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Four months into their seven-month tour, the mostly nineteen- and twenty-year-old marines at Patrol Base Fires in Sangin, Afghanistan, had seen enough violence to permanently line their boyish faces. Two of their platoon’s men had been killed by improvised explosive devices [IEDs], one of them blown literally in two.
By Elliott D. WoodsMarch 2012October 2011Find your place on the planet, dig in, and take responsibility from there.
Gary Snyder
I have been practicing with scientific precision nonviolence and its possibilities for an unbroken period of over fifty years. I have applied it in every walk of life — domestic, institutional, economic, and political. I know of no single case in which it has failed.
By Mohandas K. GandhiOctober 2011I didn’t feel like writing today, but here I am, lacing up my writing shoes. Here I am, lumbering around the track. That’s all it takes, the coach says. Just keep putting one word in front of the other.
By Sy SafranskyJuly 2011April 2011All wars are wars among thieves who are too cowardly to fight and who therefore induce the young manhood of the whole world to do the fighting for them.
Emma Goldman
I have a rooster named Henry. He is what’s called a “Barred Rock,” which means he is white with black specks — or maybe black with white specks; it’s hard to tell. In his large and elegantly plumed tail he has one iridescent green feather. The spurs on the back of his legs are two inches long and come to sharp points. He has a brilliant red comb and red wattles and is, all in all, a handsome rooster. Sometimes parents who walk by on the road with their kids stop to admire him.
By Sybil SmithApril 2011Billy Pilgrim padded downstairs on his blue and ivory feet. He went into the kitchen, where the moonlight called his attention to a half bottle of champagne on the kitchen table, all that was left from the reception in the tent. Somebody had stoppered it again. “Drink me,” it seemed to say.
By Kurt VonnegutApril 2011I don’t want to alarm people. Right-wing populist movements seldom become fascist, and fascist movements seldom take power. But when you build a major social movement around scapegoating and resentment, things can move quickly in a bad direction.
By David BarsamianNovember 2010— from “Field Manual: Light Duty” | Think not of battles, but rather after, / when the tremor in your right leg / becomes a shake you cannot stop
By Kevin C. PowersNovember 2010Before the war you actually had to ask people’s names to know who they were. Now you can just observe what side of the river they live on. On the east side are the Bosniaks — Muslim citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina. On the west are Croats, Catholic by faith. The two groups split my hometown of Mostar down the middle like an overripe pomegranate.
By Nikolina KulidžanSeptember 2010Personal, political, provocative writing delivered to your doorstep every month—without a single ad.
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