The righteous social justice publisher, Wising Up Press, from Decatur, Georgia, has released their latest anthology, this one simply called Goodness. Several dozen writers grapple with the concept, sharing poems, short stories, essays, and many affecting memoirs, all manifesting a sense, a feeling, of something we all recognize and yearn for but often cannot define....
Hello, fellow humans. How are you doing? Feeling OK? This whole Corona Virus deal has been rough, especially for the elderly and financially disadvantaged. I get it. And I want to help. As an expression of my gratitude to all the people whose labor and consumption have made me the wealthiest person in the history...
Earl Flowers can read. He can read this sentence. He can read every word on this page. If he doesn’t immediately recognize one of the words, he can sound it out phonetically – or, if it’s completely unfamiliar, he knows how to use a dictionary to teach himself. When Earl reads out loud – when...
Just around the corner, a couple of blocks from our idyllic, tree-lined street, a homeless encampment has taken root on the sidewalk beside a utility building owned by AT&T. Nylon tents, food refuse, unwashed people — it’s an unlovely sight in an otherwise lovely neighborhood. Many of the wealthy homeowners in the area have taken...
EXCERPTED FROM “How The Revolution Started: Essays & Impertinent Thoughts “(Eggy Press). How are you resisting? We’ve been asked this question often. How are you resisting “the occupation?” The “fascist state?” Knowing fully how woogie-woogie the answer sounds, we sometimes make a joke about having nothing to resist, what with the current administration’s glaring and...
What if – and we know this is far-fetched and vaguely absurd – what if every person in Los Angeles who has the means and the space were to “adopt” a non-violent, non-alcoholic, perfectly harmless homeless person, giving that man or woman (or family?) a place to sleep and bathe that’s not a freeway underpass? What...
From July 3-12, at a converted Filipino-American community center in Los Angeles, we created a space where everyone could connect with the better angels of our nature. We created a space of Namaste – where you are at your best and I am at my best. We created a place where every person who walked...
Generosity makes everyone involved feel good. Both the recipient and the giver derive pleasure from the act of sharing, albeit in different ways. (It’s better to give than to receive?) Generosity is one of the easiest ways to instantly manifest joy, to create what’s commonly understood as “good energy.” We all like getting surprises; we...
In the aftermath of the devastation wrought by Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, where thousands died and hundreds-of-thousands more were left homeless, almost everyone I spoke to asked the same question: My Filipina wife — was anyone in her immediate family affected? Everyone was greatly relieved to learn that, no, none of my wife’s immediate...
Thanks to our good looks, superior intelligence, and unimaginable privilege, we’re rich! Do you know how much calla lilies cost at a reputable flower purveyor? We’ve got hundreds of them in our garden. Blood oranges? Also hundreds. We can’t eat them all, so we give them away. Same thing with our money. Since we’re into...
Hope RekindledThis past week has given us more hope for our diseased republic than any other time in 50+ years of paying attention. Observing and participating in a long-overdue peaceful uprising, occupying the streets, feeling the righteous energy of people of all ages, colors, faiths, and wealth (or lack thereof), has…
Used traditionally, in most Western music the bass keeps time churning out fat quarter-notes based on the root of a chord. Ba-dum-dum-dum-dum. On his addictive new recording Tines of Change, the visionary master bassist and composer explores his instrument’s under-utilized sonic possibilities. The concatenation of squeaks, grumbles, twitters, growls, whistles, knocks, cries, howls, and, yes, nice...
