DerykStauder

  Roots along the Suncook River CC Jean Stimmell � A root is always a discovery. We dream it more than we see it. It surprises us when we discover it:.. The root is the mysterious tree, it is the subterranean, inverted tree. For the root, the darkest earth � like the pond, but without the pond � is also a mirror, a strange opaque mirror that doubles every aerial reality with a subterranean image. By this reverie, the philosopher writing these pages tells clearly in what a superabundance of dark metaphors he may be involved while dreaming of roots...  For me, the tree is an integrating object. It is normally a work of art. Thus, when I managed to confer upon the tree�s aerial psychology the complementary concern with roots, a new life suffused the dreamer in me... To live like a tree! What growth! What depth! What uprightness! What truth! Immediately, within us, we feel the roots working, we feel that the past is not dead, that we have something to do today in our dark, subterr...

  Beautiful, hard-working Pittsfield Jean Stimmell �2013 Ray Duckler recently wrote a disturbing column in the Concord Monitor about Pittsfield, one of NH�s property-poor towns, struggling to provide an adequate education for their kids. He quotes one of Pittsfield�s high school students, who addressed the Senate last summer: �every year, we�re set up to lose more and more, and at some point, there�s just going to be nothing left.� I have many fond memories from attending Pittsfield High School many years ago and received, at that time, an education good enough to get into Columbia. But, over the years, our educational system has become increasingly unequal, hamstringing property-poor towns, increasingly unable to raise enough money to provide quality education, despite paying sky-high property taxes. While it is gratifying that our nation is finally facing up to a history of gross discrimination in many areas like race, gender, and religion, no one talks about class: Class remains...

  My Old Copy Why We Need to be Eternally Vigilant As we slog through the Covid-19 pandemic, Albert Camus�s The Plague is back in the news, a novel about an epidemic spreading across the French Algerian city of Oran.  I have a hard-cover, Modern Library edition, list price $2.95, given to me by my girlfriend when I was in my twenties. At the time, being rash and impetuous, I found the book boring. Now, 50 years later, I have reread it. As a 74-year-old man, my sentiments lie with what Stephen Spender wrote in a New York Times Book Review in 1948, when the book was first published. He would say I had completely missed the point if I expected a flashy, spellbinding novel. According to Spender, The Plague is, first and foremost, a parable and a sermon, � of such importance for our time that to dismiss it in the name of artistic criticism would be to blaspheme against the human spirit.� ?1   It�s a message we desperately need to hear today! At the beginning of Camus�s novel...

  During the drought, the last remaining water hole behind my house "What one does not remember,"  James Baldwin reminds us,  "is the serpent in the garden  of  one's dreams."

 Cannon Beach, OR CC Jean Stimmell I have much in common with Eric Utne: We are both baby boomers with a similar take on life. I was a long-term subscriber to his Utne Reader : A ground-breaking magazine, sometimes described as a Readers Digest for the alternative press; it highlighted a whole range of publications from The Whole Earth Catalog to the East West Journal and writers from Robert Bly to Buckminster Fuller. Not surprisingly, I was excited about reading his new memoir, Far Out  Man. I had another pressing reason to read his book: From what I�d read about Eric, he was an eternal optimist, much like me, but the promo for his new book alleged he had lost hope.  I was eager to see what he had to say because I, too, have lost hope. But, in my case, it hasn�t disappeared, just transformed into something I feel is more meaningful in today�s world. As I found out when I read his book, we are still on the same wavelength: although he articulates his vision more eloque...

Pushing All He Owns     CC Jean Stmmell 2017 in SF Our Freedom Only Extends as Far as Our Possessions Reach Edward Burmila recently wrote an insightful piece in the Nation linking economic status with how free we are: People are only as free as they can afford to be. � For Americans, lacking guaranteed access to basic necessities like housing, food, health care��this is a constant dilemma.� ?1 As a result of stagnant wages coupled with the ever-rising cost of living, working folks are often stuck in stultifying jobs they hate, in order to keep health insurance coverage for their family. Many struggle on a precarious treadmill, living one step from disaster, lacking the savings to pay for even a $400 car repair: if you lose your job, you lose everything. Under these circumstances, it�s not surprising that some Americans cling to the only shard of individualism they have left, even if it is pointless and performative.  Burmila says it is these workers, the ones with di...