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Beverly Cleary, who died last week at the astounding age of 104, was a pivotal figure in the world of children's literature. Her books are treasures; her influence can scarcely be measured. Cleary was one of the first authors to feature young characters who were realistically imperfect. If she was not  the  first, then certainly she was the first popular, widely-read writer who, as The Atlantic  put it, " saw children as they are ".  Before Henry Huggins and Ramona, before Otis and Ellen and Ralph S. Mouse, children's literature was preachy and moralistic. The sanitized characters bore little resemblance to actual children. Books typically stood above children, and spoke at  them. Cleary's books stood beside children and reflected them.  Cleary's books were among the first that  respected  children -- their intelligence, their experiences. This would become the norm, of course, but it started somewhere, and that somewhere is Beverly Cleary.  ...

Many well-known rock and pop musicians have died lately, including Helen Reddy, Eddie Van Halen, and Jerry Jeff Walker. More names will be coming fast and furiously as the icons of the Boomer generation age.  One such death came to the country and blues music communities recently, that of Billy Joe Shaver.  Shaver's songwriting epitomized the outlaw-country ethic and apparently so did his life. He talked the talk and walked the walk. He was outlaw-country before the movement had a name. Shaver wrote songs for Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson, Johnny Cash, and Elvis Presley. On a 2007 country-gospel album, he sang duets with Cash, Kristofferson, and Tanya Tucker, backed by notables such as Randy Scruggs and Marty Stuart. In 2010, Willie Nelson called Shaver "the greatest living songwriter". In his younger days, he hung out with Townes Van Zandt -- and really, what more can you say? Some 30 years ago, Allan and I attended the New Orleans Jazz Festival, which is not reall...

  I was very saddened to hear of the too-young death of Robert Fisk, veteran war journalist, author, and truth-teller. Fisk was often criticized for "politicizing" war reporting, or for not being "objective". Most war journalists are little more than propaganda mouthpieces for the wealthy countries that invade and seek to control poorer countries, whether directly or by proxy. This highly biased view is said to be apolitical and objective, when it merely reflects the politics of the dominant point of view. The only difference between Fisk's reporting and almost every other war journalist's reporting was that he was honest and up-front about his point of view. Fisk was one of the few English-language journalists (perhaps the only one?) who didn't allow themselves to be "embedded" with the invading and occupying forces of Iraq. In other words, he did his job , while all the others allowed themselves to be used as propagandists. I looked to him fo...

  These highlights of Ginsburg's decisions and dissents on the SCOTUS are a joy to read. I used two sources, and decided to keep the overlap. Many highlight the reason she was affectionately known as the Notorious RBG. United States v. Virginia , 1996 In United States v. Virginia,   Ginsburg  wrote the majority opinion that would serve as a milestone moment for women’s rights and university admission policies. The case challenged a policy by the Virginia Military Institute that barred women from being admitted to the institution. Although the state of Virginia said it would create a separate educational program for women for the military institute, Ginsburg questioned its merits, writing that “Women seeking and fit for a VMI-quality education cannot be offered anything less, under the Commonwealth’s obligation to afford them genuinely equal protection.” “Neither federal nor state government acts compatibly with equal protection when a law or official policy denies t...

A piece of New York City died this week. Pete Hamill, a legendary New York journalist and possibly the last of a breed, died yesterday at age 85.  Obituaries describe him as a "tabloid poet" or "tabloid hero". If he hadn't existed, perhaps Raymond Chandler would have invented him.  It seems only fitting to let the Daily News tell his story. Legendary journalist and author Pete Hamill, a tabloid hero and teller of New York tales, dead at 85 Pete Hamill, the Brooklyn-born bard of the five boroughs and eloquent voice of his beloved hometown as both newspaper columnist and best-selling author, died Wednesday morning. Hamill, who worked at five New York newspapers and outlived three, was 85.  Hamill, four days after a Saturday fall that fractured his right hip, died in New York-Presbyterian Hospital Brooklyn Methodist, said his brother and fellow ex-Daily News columnist Denis Hamill. Though Hamill underwent emergency surgery, his heart and kidneys ultimately failed. ...

What a sad and moving coincidence, that two great freedom fighters died on the same day. I chose these photos as a reminder that doing the right thing may involve breaking the law. Canadians, who over-value a superficially peaceful society, frequently need reminding. As a remembrance of these two men, I cede the floor to Black Lives Matter. * * * * A Requiem In Memoriam Our Great Ancestors The Honorable John Robert Lewis (February 21, 1940 - July 17, 2020) The Reverend Dr. Cordy Tindell “C.T.” Vivian (July 30, 1924 – July 17, 2020) Today, we celebrate two men of moral courage, ethical excellence, and relentless diligence in making Black Lives Matter in the policies and practices of this country and world: The Honorable John Lewis and The Reverend C.T. Vivian. Like many of us, C.T. Vivian and John Lewis participated in a movement -- a protest -- and it changed their lives forever. For C.T. Vivian and John Lewis, a jail cell was as familiar as a police officer's baton. For their huma...

