On June 13, 2016–right in the middle of one of the most consequential presidential elections in American history–“an American-born man who’d pledged allegiance to ISIS gunned down 49 people…at a gay nightclub in Orlando.” The Pulse Nightclub shooting was, at […]
The speed with which the COVID-19 pandemic has completely upended and shut down ordinary life in America is both stunning and terrifying.
I am a wealthy god who cares about the poor.
I’ve built them shopping malls to worship me,
paid for stained-glass windows to let in a little light
filtered in my image, crafted search engines to ask
for things I am too wise to give away:
Celebrating the birthday of a nonprofit you founded doesn’t have the same nostalgia-soaked feeling as your own birthday: rather than the bittersweet recollections of childhood, this celebration has the bracing feel of adulthood.
We adults know the future is bleak.
Have jobs, families, to-do lists.
Do what we can.
Know in our hearts that
It’s not enough.
To write is to argue without evidence that beauty
pervades: the rainforest and the killing field,
sunsets and floods of acid rain on I-95.
I notice my parents’ aging as I do my own:
Not at all, then in a photo, all at once.
We can never atone for the billions
spent on dark dreams
sawed through with ease,
There are those who believe that corporations have but one purpose—to maximize profits. There are those who believe that business must be a force for good, using free-market principles primarily to serve people and the planet—also known as social enterprise.
To resist through nonviolence, yes—
I’ll do what the data says is wise.
But to love is another matter:
I may wave the flag, but I am no patriot;
Is it not better to burn what they betray?