Walking Through the Halls of Power

by , posted on Tuesday, July 31st, 2012 at 8:05 pm

Reflections from the Workers United Hall at 333 S. Ashland Ave., Chicago IL on July 30, 2012 – Chicago Teachers Solidarity Campaign meeting.

Present, past and future merge –

strolling through the halls of power
Walking in their footsteps – gaining strength hour by hour

Their voices echo off cold brick walls – shattering doubt and despair.
Only resolve lives here!

Great women and men sat on this very chair – plotting justice.
Alive and well – justice lives here!

Their rough hands pounded on this table – a solidarity drum – Here! Here!
Only solidarity lives here!

From the stage, the people’s voices gave democracy birth – the birth pains of revolution –
America, Democracy lives here!

It is here that anguish and anger

chiseled change – challenging pragmatism’s powerful, “no.”
Si, Se Puede is all we know – hope lives here!

Ours is not the first nor the last – today’s struggles strengthened by the past
Worn steps, worn bodies – warm welcome comrades!
Power through unity – our future lives here!

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The Great Opportunity Rip Off

by , posted on Friday, July 27th, 2012 at 12:45 pm

I am a first generation American. My father was born in 1918 on a small island off the coast of Norway. He never finished high school. I grew up poor in the middle of a wealthy area of the Chicago suburbs dreaming about going to college with no financial ability to do so. I saw education as a way to climb out of our poverty and a sure ticket into the middle class.

I was taught that America is the land of opportunity and all I had to do was work for it. And so I did.

I worked two part-time jobs to fund my first year of college. Then I got married and 3 children intervened. When I was set to return to school, Reagan had just taken office and access to loans and grants had all but dried up. And so, without knowing anything about non-violent direct civil action, I did my first act of non-violent direct civil action.

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Hotter today, a little rain, and…WHAT?

by , posted on Wednesday, July 25th, 2012 at 9:37 pm

I’ve been following the drought, and the multiple heat waves, and since it’s Wednesday, that means I am of course awaiting tomorrow morning’s weekly update to the drought monitor. We’ve had a little rain here, so perhaps the situation has improved? I hope so, but do understand there are vast swaths of the country that have not had as much rain as us and even here the grass is still brown.

Anyway, I saw a link to a NY Times story about the drought and heat, specifically their impact on infrastructure, and thought I’d check that out. The piece starts out with a bit about a jet sinking into the tarmac at an airport, and I admit I wasn’t paying much attention to which city that happened in, skimming, skimming, and then I saw something a little closer to home, that made me say out loud, ok out loud very loudly, “WHAT?”
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