If you want to hear some intelligent discussion tune into Kamala Harris talking with David Axelrod on the Axe Files. She is highly driven and intelligent and will give you hope in troubling political times.
The Axe Files is a podcast out of the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and has had some fabulous guests. If you enjoy the Harris episode take time to listen to former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright on episode #126. Girl Power!
The brutality that took place on a summer night in Seattle’s South Park neighborhood is a horrific incident no one will soon forget. Stranger writer and Seattle native, Eli Sanders, won a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the story and resulting trial and crafted his work into this amazing book While the City Slept.
Certainly, it is the story of a crime but more it is the story of the broken mental health system, in Seattle’s King County, and in the wider country. Sanders has incredible respect for the surviving partner which is handled with nothing short of grace. He also carefully dissects the steps the perpetrator went through, on his journey into brutal madness, and into the criminal justice system. If there is finger pointing it is a system that allowed this man to go improperly treated and monitored.
The book is so well-crafted and so compelling written you will want to read it in but a few sittings.
The bravery of the courtroom testimony, about the crime, and the compassion to see that this young man barely had a chance, from his humble beginnings ,will move readers way after the book is closed.
Read it and realize we have a mental health crisis in our country that spawns neglect, horrific crimes, drug abuse, and prisons bursting at the seams. Read the book and work for mental health parity and more resources to help those who suffer most among us.
“Inspiring . . . From a harrowing crime, it draws powerful lessons for our mental health and criminal justice systems that can’t be ignored.”
—Sister Helen Prejean, bestselling author of Dead Man Walking
“Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
Tom Ashbrook’s radio program, On Point, out of WBUR in Boston is national treasure.
We are all puzzled how to make a difference when it comes to the problem of homelessness, particularly in big cities. There is no one-size-fits-all and it is sometimes difficult to think of what one person can do to make a difference. I began volunteering at a homeless tent city weekly. I hard boil eggs and take down 4-6 dozen every week with other items I collect such as warm clothes, magazines, toiletries, paper goods, crayons for the children, and tampons. Boiled eggs are a good source of protein are easily kept and easily consumed. Most weeks I remember to bring salt and pepper too which is also much appreciated. Delivering them warm just out of the water is appreciated particularly in the colder seasons.
I don’t just drop these items off and drive away, most weeks I take an hour or so, to talk to people I have come to know there, and ask their names, and treat them with the dignity I would anyone in my home. I don’t make my usual hundred suggestions, I just listen actively, and give them an caring ear. I have heard some amazing tales and have also received amazing appreciation that I care and will take time to stop my busy life to regard their struggles.
I have concluded that when you are homeless you want to be treated with dignity but being on the street changes you immensely. It is almost as if you have been living on another planet and everything is topsy turvy in your life. It is terribly stressful just getting the activities of daily living taken care of to stay healthy and clean, never mind find a place to charge a cell phone, or find a safe place to sleep.
Here is a short video featuring a Real Change vendor in Seattle, Shelly Cohen, that is worth a viewing. Real Change started in Seattle over twenty years ago and has over 300 vendors. It has influenced the lives of many with the advocacy in the social justice arena. It has over a million dollar a year impact on the community of homeless and low-income.
Tom Ashbrook hosts an interesting discussion about Tackling Homelessness we could all benefit to listen to and think for a moment how you could lend an ear or a meal for someone who has no permanent housing. It’s not that hard and there are a million ways to make a difference in someone’s life with very little effort on your part.
Age does not diminish the extreme disappointment of having a
scoop of ice cream fall from the cone.
~Jim Fiebig
To move freely you must be deeply rooted.
–Bella Lewitsky, dancer (13 Jan 1916-2004)
A house is no home unless it contains food and fire for the mind as well as the body. –Margaret Fuller, author, critic, and women’s rights advocate (1810-1850)
The Curious Autodidact 
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