I remember watching a television episode of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. I would like to say I was watching it with my kids, but actually I was watching for my own interest, without them. Mr. Rogers was interviewing the Wicked Witch of the West from the classic film The Wizard of Oz. For the b
We have been mulling over “the good” around our Catholic Worker community in South Bend recently, tending to attach to that abstract notion memories of our flesh-and-blood friend, Mike Lawson. He was murdered just before Christmas. His body was discovered over two weeks later along with
In a Dilbert cartoon, “Mike the Vegan” takes pride in claiming that he uses “no animal products whatsoever.” Dilbert reminds him, though, that his clothing was made on sewing machines that use electricity produced from fossil fuels. The last panel shows Mike walking down the
As I rode Amtrak’s Regional from Washington to New York one cold February afternoon, I was reminded that for me one of the delights of train travel is getting the lay of the land. Gazing out the window, I had just noted how one semi-rural settlement lay on the flood plain, and I wondered how f
Vital Care
The reasons given in your editorial for the condition of the homeless of our country (Homelessness: A Solvable Problem, 3/5) are on target. Many of the homeless are mentally ill and in need of care that would provide a structured setting and promote recovery in most
The current scandal of sexual abuse at a juvenile facility in Texas is but one example of a phenomenon that has long been a dark underside of the U.S. prison systemthe rape of prisoners. The Texas case involves the abuse of youths by staff members at a state-run school. But nationally the abuse has
E M Forster wrote in Aspects of the Novel 1927 that fantasy asks us to pay something extra that is first to accept the fantasist 8217 s impossible story as a whole and second to accept the specific beings say fairies and events say miracles that are in it Those who can do this howe