Lucille Clifton insists on the telling the historical truth, even if it makes whites uncomfortable.
Monthly Archives: February 2015
Clifton Brings Black History Alive
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged "at the cemetery", "i am accused of tending to the past", "lucifer speaks in his own voice", African American history, Black History Month, Lucille Clifton, slavery Comments closed
Pesticides vs. Sweetness and Wings
Monarch butterflies and bees are in grave danger. Poems by Scott Bates and Mary Oliver remind us what we will lose if we don’t move to protect them.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged "The Underside of Heaven's Gates" endangered species, bees, environmental devastation, happiness, hive collapse, Mary Oliver, monarch butterflies, Nature, Scott Bates Comments closed
On Poe & the Paranoia of Anti-Vaxxers
Edgar Allen Poe gives us insight into vaccine truthers. Rather than dispelling shadows, scientific insights are pushing some Americans into repression.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged disease, Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Edgar Allen Poe, measles, Murders of the Rue Morgue, Robert Louis Stevenson, vaccination, vaccine truthers Comments closed
The Super Bowl, Comic & Tragic Versions
The Patriots miraculously escaped a hanging, the Seahawks did not. It’s the difference between Gay’s “Beggars Opera” and Bierce’s “Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.”
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Ambrose Bierce, Beggar's Opera, Football, John Gay, New England Patriots, NFL sports, Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, Russell Wilson, Seattle Seahawks, Super Bowl, Tom Brady Comments closed
Can Lit Make the Rich More Empathetic?
With growing income disparity comes a decline in empathy. Literature can help rebuild our compassion.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Clansmen, empathy, Honoré de Balzac, Income inequality, Jonathan Swift, Thomas Dixon, Thomas Pinker, violence Comments closed
The Golem, A.I., and God
Stephen Hawking’s concerns about artificial intelligence and his belief there is no god is disputed by the Jewish legend of the golem of Prague.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged artificial intelligence, golem of Prague, Matrix, Rabbi Judah Loew, Shelley (Mary), Stephen Hawking, T, Terminator Comments closed
