"Are you a Republican?"

I keep getting asked

"Are you a Republican?"

(a reflex question a Seattleite poses about something s/he does not understand and/or is not interested in hearing)

when I beg to diverge from liberal orthodoxy in Seattle, my hometown.

We baby-boomers believed in the idea of diversity before it became ossified into liberal catechism and conformity.

Buried alive, Very alive

What we bury alive, we may think we will never hear from or see again, but we could be, on that count, quite mistaken, especially when it is ourselves we bury.
-Lily H.

Since when did being a liberal mean...

Since when did being "a liberal" obligate me to renounce and throw away a self-critical faculty to see myself, warts and all, in the mirror?
-Lily H.

What a word is truth (Lillian Hellman)

What a word is truth. Slippery, tricky, unreliable. I tried in these books to tell the truth.

Lillian Hellman

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/l/lillian_hellman.html#WgZkymD6Xbrb3OWc.99

There are no "bad" children.  

There are only 

bad parents.

Du passé faisons table rase
Foule esclave, debout ! debout !
Le monde va changer de base :
Nous ne sommes rien, soyons tout ! 

Eugène Pottier, L’Internationale, 1871

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFBBEF5F1B1F15127

The love of learning

Academia should not be about "If you do this, I will cause you pain."   Unfortunately, all too often it is.

-Lily H.