Just Seeds print cooperative.
The NEA’s Dennis Van Roekel wants an early no strings endorsement of Obama at this summer’s NEA convention in Chicago. But Richard Trumka, the President of the AFL, tells spineless pols, “I’ve had a snootful of this shit!” Me too.
Reporters covering anti-government protests are arrested in Libya Madison, Wisconsin.
Timuel D. Black is known as Chicago’s griot. He has spent his lifetime gathering the stories of Chicago’s African-American community, documenting the great social movements, and working for peace and justice.
We stand on the shoulders of giants. Clara Luper, Civil Rights Movement hero, dies at the age of 88.
Don Washington’s Mayoral Tutorial: “Don’t you be the prick-rat-bastard that gives away somebody’s rights who hasn’t even been born yet becaue you could not get directly involved in democracy today.”
Your parents, proudly here today, and their parents before them, perhaps proudly here today, understood a simple equation for success: your children would do better than you had. Ditch digger to cop to lawyer to judge.
We’re now supposed to apologize to you because it seems that that’s no longer how it works, that you won’t inherit the S.U.V., which was way too big, or the McMansion that was way too big, or the corner office that was way too big.
But I suggest that this is a moment to consider what “doing better” really means. If you are part of the first generation of Americans who genuinely see race and ethnicity as attributes, not stereotypes, will you not have done better than we did? If you are part of the first generation of Americans with a clear understanding that gay men and lesbians are entitled to be full citizens of this country with all its rights, will you not have done better than we did? If you are part of the first generation of Americans who assume women merit full equality instead of grudging acceptance, will you not have done better than we did? Anna Quindlen, speaking to graduates of Grinnell College in Iowa.
Fred Klonsky 