Here is a remembrance wall that I passed today near 15th St. and Union Ave. It was a moveable wall covered with black cloth that was placed in an empty parking lot. A simple but moving tribute.
9-11
Here is a remembrance wall that I passed today near 15th St. and Union Ave. It was a moveable wall covered with black cloth that was placed in an empty parking lot. A simple but moving tribute.
Pacific Northwest-ing
I am in Tacoma, Washington for two years, teaching at the University of Puget Sound. In addition to living in a new location, I am without family for the first year and it will be interesting to see how this affects my writing. No more excuses! I'm hoping that I will write a lot and be inspired by the landscape, the ocean and new colleagues. These are pictures of Mt. Rainier taken from a Target parking lot, a pier on the sound, and the sidewalk on Union where I like to take morning walks.
Remembering Velma
I am at the age where the death of friends and relatives is not shocking, but that doesn’t make the loss any easier. Today is my godmother’s funeral at Mayflower Congregational Church in Detroit. As I try to make peace with this reality, here is what I want you to know about her:
Her name is Velma Lewis Ward.
She was born December 27, 1929 in Salem, Michigan.
She was not raised by and did not know her parents.
She was raised on a farm by a black man, born in 1892, who was a gentle spirit and deaf later in his life. Everyone called him "Gramps."
Aunt Velma milked cows as a girl.
She attended the University of Michigan and Wayne State University.
She had freckles, wore glasses, and had thick, beautiful hair.
She is survived by one child, a son, whom she raised alone.
As a girl she wanted to be a doctor.
A counselor at her high school, Northville High, suggested a career in cosmetology instead.
Aunt Velma was one of the first black women to get a PhD in biochemistry from Wayne State University School of Medicine.
She thought that the failure to use black people in medical trials had negative effects on our health and the diagnosis of illness in our community.
She said “molecules don’t give you the whole picture” of a person.
She became a Medical Anthropologist.
She did research on coronary disease in older African Americans and contributed greatly to understanding the role of ethnicity in the health care experience.
She never talked about her accomplishments.
She had friends from all walks of life.
She believed in astrology.
She didn’t really care for the shape of her nose.
She was a feminist.
She authored or assisted in numerous scientific publications.
She told me as Capricorns we were susceptible to problems with our joints.
Upon seeing my oldest child as a baby, she remarked, “He’s perfect. Keep that formula!”
She researched the cultural impact of the Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill hearings.
She was a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority.
She was the first African American to address the Society of Biological Psychiatry.
She had an uncanny ability to remember many facts, data, details, and dates from the recent past and decades before. Her son has this ability also.
She was a member of The Royal Society of Chemistry as a Chartered Chemist.
She lived for decades in a house on Littlefield in Detroit.
She loved music.
She said in a 2004 interview, “Whatever talents you have, you need to use to the best of your ability for humanity.”
She mentored and influenced many younger people.
Her voice was soft and you had to lean in to hear her when she spoke.
She left this earth on September 2, 2011.
It's National Poetry Month!
I'll be reading this Thursday at Chandler-Gilbert Community College with Jimmy Berlin and Jacquelyne Kibler as part of the college's celebration of National Poetry Month. Come if you can. Pecos campus, 7:00 p.m. Let's celebrate the word!
On Privacy + Annoying Little Dogs
A friend posted this status update a few weeks ago: Is it weird to be on someone's Facebook page when they walk up??
The answers she received were overwhelmingly "yes," but I expect that soon, the majority of responses to that question will soon be "no" or "meh. who cares." This is the age that we're in, we inhabit both real and virtual worlds, all of us celebrities with our own fans, followers, and headshots. Why shouldn't we expect people to read about us online, to see what we're up to and who we've posed with in pictures? In fact, shouldn't we be flattered that they're thinking of us at all?
Thinking of someone is one thing. Looking for all their info is stalking them from afar.
Not that I don't do it, too, but it does concern me. I don't worry about my own privacy--I'm grown--but I do worry about my tween who is on XBox Kinect with people he's never met, people who live in different countries all over the world. My kid knows enough not to play video games with adults (and adult XBoxers don't like playing with kids anyway) but he doesn't understand yet how this anonymous interaction could come back to bite him in the butt.
For example, I've witnessed him engage in heated competitions, including smack-talk, with other game players. I've overheard he and his friends sit in front of the tv screen and lie to the other players about their names and ages. What happens when an insult is taken personally and someone hacks into your XBox account (is this possible?) or finds out who you are and starts to harass you? Stalking from afar (what we do when we google others) is one thin line from harassing from afar.
Not that old school bullying can't happen. (I received a typed letter in the mail the other day. No return address. It read: "Dog Owner, Put a lid on that little dog of yours. Please. And welcome to the hood.")
The difference is that I probably know the idiot who sent that letter. The letter writer is someone who lives in my neighborhood.
But who are the cranks and weirdos who are watching us unseen? This is one of the real dangers, I think, of so much of our information being accessible to the public at large.
Not that Facebook cares about our privacy.
So much of who we are today is how we present ourselves through different media. You can ask any real celebrity what the price is for that kind of access.
The answers she received were overwhelmingly "yes," but I expect that soon, the majority of responses to that question will soon be "no" or "meh. who cares." This is the age that we're in, we inhabit both real and virtual worlds, all of us celebrities with our own fans, followers, and headshots. Why shouldn't we expect people to read about us online, to see what we're up to and who we've posed with in pictures? In fact, shouldn't we be flattered that they're thinking of us at all?
Thinking of someone is one thing. Looking for all their info is stalking them from afar.
Not that I don't do it, too, but it does concern me. I don't worry about my own privacy--I'm grown--but I do worry about my tween who is on XBox Kinect with people he's never met, people who live in different countries all over the world. My kid knows enough not to play video games with adults (and adult XBoxers don't like playing with kids anyway) but he doesn't understand yet how this anonymous interaction could come back to bite him in the butt.
For example, I've witnessed him engage in heated competitions, including smack-talk, with other game players. I've overheard he and his friends sit in front of the tv screen and lie to the other players about their names and ages. What happens when an insult is taken personally and someone hacks into your XBox account (is this possible?) or finds out who you are and starts to harass you? Stalking from afar (what we do when we google others) is one thin line from harassing from afar.
Not that old school bullying can't happen. (I received a typed letter in the mail the other day. No return address. It read: "Dog Owner, Put a lid on that little dog of yours. Please. And welcome to the hood.")
The difference is that I probably know the idiot who sent that letter. The letter writer is someone who lives in my neighborhood.
But who are the cranks and weirdos who are watching us unseen? This is one of the real dangers, I think, of so much of our information being accessible to the public at large.
Not that Facebook cares about our privacy.
So much of who we are today is how we present ourselves through different media. You can ask any real celebrity what the price is for that kind of access.
Pictures from Egypt
Credit: Emilio Meorenatti/Associated Press
Credit: Dylan Martinez/Reuters
Credit: Chris Hondros/Getty ImagesThese photos are taken from the front page of today's New York Times online. My students are writing ekphrastic poetry based on war images. These pictures of a people's revolution surely inspire words.
Tumbleweed
As the rest of the nation freezes under snow and ice, Arizona has cold winds and these things blowing all around.
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