facebook about how much he misses everybody, the sadness of us all moving in different directions. His most recent note made me really start to think. Why are we always…
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