Early memories of publication efforts: when I was about eight years old I launched a comic strip for an audience of one (me) the protagonist of which was a round edged stone the size of a tennis ball which lived in thought balloons. Looking back I think it was a projected version of myself having aspirations but no agency with which to pursue them. A little over ten years later I was a mercenary illegal aid worker in Nicaragua and I wrote an article for a left-leaning weekly paper in Philadelphia about the abuses of the Somoza regime and the criminality of the Regan administration's vile war against Central American Populism and class struggle. It was the first time I got paid to write anything - $50 dollars for a front-page above-the-crease feature with a circulation of 500,000. I have a yellowed copy of it around somewhere.
1 Comment
Seattle Mayor and City Council petition Washington State to abolish the death penalty. I'd like to see Portland, Philadelphia, and other major cities do the same. The arguments from a municipal government perspective are persuasive.
Click Here for link to Letter dated 1/26/15 Go Hawks, too.... Tomorrow will see the annual outpouring of one-off community service gestures by thousands of well-meaning citizens who want to appropriate the beatific fantasy identity that is the sainted/sanitized version of MJK Jr. I apologize for my role in establishing the "King Day Of Service" tradition in the mid-1990's. It was something I regretted within two years of launching this Wofford/Romney (the elder) optimistic parade/charade. Read Michael Eric Dyson on King, Hibernate this winter and read the Taylor Branch trilogy. If you have tomorrow off from work or school, rally for a higher minimum wage, a lower incarceration level, better public education and policing. Protest the pentagon and preferred taxation for the rich and their influence on politics. If you want to service your community take a radical progressive political stand as Dr. King always did. Don't pick up litter or paint schools - advocate for adequate pay and health care for those who do these things for a living. Teach your children what is wrong with the Right, and right with the Left.
I received a request to contribute reflection and opinion about the Foster Care system to the Public Affairs Division of my local Public Radio - Oregon Public Radio(OPB). It got me thinking once again what a criminally bad model Foster Care presents as a way to support the welfare and maturation of children in protective custody or who are otherwise orphaned. If you have thoughts about or have experience with Foster Care please share them here as a comment and also with OPB through the link below: We can do better by kids. Thanks.
Click Here for OPB link |
AuthorJon Amsterdam is a Lawyer, Educator, Community Organizer and National Service Innovator who directs Communities Without Borders, a non profit organization he founded in 1996. Archives
January 2021
Categories |