I was so very sad to hear that the artist Christo has died at the age of 84. I felt so incredibly fortunate to still be living in NYC when The Gates was there. I went through the entire installation multiple times, when very few people were there -- once in the snow, and once when Christo and Jeanne-Claude were walking through. I have tons of photos... but they're all on film and in prints! Of course Christo and Jeanne-Claude were much more than The Gates! But that is where my life intersected with their art, and I'm very grateful for it. Christo was such a giving and expansive artist. There will never be another. Our autographed poster from The Gates

We activists like to paraphrase the legendary labour activist Joe Hill  by saying "First mourn, then organize". Larry Kramer, who died yesterday at the age of 84, defined the phrase. He taught a generation -- he taught an entire culture -- how to use grief as fuel, how to channel anger into action. How to use a nearly constant state of mourning to propel an entire movement into the next phase of liberation. As if that wasn't enough, Kramer was a talented and powerful writer. Kramer's play "The Normal Heart" broke new ground in the New York theatre landscape. He also wrote the film adaptation . If you haven't seen it, you should: it's great . The obituaries will tell you Kramer was a provocateur, that he understood how to use shock power to gain attention for his cause. That is true. But his cause was always the greater good -- health, justice, love, liberation. He understood those as necessary and inextricable. The obituaries will also tell you how p...

I was so shocked and saddened to learn of Toni Morrison's death. I've been reading her work since a university creative writing teacher recommended The Bluest Eye in 1979. I've read all her novels. Although Beloved is her masterpiece, most of her work is phenomenal, and every book is worth reading. Morrison's work is a window into the African American experience. But what sets Morrison apart is her language. The New York Times obituary mentions: Ms. Morrison animated that reality in a style resembling that of no other writer in English. Her prose, often luminous and incantatory, rings with the cadences of black oral tradition. Her plots are dreamlike and nonlinear, spooling backward and forward in time as though characters bring the entire weight of history to bear on their every act. That's a beautiful description, and it echoes my feeling that Morrison's style was -- literally -- unique. Her work has been compared to that of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, but I h...

Harry Leslie Smith, who sometimes called himself "the world's oldest rebel," died in late November 2018. I was unable to acknowledge his passing on wmtc at the time. Smith, a writer and an activist, was a steadfast critic of neoliberal policies, especially the austerity agenda. He spoke out constantly and consistently for a more generous, more just, and more inclusive society -- in short, for the preservation of social democracy. His obituary in The Guardian quotes him: I am one of the last few remaining voices left from a generation of men and women who built a better society for our children and grandchildren out of the horrors of the second world war, as well as the hunger of the Great Depression. Sadly, that world my generation helped build on a foundation of decency and fair play is being swept away by neoliberalism and the greed of the 1%, which has brought discord around the globe. Today, the western world stands at its most dangerous juncture since the 1930s. Sm...

I was literally reading this article in The New York Times  about Philip Roth when I heard he had died. It's a wonderful story: an 85-year-old celebrated author who has come to the end of his career with no regrets, is grateful to wake up every morning, and is now bingeing on nonfiction to learn more and more about the world. I was so happy for him, experiencing an old age we all deserve, but so many never find. I've read many of Philip Roth's novels, and have many more still to go. He can be a challenging read, sometimes deceptively simple, sometimes confounding, almost always thought-provoking and worthwhile. If you haven't read The Plot Against America , I recommend it highly. To me Roth is best remembered as the author who taught me about the bright line between fiction and autobiography, and that readers would do well to stop conflating the two (although they never will). Critics and readers were obsessed with this question, and seemingly could not see Roth's n...

In late 2015, I blogged about a remarkable documentary: " Call Me Lucky ," about the life and times of Barry Crimmins. Barry died last week at the age of 64. Describing Barry as a comedian somehow seems wrong. He was a social critic who used biting humour and righteous anger to enlighten and to skewer. He was a fierce opponent of any system that furthers war, poverty, and repression, and a stalwart advocate for equality, justice, and peace. He was also a master of wicked one-liners, as his thousands of Twitter followers knew. Barry was in many ways a cynic and a curmudgeon, but that didn't stop him from being an idealist. He constantly called attention to the mistreatment of children, the kind that happens every day in our own communities. Barry went public with his own horrific story of child sexual abuse. In the 1990s, he became an activist against child pornography, after discovering that AOL chat rooms were harboring pedophiles. As Barry often said, "Child por...

