My students appeal to me: how do you balance your teaching, your activism, and your writing life? I say, “I don’t—not at the moment.” They probably don’t believe me. I don’t want them to. It scares me to realize how remote “real” writing feels just now. Long … [Read more...]

Everywhere we go people want to know who we are so we tell them we are the union mighty, mighty union…. It's a time of intense learning about human behavior. By late Wednesday afternoon, you might have thought the helicopters were about to begin … [Read more...]

This past week… On the eighth day of rain, weather came through the kitchen wall. I looked up from the student manuscript I was writing comments on and saw the wrinkles and bubbles where the new coat of latex paint was being attacked from underneath. I put my … [Read more...]

Nobody knows he is tired. Nobody knows he is hot. We are all swung into the most intense and natural organization I have ever seen. These men are on the spot, acting on their own, visible and known within the city, acting outwardly and militantly for all, and they … [Read more...]

Today, October 4, a one-day general strike was observed in France. Upon hearing of it on the evening news, I reflexively started reviewing the reasons why such a thing could never happen here. For one thing, so few people are unionized that there’d be no way to … [Read more...]