In my last paid job, at a Quaker peace project next to an enormous military base during the height (or better, the depths) of the Iraq-Afghan wars, I spent a lot of time looking for spiritual resources for that work, and the life that went with the job. For a long time it seemed pretty hard to find any.
Staughton Lynd, a historian and lawyer who over a long and varied career organized schools for Black children in Mississippi, led antiwar protests in Washington and fought for labor rights in the industrial Midwest, died on Thursday in the town of Warren, in northeast Ohio. He was 92.
Ned Rorem, Pulitzer-winning composer and noted diarist, dies at 99 Washington Post — (AP) By Tim Page — November 18, 2022 He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1976 for his orchestral suite ‘Air Music.’ His diaries offered a ‘worldly, intelligent, licentious, highly indiscreet’ entree into elite gay and artistic circles. Composer and author Ned Rorem won the … Continue reading Noted Quaker Atheist Dies in New York; Also Kept Diary, & Was A Composer
NOTE/Confession: Halfway through reading the “Explainer” piece below, a suppressed memory broke through the mind fog: that of my own drag experience; and yes, bowing to the current fashion, I’m going to spill the sordid details right here. It was around 1990, on or about what the world calls Halloween, at a Friends meeting near … Continue reading My Drag Confession, And An “Explainer”
NOTE: Besides being a columnist for the New York Times, John McWhorter is also a professor of linguistics, and a survivor of some years in a Friends school. He also publishes an online “newsletter,” in which these observations appeared for thy edification. Why doesn’t English have a plural ‘you’? By John McWhorter Fish don’t know … Continue reading Why No Plural “You” in English? Blame It On Quakers?? John McWhorter Says No, Y’all . . .