Is there a New Yorker alive who hasn't spend time in The Strand? A New York City tourist who didn't thrill to their first visit to The Strand? The man who gave NYC this unique gift died recently at the age of 89. Although his father founded the store, Fred Bass made it the book-lovers' mecca that it came to be. Here you can see the ever-present he outdoor shelves. I won't recount my memories of the hours I've spent in The Strand, because I'm sure they're no different than anyone else's. After we moved to Canada, a wmtc reader told me the store had been ruined. I returned to find an elevator had been installed, and the public washrooms changed from nauseatingly dirty to liveable. There was a cafe, better lighting, and new books, at a discount. Not ruined. Just a bit modernized. The Strand was always  expanding. It was like the expanding universe of books. You might think The Strand contained every homeless book the store took in -- but you'd be wrong....

The death of Tom Petty is terrible, shocking, dare I say heartbreaking news. From the moment I heard those unmistakeable first notes of "American Girl," I was hooked. I was a teenager when Petty first fought the battle to hold down the price of records. (Archival story about that here .) It would be the first of many battles for him, and he was always on the side of the good -- musicians and fans. I didn't like all his music, and disliked some of his biggest hits, but once you saw Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers live, you never forgot them. They were a bar band, writ large -- pared down, straightforward, bash, pop, and plenty of swing. I loved Benmont Tench and Mike Campbell, and the energy between all the performers was electrifying. This is a really sad and unexpected loss. The teenage American girl inside me is devastated.

To mark the death of rock legend Chuck Berry, everyone should watch "Hail Hail Rock 'n' Roll," Taylor Hackford's movie chronicling two concerts that celebrated Berry's 60th birthday. If you want to know what all the fuss is about, if you need historical context to understand what Chuck Berry meant to all of rock, see this movie. Here is Berry and " his band " performing my favourite version of my favourite Chuck Berry song. I'm glad he lived to be an old man, and see his contributions honoured. This obituary by the great music writer Jon Pareles  says it all.

More than any ruler I can think of, Fidel Castro defies our insistence on seeing leaders as solely either good or evil. As this excellent assessment in Social Worker (UK ) puts it, "History must judge him both as the freedom fighter whose defiance humiliated US imperialism and as the ruler of a repressive, unequal society." Castro was an inspiration to freedom fighters the world over, including Nelson Mandela . Mandela, we should remember, was formerly branded as a communist terrorist, and later lionized as a cuddly hero, without having changed his tactics or beliefs. I'm told that coverage of Castro's death by US-based media focused on the celebrations of Miami's Cuban exile community, which is exactly what I'd expect. Remember the images of Arab children celebrating the 9/11 attacks -- images that turned out to be several years old? I don't doubt that wealthy Cubans, whose unchallenged power and prestige was toppled by a socialist revolution, despise the...

Revolutionary thought of the day, from a revolutionary American. Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go ten thousand miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights? No, I am not going ten thousand miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave masters of the darker people the world over. This is the day when such evils must come to an end. I have been warned that to take such a stand would put my prestige in jeopardy and could cause me to lose millions of dollars which should accrue to me as the champion. But I have said it once and I will say it again. The real enemy of my people is right here. I will not disgrace my religion, my people or myself by becoming a tool to enslave those who are fighting for their own justice, freedom and equality… If I thought the war was going to bring freedom and eq...

The world lost two great fighters for peace and justice this past week. Daniel Berrigan was a lifelong peace activist, a man who was ready and willing to put his body and soul on the line. He was a writer, a thinker, a pacifist, an idealist, a pragmatist, and a priest. Berrigan was also a leader, someone who, early on, helped make visible the connections between racism, poverty, war, and capitalism. He became a leading figure in the peace movement during the Vietnam War. Naturally, he was on the FBI's "most wanted" list and served time in prison. Later in his life, Berrigan founded the Plowshares Movement , which used daring acts of civil disobedience to draw a spotlight on the US's nuclear arsenal. Here are two pieces from The New Yorker  celebrating Berrigan. James Carroll remembers his "dangerous friend". Eric Schlosser remembers how "a handful of a handful of pacifists and nuns exposed the vulnerability of America’s nuclear-weapons sites": Bre...

When this came out, I hung the cover on my bedroom wall.   Sharing memories of David Bowie, as so many of us were after his too-early death this week, led me to think a lot about the world I lived in when I was a big Bowie fan. My world then I saw Bowie in concert in 1976, after the " Station to Station " album came out. I was a few months shy of my 15th birthday. I had a picture of him on my wall, a magazine cover with a green background. I had assumed it was the cover of Time , but a Google image search quickly revealed it was People . No one in my family read People , which means I bought the magazine for the Bowie story and photos. Although I can't remember anything specific, I know I would have cut out, read, and saved anything about the new album and the tour from Rolling Stone  (still an actual rock music magazine), The New York Times , and Time , because I subscribed to RS and my parents subscribed to the others. In those days, we searched for images and stories a...