Of all the thinkers of this century, Howard Zinn persists in my mind as one of the most lucid, influential, brazen and just plain full of chutzpah. In fact, he was the very best kind of thinker, because he was also a doer: an intellectual and activist, a prolific writer and speaker, a teacher. Today, I told The Husband that with Zinn’s passing I feel more committed than ever to making a difference. Is it any coincidence that Zinn came to rest as Obama prepared to deliver the State of the Union address, sounding to my ears like nothing less than a Republican, full of bombast, talk of taxes, and rhetoric? Or that JD Salinger found his own peace just a day later? In some moments, the world comes full circle, and we can only stand back as we try to make sense of its simultaneous beauty and loss.
This Lovely Life
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Gravity Pulls You In
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Comments 6
You said it.
xo~
Posted 29 Jan 2010 at 10:49 pm ¶Thank you for posting this, Vicki — it brings tears to my eyes of gratefulness.
Posted 29 Jan 2010 at 10:52 pm ¶‘it is the great challenge of our time – how to achieve justice, but without war.’
this resonates in so very many ways right now – the literal and the metaphorical – the global and the most dearly personal.
thank you for sharing, vicki. may he rest in the peace he sought.
Posted 30 Jan 2010 at 3:25 am ¶Hey Vicki,
great post! thank you. Howard Zinn is our hero and i love what you wrote about being inspired, we feel the same. i was deeply saddened by his passing but what a life!!!!
Posted 02 Feb 2010 at 3:59 pm ¶Thanks, Vicki–for this tribute to a true hero–
I hadn’t seen this particular one. I’ll never forget the day I opened and began to read The People’s History–my life changed forever.
Posted 06 Feb 2010 at 5:37 pm ¶Totally agreed.
Posted 28 Mar 2010 at 12:18 am ¶Post a Comment