Tic Toc is a poem written by Zach Bower on his 25th birthday. He was incarcerated and living in the “hole” in Potosi, Missouri. The date was September 26, 2006. Zach is scheduled for release in November 2019.
Melting it fades and drips
comes – goes – and sticks.
Then it just pools
thick – clumped handfuls.
Spit it out! Now!
Explain it how? True!
Why do we allow
this shit to continue?
Because time is golden?
My time was stolen,
or given away??? Continue reading “Tic Toc”
Headlines from the New York Times for Monday, March 12, 2018
The Tipping Equation
At restaurants across America, servers calculate how far is too far, weighing harassing behavior against the tips they need to make a living wage.
The balancing act plays out every day in restaurants across America: Servers who rely on tips decide where to draw the line when a customer goes too far. Continue reading “Newspaper Prayers: Monday, March 12th”
Headlines from the New York Times for Tuesday, March 6, 2018
North Korea Is Willing to Discuss Giving Up Nuclear Weapons, South Says
North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, has told South Korean envoys that his country is willing to begin negotiations with the United States on abandoning its nuclear weapons and that it would suspend all nuclear and missile tests while it is engaged in such talks, South Korean officials said on Tuesday.
During the envoys’ two-day visit to Pyongyang, the North’s capital, which ended on Tuesday, the two Koreas also agreed to hold a summit meeting between Mr. Kim and President Moon Jae-in of South Korea on the countries’ border in late April, Mr. Moon’s office said in a statement. Continue reading “Newspaper Prayers: Tuesday, March 6th”
I want to show through this interview the effects incarceration has on families through the eyes of a child who lived it, over came it and has grown into a young adult. Shayla is my daughter, whom I have not seen since she was 18 months old, due to being imprisoned myself. She is 22 years old and the mother of my granddaughter, Aniha Lee.
Zach – Both your mother and I have been incarcerated for portions of your life. What were some of the hardships you were forced to overcome as a child?
Shayla – I’ve had to grow up not knowing who my father is. I’ve never gotten to see, hug, nor kiss the man who has helped create me. I’ve spent 18 years wondering who he is. Where he is at. How do I find him? Continue reading “Interview at the the Missouri DOC: Zach Bowers”
Headlines from the New York Times for Monday, February 12, 2018
Democrats Can Win on Immigration
To no one’s surprise, President Trump, who has been doubling down on his anti-immigrant rhetoric, used his State of the Union address to draw parallels between the Central American gang MS-13 and law-abiding immigrants in the United States.
The next week, he reiterated that “MS-13 killers” are “pouring into our country.” This kind of language, long a Trump trademark, was used as a political strategy just a few months ago in Virginia during the failed bid of the Republican candidate for governor, Ed Gillespie. It was also on display in the campaign of Kim Guadagno, a Republican who lost the race to replace Chris Christie as governor of New Jersey. Continue reading “Newspaper Prayers: Monday, February 12th”
Headlines from the New York Times for Friday, February 2, 2018
Don’t Believe the Liberal F.B.I.
(This is an excerpt from an editorial by Michelle Goldberg. Note, the man who helped me experience a life-changing relationship with Jesus Christ, was a career F.B.I. agent until retirement.)
In the 1960s and 1970s, the American right set about undermining trust in the mainstream media, which it saw as dangerously infected with liberal assumptions. Later, in debates over evolution and the environment, some on the right attacked the validity of modern science. By the turn of the millennium, it was an article of faith among conservative ideologues that whole realms of human expertise were in fact intricate structures of propaganda that trapped the unwary in a matrix of deceit.
In an invaluable 2017 Vox essay titled “Donald Trump and the Rise of Tribal Epistemology,” David Roberts quoted a 2009 Rush Limbaugh rant: “Science has been corrupted. We know the media has been corrupted for a long time. Academia has been corrupted. None of what they do is real. It’s all lies!” With Trump, this ethos reached the White House. And now, to protect Trump, the right has expanded its war on empiricism to that most conservative of institutions, the F.B.I. Continue reading “Newspaper Prayers: Friday, February 2nd”
Headlines from the New York Times for Thursday, February 1, 2018
As Strongmen Steamroll Their Opponents, Trump is Silent
When it comes to securing a second term in power, Egypt’s president is leaving little to chance.
Potential rivals in the March election have been sidelined, jailed or threatened with prosecution. The news media is largely in his pocket. On polling day, Egyptians will have a choice between President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and one of his most ardent supporters — an obscure politician drafted at the 11th hour to avoid the embarrassment of a one-horse race. Continue reading “Newspaper Prayers: Thursday, February 1st”
