Archive for March, 2008
Watershed Year: Words Across the Decades
Wednesday, March 26th, 2008Forty years ago next week. In a quick, rifle-shot of a second, America entered into a new age. A time not unlike right now. The year 2008 reflects brightly off a four-decades-old mirror. Martin Luther King Jr. was in Memphis, Tenn., to lend support to the city’s sanitation workers, who’d gone on strike two months before. In the early evening [...]
Hillary! Hang It Up!
Friday, March 14th, 2008“While we’re on the subject…Could we change the subject now…” – Modest Mouse In a time of great interest there’s a sense of the mysterious in everyday life. A walking, daylight, dream-like perception sitting just off the mind’s eye, creating an anxiety-filled view of just about everything — going to the grocery store, picking up [...]
The Hypocrisy of Hope
Tuesday, March 4th, 2008In the 1967 version of In the Heat of the Night, there is a scene where the white police chief Bill Gillespie (played by Rod Steiger) turns to the black detective Virgil Tibbs (played by Sidney Poitier) and says, “Well, you’re pretty sure of yourself, ain’t you, Virgil. Virgil, that’s a funny name for a [...]