What can we make of the inexpressible joy of children? It is a kind of gratitude, I think—the gratitude of the ten-year-old who wakes to her own energy and the brisk challenge of the world. You thought you knew the place and all its routines, but y...
We hang on to our values, even if they seem at times tarnished and worn; even if, as a nation and in our own lives, we have betrayed them more often that we care to remember. What else is there to guide us? Those values are our inheritance, what make...
We drive down the road in complete silence for a few miles listening to 50 Cent. As soon as he tells us that he's into having sex, he ain't into making love, Casey turns the volume down and begins telling me the following information: " I love you so...
To the eyes of the American soldiers who drove past, I looked no different from the women around me; and as I thought of it, who could say I was any different? If you no longer have leaves, or bark, or roots, can you go on calling yourself a tree? "I...
Elder's Meditation of the Day - February 18 "laughter is a necessity in life that does not cost much, and the Old Ones say that one of the greatest healing powers in our life is the ability to laugh." --Larry P. Aitken, CHIPPEWA Laughter is a good st...
While our country remains untainted with the principles and manners which are now producing desolation in so many parts of the world; while she continues sincere, and incapable of insidious and impious policy, we shall have the strongest reason to re...
I used to walk out, at night, to the breakwater which divides the end of the harbor form the broad moor of the salt marsh. There was nothing to block the wind that had picked up speed and vigor from its Atlantic crossing. I’d study the stars in the...
Wal-Mart is so large, its reach so great, that it has created an ecosystem in which its suppliers and competitors, and their suppliers and competitors, and their customers, all operate. Wal-Mart sets the metabolism, it sets the rules, of that ecosyst...
White Americans have contented themselves with gestures that are now described as "tokenism". For hard example, white Americans congratulate themselves on the 1954 Supreme Court decision outlawing segregation in the schools; they suppose, in spite of...
Dr. Gonzo: Sounds like big trouble. You're going to need plenty of legal advice before this thing is over. As your attorney, I advise you to rent a very fast car with no top. And you'll need the cocaine. Tape recorder for special music. Acapulco shir...
Esmail: Why did that man say we would be deported? Behrani: I do not know. But we are American citizens. We own this house. They can do nothing to us now. Esmail: I feel bad for that lady, Baba-jan. Behrani: The woman's house was taken from her becau...
Americans... are forever searching for love in forms it never takes, in places it can never be. It must have something to do with the vanished frontier.
Americans bred like rabbits, expecting the reaper to slaughter at least a few before they reached ripeness.
Do not be disingenuous with me, Colonel Graff. Americans are quite apt at playing stupid when they choose to, but I am not to be deceived.
It’s almost like that’s the definition of being American: You love becoming Irish for a day, or becoming Italian… Or becoming a Negro for four years.
To me, you have to declare yourself a Chicano in order to be a Chicano. That makes a Chicano a Mexican-American with a defiant political attitude that centers on his or her right to self-definition. I'm a Chicano because I say I am.
Americans are the most generous country on the planet. I've worked in Europe, I've worked in Australia. There is no where else where you get absolutely no attitude for being a foreigner. If you do your job well, they embrace you.
For something to be useful to the spirit is not very valuable to get your covered wagon across the desert. We have adopted that attitude so thoroughly that any American father whose son tells him he wants to write poetry will be embarrassed.
What I wish I had, is that I wish I was a little more Greek, in that I wish I could lose my North American driven attitude and that I could be a little bit more poetic and laissez faire.
The phenomenon of home schooling is a wonderful example of the American can-do attitude. Growing numbers of parents have become disenchanted with government-run public schools. Many parents have simply taken matters into their own hands, literally.
I get a lot of dark scripts now. I don't wanna be stuck doing movies like American Pie. For someone my age, once you get started doing them, it's hard to get out.
