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Food for Thought

Vol. 1, No. 4--Post-Election, 2004

G. H. LEWES (19th c. Psychologist)
"The only cure for grief is action."

MARGARET MEAD (20th c. anthropologist)
"Never forget that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed it's the only thing that ever has."

THOMAS JEFFERSON
"A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt......If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost. For this is a game where principles are at stake."

FLORYNCE RAE KENNEDY (20th c. Activist and Lawyer)
"The greatest sin is sitting on your ass."

The Biographies of Solitude
by Irving Feldman

Blue the hills, red the fields,
where the kisses and blows were dealt...
How eager they were, marching away,
enlistees in the horde of love.
Farewell the sweethearts
They never came back.
Welcome, sisters of solitude.
And who will say these lives have been?
Solitude has no biographers.
Nonetheless, hands move across the pages.
Nonetheless, empty pages go from hand to hand.
Nonetheless, papers blow over the landscape
of magical names, the beautiful promises.
One in in snowy Idaho, raging.
One in California sits before her mirror,
considering death.
One takes hot baths in Tennessee,
to calm herself, calm herself down.
In Kansas one scribbles madly.
One walks in a daze in the crowds
on Forty-second Street, barefoot,
her feet bruised, day after day.
In the hospital of the wind.
What the flood has spared is given
into the keeping of the whirlwind.
Day after day the wind
numbering the losses...
"From now on I will love only myself."
"I no longer try to make sense to people."
"It's all a game anyway."
"Back then I still had my ideals.
No sacrifice was too much for me.
I was strong. I felt everything."
"I don't even pity myself anymore."
They bite their lips.
Shrug their shoulders.
"What is there left to protect?"
"Who can you trust?"
How America is immense and filled with solitudes!

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