policy, politics, poetry, and pop culture

I Am Afghanistan

I AM AFGHANISTAN

If you’ve been here from the beginning you might remember my original major in college was photography. Somewhere between the demise of Bobst Boy’s LiveJournal and my obsession for the surprisingly high quality (though not from Nepal) Pashmina scarves sold in Chinatown, my paved path turned gravelly and merged with anthropology. As …

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Let’s Stay Together

If you don’t love me for reminding you of (or exposing you for the first time to) this performance, you are dead to me. Peace Cooper

Happy Friday the 13TH

friday the 13th

Friday the 13th. Superstition, generally more fun and not as dangerous as the stereotype — the man in the hoodie, the women in the short skirt, the smart Asian. A great song too. Happy Friday the 13th.

Death Reminds Us

What is Found There: Notebooks on Poetry and Politics

Baltimore native, Poet Adrienne Rich, has died. I have her book, Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law: Poems 1954-1962. It was one of many things given to me by my grandmother — long before she passed. The copy she left me (a collectible) was not read but boxed away for when I …

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Strange Fruit Redux

THE MYTH OF POST RACIAL AMERICA

I’m sitting here contemplating Florida’s law. You know the one that allows any clinically paranoid racist to defend himself against the unarmed black man by pursuing and murdering that man in cold blood. Comprehension regarding this case has yet to reveal itself to me. I sit here thinking Southern Man …

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