Browse Topics

January 1996

Truth can’t sign its name, can’t read lengthy contracts, can’t afford a lawyer. Truth depends on us to speak it.

Sunbeams

What used to be called liberal is now called radical, what used to be called radical is now called insane, what used to be called reactionary is now called moderate, and what used to be called insane is now called solid conservative thinking.

Tony Kushner

Sunbeams

All the wrong people remember Vietnam. I think all the people who remember it should forget it, and all the people who forgot it should remember it.

Michael Herr

He Said In The Hospital It

A Vietnam Diary

One of the more shocking things about Vietnam is the number of people with serious war-related injuries: a woman with her face half burned away, men without legs, children with significant birth defects due to fetal exposure to Agent Orange, which remained in the food chain long after the fighting had stopped. Yesterday I counted seven people. Today I counted four more.

Beside The Tracks

There are only two decorations in Tommy’s room, unless you count the beer cans, which you don’t. You simply trash them every morning like clockwork, after you’ve cleaned up the breakfast dishes, put away the sticky cereal boxes, swept the sandy kitchen floor.

Vietnam

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, conscientious-objector declaration, the Tet Offensive

One Violent Crime

I had gone no more than a few steps when I felt a hard punch in my back followed instantly by the unforgettable sensation of skin and muscle tissue parting. Silva had stabbed me about six inches above my waist, just beneath my rib cage.

July 1995

Where The Wind Comes Sweeping

House Speaker Newt Gingrich insists there’s no connection between reactionary rhetoric and reactionary violence.

The Battle

They were so angry that they decided to have a battle. So terrible was their anger that they would not wait, but declared that the fight must be fought now, immediately, on this very spot.