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At The Ferry

Why not imagine that a beggar is a deity? Or that something you do will bring you luck? That some small object you bend down and pick up from the sidewalk will contain a mystery, a discovery — an old ship ticket, a rusty key, an address written on a scrap of paper?

Control

In a procedure called a uterosigmoidostomy, surgeons connected my bladderless ureters to my colon. They couldn’t hook them directly to my urethra, because my penis would have become a spigot without a shut-off valve. Instead, urine and feces mixed in my colon, and I shit a muddy river. At three, I didn’t know there was anything wrong with this.

Letter From Central Illinois

The Illinois Department of Nuclear Safety passed out potassium-iodide pills this month for citizens to take if the nuclear plant is blown up by terrorists. If we swallow them four hours before a release of radioactivity, our thyroids will be protected from cancer.

A Phenomenology Of Panic

Part of the problem with panics, Gene taught me, is the very sense that there is a problem. This creates a bogus responsibility for either oneself or someone else to solve it. If the patient can’t solve it, he is not only panicking; he is a failure. If he passes the responsibility to a clinician, he loses power and gives up the right to direct his own life.

The Cure We Wait For

But there is no time for mind games: chemo and radiation, both necessary, my doctor insists. I leave his office in a daze, knowing that cancer is an enemy to fear, yet not wanting to be afraid of anything. I wonder how deep inside me the answers to my pending decisions are buried. Part of me knows that the cure goes beyond what their weapons can touch, that I must search for it from the inside out.

Yes, You Are a Revolutionary!

Most people say, “I am not a revolutionary. I am merely a liberal,” or, “I am not a revolutionary. I am just a Republican.” Nonsense. Anyone can be a revolutionary. Just follow these simple steps.

Webs Of Power

Notes From The Global Uprising

We have been blockading all day in a giant spider web: an intersection entirely surrounded by webs of yarn that effectively prevent movement into the street. The intersection is held by a cluster from Asheville, North Carolina, that includes many labor-union members. We are blockading arm in arm with the ecofeminist Teamsters. In front of the police barricade, a group of protesters are “locked down”: sitting in a line with their arms chained together.

Stronger Than Death

If, on a visit to St. Benedict’s Monastery in Colorado, you were to drive about a half mile beyond the main turnoff, there on your right you’d come upon a washed-out driveway leading to an abandoned ranch house known as the Stanley place.