The boy had been involved in a program to introduce peace circles to schools – moments in the school day when a class sits together and shares their thoughts and feelings around a certain topic. Like other school systems, Pittsburgh had begun this program to help reduce violence by giving students tools for better communication. Happily for this boy and his family, what happened in the classroom didn’t stay in the classroom.
Browsing: Opinions
Perhaps you’ve heard the term “teachable moment” in recent years. It is a way of framing or reframing a mistake or misfortune into a learning opportunity or chance for growth.
Since the presidential campaign shake-up in July, the national conversation about manhood is abuzz with talk of a “new” masculinity, embodied by good, decent men like Tim Walz and Doug Emhoff. What’s actually new, though, is what’s now coming into focus: the consequences of years of men’s hard work to redefine manhood.
Instead, a vain competition for military superiority continues unabated. Looking into that abyss yields a no-win scenario in which “deterrence” keeps us secure—until it doesn’t. Even setting aside nuclear weapons, the suffering of modern wars falls overwhelmingly on civilian populations—in Ukraine, in Palestine and Israel, in Sudan. “Victory” has become a phantom.
Those are the outraged words of the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, in protest of a cabinet decision to maintain an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) presence along the Philadelphia Corridor. The corridor is the nine-mile strip that separates southern Gaza from Egypt.
On Earth Day 1993, I gave my first major speech, on behalf of the Student Environmental Action Coalition (SEAC). It was at rally opposing the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The experience taught me firsthand how the movements to protect our planet and the rights of working people are tightly linked.
What should not have happened is that hateful people took to the Internet to make fun of Gus. But it did. For example, conservative columnist Ann Coulter wrote on the platform X “Talk about weird.” The comment has since been deleted but that does not erase the despicable sentiment behind making fun of a teenager who expressed his love for his father. Trump supporter and podcaster Mike Crispi referred to Gus as Walz’s “stupid crying son” and wrote on X “You raised your kid to be a puffy beta male. Congrats,” while another Trump support, Alec Lace, who actually hosts a podcast about fatherhood, wrote “Get the kid a tampon already.”
In the Prologue of “Invisible Man,” the great writer Ralph Ellison schools us that “a hibernation is a covert preperation for a more overt action.” Proof of Ellison’s profundity is Vice President Kamala Harris’s emergence as Donald Trump’s worst nightmare: his opponent for president of the United States of America! The fake orange man is beside himself, acting weird, flailing about with figments of an unhinged mind, while ever smiling and confident Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, draw crowds of 10-15 thousand wherever they campaign across America.
America never, in its wildest imagination, thought that there would again come a President who would bring the kind of shame and criminality that former President Nixon unleashed in the Oval Office and before this Nation. But here we are again, and it’s far more than putrefied shame and criminality. Republican conservative white nationalist voters elected Donald J. Trump as America’s 45th President. Unfortunately, Trump not only disgraced the Presidency but governed as a criminal-minded delusionist.
As I sit here and contemplate as to where to begin, I am struggling with how to find the right words to pen that will come with passion, reflection (both self and collective), and a positive outlook toward the future. I am also skeptical that writing these words will potentially be faced with some disdain. However, it is my hope that the words are given more embrace and sustained and collaborative plans-of-action moving forward. Now that I have prefaced my thoughts, let me be fearless and persevere down this rabbit hole headfirst.