There were two sets of stairs: the front ones curving and formal while the backstairs rose steep as a canyon wall. As a girl, I used to fly from their heights when I wasn’t falling.
Departments
The Editors 12-01-2011
Even while Occupy Wall Street and the worldwide movement it has helped ignite captured the public’s attention this fall, some observers claimed not to understand what the protests were all about.
The Editors 12-01-2011
Father Jacek Orzechowski’s name was misspelled in our November 2011 issue. We apologize for the error.
Barbara Crooker 12-01-2011
The amaryllis bulb, dumb as dirt, inert, how can anything spring from this clod, this stone, the pit of some subtropical, atypical, likely inedible fruit?
Stephen Carr 12-01-2011
Your excellent article on the good work being done by ECHO (“Ending the Hunger Season,” by Fred Bahnson, August 2011) was marred by its stringent [implied] criticism of the millions of small family farmers who feed the world, of whom I am one. Norman Borlaug, whom you cite, reduced the height of wheat from over five feet to two feet and thereby brought about a trebling of yields. Rice breeders followed his example, and with these far more efficient plants the world’s farmers have been able to keep the world’s exploding, meat-eating, urban dwelling population alive for the past 50 years.
Catherine Foley 12-01-2011
Your article on Heartsong Church and the Memphis Islamic Center (“Peace Be Upon Them,” by Bob Smietana, September-October 2011) reminded me of the power and the responsibilities of those raised in the common Abrahamic traditions. Thank you for repeating the uplifting story.
Rev. Robert Dean McNeil 11-15-2011
In your December 1979 issue, there was an article paying tribute to Clarence Jordan, founder of Koinonia Farm Community (“Clarence Jordan and Koinonia,” by Joyce Hollyday). With the information from that article, I did a biographical sermon on Clarence Jordan on July 13, 1980, at Portland’s First United Methodist Church, and sent a copy to Clarence’s widow, Florence Jordan. She got me in touch with Millard Fuller, one-time Koinonia resident and later founder of Habitat for Humanity.
Mark Dowdy 11-15-2011
I very much appreciate Brian McLaren’s article “Is God Violent?” (December 2010). As a member of the Church of the Brethren, a church based in seeking peace and forming community, I have always struggled to find how God could be the caring and loving being I hear about. It is obvious that the Old Testament is rife with examples of God raining down judgment. In the New Testament, a very compassionate and loving being shows his discombobulated people the way. Perhaps sending God’s son to live as we lived gave God a new perspective on being a part of this world?
Jane E. Mosner 11-15-2011
Re: “Cruel and Unequal,” a large number of persons who are incarcerated in jails and prisons across our country are seriously mentally ill, and have not received appropriate treatment because our commitment to treatment laws and our mental health systems are inhumane, inadequate, and seriously in need of repair. The cruel truth is that today America has more mentally ill individuals incarcerated than any other First World country.
Bob Boyce 11-15-2011
The article on how blacks are targeted and their lives destroyed for possession of drugs (“Cruel and Unequal”) touched me deeply. I have written to my senators, asking them to introduce legislation to reduce the penalties for drug use. But that’s not enough. I will urge my local police to end any discriminatory targeting of blacks for drug use. I urge others to follow suit.
Bob Boyce
Lincoln, Nebraska
John Chase 11-15-2011
I am so glad you discovered Michelle Alexander (“Cruel and Unequal,” February 2011; see also “‘Colorblind’ Racism” by Liane Rozzell, June 2010). The U.S. may finally recover from Nixon’s war on drugs, which began when H.R. Haldeman wrote in his 1969 diary, “[President Nixon] emphasized that you have to face the fact that the whole problem is really the blacks. The key is to devise a system that recognizes this while not appearing to.”
Steve Rose 11-01-2011
Thank you for the interview with Rep. Walter Jones, “A Convert to Peace” (September-October 2011). Our government is truly disappointing in these past years and cynicism is rampant. This article was a breath of fresh air: There truly are those taking stands that are not popular, but are looking after the greater good.
Steve Roe
Sequim, Washington
John Rensen 11-01-2011
Claire Lorentzen’s article against the ROTC (“Studying War More?” September-October 2011) is intolerant. Not needing a military at all is a pipe dream. Nobody is forced to join ROTC. I have been in combat under various types of officers. Believe me, having a commanding officer that learned to think from a college like Stanford can make a world of difference to the troops versus an officer from an inferior, small-time, “good old boy” college.
John Rensen
Potter Valley, California
Philip Washburn 11-01-2011
Re: “Men Behaving Badly” (by Jim Wallis, August 2011): I recall the story of King David and Bathsheba. David’s lust led to the murder of Bathsheba’s husband, yet David was described as “a man after God’s heart.” He did, of course, eventually repent after being confronted, and also suffered consequences. What he did was worse than what any of the men you mentioned did. In the case of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, it now appears that the accusations against him were false, but he was forced to resign anyway.
Mark Datema Lipscomb 11-01-2011
As a teacher for the Chicago Public Schools, I found your decision to run an advertisement from StudentsFirst.org (September-October 2011) troubling. The StudentsFirst mantra is “accountability,” and it locates the source of almost everything wrong with public education at the feet of unions who protect “incompetent” teachers. But for more than a year now, Michelle Rhee, the former chancellor of Washington, D.C.’s public schools who now runs StudentsFirst, has largely refused to address the cheating scandal that occurred on her watch.
Laura Palmberg 11-01-2011
Gene Luen Yang’s otherwise enjoyable “Telling the Old, Old Story” (September-October 2011) inaccurately states that Moses was set on a river in a reed basket “to escape a besieged city.” Exodus clearly indicates that Moses’ family was trying to save him from Pharaoh’s decree that all male Hebrew babies be cast into the river (without the benefit of a flotation device). There was no siege.
Ken Sehested 11-01-2011
We all knew it would come.
Someday. Always later.
Mañana.
It comes for us all. Sure.
Of course.
We know that. Someday.
Mañana.
But when someday draws near
for someone you love
whose silenced breath sears
your lungs with flames of grief
and sobs so immense
you wonder:
How dare the sun ascend?
The stars to shine?
Even the yeast to rise!