One month before Christmas at the dawn of the millennium, a child came to us. Having come from an atheistic nation, his baptism probably came in the salt water on that day when his mother gave her life trying to raise her son in a free land. That child was Elián González, and ten years ago this week he was returned to live with his father in Cuba. It seems so simple at a glance. The convolutions of his story may not make any sense to most people, but that winds up being the point of it after all.
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Yearly Archives: 2010
Multiple Intelligences
Today the kids have to be roused early and move themselves through the morning with purpose because Spring Break is over. It cuts many ways. The weight of routine is lightened for them by a sunny green day with a crisp snap to it, as lively as we can expect in early April – but they’ll have to spend the day inside. They’ll get to see their friends again and tell stories about what they’ve been up to, but there will also be work. For all the different seasons mixing in their heads and around them what it always comes down to is that they really like to learn, they really like their school.
Good Friday
Holy Week. As our lives become more secular and separated, the name doesn’t seem to have as much meaning as it once did. Not long ago all of Saint Paul shut down on Good Friday to celebrate the holiday that is central to Christian faith. The passing of this holiday into another optional day off for those who can afford it may be disturbing to people who value the old ways, but a little perspective shows that the time itself was always defined by others even before we learned how important it is to get along in a diverse world.
Journalism, Past and Future
Journalism isn’t broken, but the way this public art pays has fallen down almost completely. Given that a free people need good information to make good individual decisions this struggle is now something at the core of where a lot of things are going in the future.
Census
The chairs were arranged around a central point at the coffee house. In each of them sat a person more likely to keep their nose in a cup of steaming coffee in a kind of ritualistic way, as if to ward off the late March chill, than anything else. If they knew each other, they’d be more likely to be chatty and bubbly, even this early in the morning, so it was obvious from the whole arrangement that something was up. I couldn’t help but listen in when someone rose to speak.
When materials were handed out and the speechifying started, it became obvious. These were Census workers, learning the details of their new trade.
Barataria - The work of Erik Hare 