Read also Rohingyas Parts I and II in this blog. The Rohingyas are outcasts, circling out from Myanmar’s borders but staying close, not intermingling or assimilating into neighboring countries, but waiting, suspended like oil in water, until they can return …
Ralph Ellison, author of the week in my Wednesday Writing Group, wrote “King of the Bingo Game” in 1944, eight years before the publication of his monumental novel, Invisible Man. The story was an incubator for many of …
[Please Read Part I...} Buddhists have a reputation for being gentle. I conjure up an image of a meditating monk being harrassed by a fly. It lands on his nose but he maintains his peaceful composure. That's how we think of Buddhists. They wouldn't swat a fly. I've been looking at videos of the massacre. Houses are burning and people are running about trying to get away. There are photos of bodies lying on a beach and horrible living conditions for the homeless Muslim Rohingyas. This isn't how I think of Buddhists. What's wrong? Why do these Buddhists hate these Muslims? Why do the Rakhines hate the Rohingyas? There must be a good reason. What is behind it?
Note: In Burma/Myanmar some names have changed. In this post I will use the term Myanmar instead of Burma, Rakhine as a state name instead of Arakan, and Rohingya instead of Bengali for the Muslim minority living in Rakhine state. …
It was bad timing. I know I should be a good sport. That's what my Dad always said when he made fun of me, that he was just funning. And it was all in fun or I think it was. I mean it was a good joke. Everybody laughed and I laughed too before it hit me that it was a rape joke. On the other hand, it was just a teeny, weeny rape joke. Not bad really. Not insulting or anything. It even took me a minute to realize what was happening but then with this guy — he's a really nice guy by the way. He tells jokes all the time and most of them are funny. Anyway with this guy I often get a funny feeling, a feeling that he's besting me somehow in some strange competition and I don't know the rules. I only learn the rules after I've been bested, after he's won. Won what? I never know. That's why it's so weird. I can't put my finger on it. [Read More...]
It was a sunny day in Jakarta, around the year 1975 when I discovered him. My husband had stopped at a bookstore but there didn’t appear to be any books in English. When I pointed this out he said he …
I’m afraid to talk about the Goddess. God, the big patriarchal male God will strike me down. This depiction of God the Father is from the Sistine Chapel. Doesn’t he look scary? I think he’s telling me (I mean Eve)...
Rikki’s alive. He must be. The morning after I gave up and took down the signs, Petwatch, the microchip company, called to say he had been turned in to the Buncombe County Humane Society. Maybe he really was on someone’s...
Steubenville I’m excited. Brad Pitt, who was such a cutie when he exploded onto the screen in Thelma & Louise in 1991 has become a hero and not only a hero but a White Knight. Last year he produced the...