Lesson Plan

“Good Morning, Class. Today we’re going to study a variety of subjects.   I want you to open your Text books and turn to Page One. We’ll begin with Social Studies, then continue with Language Skills, Mathematics and Science.   There’ll be time for Recreation, but today we’ll learn about the Great Men and Women who changed the Course of History and gave us the Ideas and Ideals that propel us as a Free People into the Future.   You may have ideas of your own Here today which will determine not only the course of your own life, but your contribution to the Destiny and Progress of Humankind. Are there any questions?”   “Yes, teacher. Why are you wearing a gun?”   “Because nothing I have said here today makes the slightest difference whatsoever and the only lesson you really need to learn in this or any other class […]

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Radio Flyer

What has happened here? I see two men assembling a child’s red wagon on the floor of an office building. The wagon will be used for advertising purposes. The office is for insurance purchases. You pay money now to keep from paying more money later, but you hope never to pay any money. It’s a form of corruption or tax. The law demands you buy insurance.   Yet I knew a girl who once pulled a wagon full of cucumbers through the same neighborhood, selling them for a nickel, three for a dime and said goodbye to her mother who said to her, “Be careful and be sure to be home for dinner.”   So the child pulled the wagon alone through the neighborhood and sold her cucumbers door to door. She always came home to dinner on time.   What has happened here? The child is no longer safe […]

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Circus Days

I want to run away and join the circus. In this the teenage of my growing older I want those who expect to wake up and find me sleeping in the same bed to find me gone. The note will read, “Gone for a Clown,” or “Gone for a Lion Tamer,” but “Gone for Good” to Join the Circus. I’ve seen enough outside the Big Top. It’s not so great. Here the risks are glamorous and entertaining. Three rings are all I need of wonder and miracles abound. Just listen to the Ringmaster, “Ladies and Gentlemen, I direct your attention high above the arena floor and request complete silence, please, for the first time here or anywhere in the world, this death defying life.” ♥

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Valentine’s Day

Yesterday a child with a gun, a troubled child with a gun in a society which allows troubled children with guns to enter a school and begin to kill, killed and killed and killed and killed and wounded and maimed and terrified and ran away because he’d had enough killing for a time and when they caught him he allowed himself to be captured because he wants the attention killing brings and the fame and the assurance he will be cared for the rest of his life for killing.   This is our Valentine’s Day, America. This is the red and bloody day we love because we just can’t help ourselves. It comes in the shape of a heart that has stopped beating, a heart bloody and red and open for the Love of God never to beat again. It is our passion and when the killing stops for a […]

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Dreamscape

What is this place so quiet and serene, this lovely out of doors within myself, where no one interrupts and all is delicate as a film of iridescent color? You are there, not far, but near and were I to awake as now you are my very soul. ♥

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An Open Letter to His Honor The Mayor

Your Honor, Let’s talk about prejudice. You have in public hearing referred to the Daughters of the Confederacy as Neo-Nazis, White Supremacists and Liars and you have said it does not matter what those women say about themselves, what really matters is what you say about them. Remember they are women and you are a man. Remember they are private citizens and you are a Public Servant. Remember you have never met any of them personally or spoken to any of them personally, but you have liabled them and slandered them in public as Mayor of the City of Madison. Although you represent the city in its entirely, you alone have done this. Remember you alone ordered the removal of a privately funded monument in Forest Hill Cemetery and now belatedly seek approval from other city committees as a tacit endorsement of your executive and exclusive actions. You find the […]

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