by Karen Warinsky I type “Is Bisan” in the search bar and the next two words appear automatically with their furtive question mark, “still alive?”   Bisan, a Palestinian journalist popped into my Facebook feed one morning during this latest Mideast roil, her fresh, round face full of promise  her troubled brown eyes alert as she posted cell phone videos of the wreckage of Palestine, the slaughter of the people. The videos are raw, wound the eyes, sear the soul. She posts each time she must flee, relocate, so many displacements now she’s lost count. One day she shows us her favo ..read more

by Kelley White Philadelphia toddler dies after shooting herself in the eye with father’s unsecured gun: police. —New York Post, April 8, 2024 But I don’t want to give her name or the specifics of her case. I don’t want to invade her family’s privacy. They have already suffered more than I can imagine. Worse, I’m a grandmother, I can imagine it. Have imagined it. Have seen other children  shot. So many. Too many. I will not list their names or ages only, imagine, this one shot by his brother over a video game, this one shot by his friend during a game of spin-the-bottle ..read more

by Ilene Millman Bloom summoned by spring rains  has summoned her—  she stands on her patio square     stretching up in her sleepy gray sweats,  morning sun slowly climbing the arc of sky.  From where she stands, all rosy     blossoms up and down the redbud  like pink freckles  on tanned arms     the woman watches  the sun curve  up around the tree’s branches      like a playful kitten,  and at the touchy tips  she sees tiny heart-shaped leaves     almost tran ..read more

by Alice Sims-Gunzenhauser in memoriam: Faith Ringgold, October 8, 1930 - April 13, 2024 Part I, #4: Sunflowers Quilting Bee at Arles by Faith Ringgold We sit among the adult audience, you with your pigtail I with my arm around you.  Her new French Collection, placing African American figures in  white European bastions of art within her glorious quilts disconcerting one or two of the art historians present.   When it is time for questions she calls on you first of all from among the many raised hands. You ask why she decided  to ..read more

by Mark Svendsen for the children PBS, March 8, 2024 Standing at the crossroads, black with traffic Waiting for the little green man to tell me I could go When a child, quick as a nightmare, broke from its mother’s hand Ran beside me, looking back at her, shrieking, into the road. Without thought I dived, catching at the child Bringing it to me and to its mother, Just as you in my place would have done. Sometimes, my people, your child becomes my child Your love becomes my love Your blood is mine. But now! What are we thinking now, my people? For years the children have played ..read more

by Lavinia Kumar The first parents convicted in a U.S. mass school shooting were sentenced to at least 10 years in prison Tuesday as a Michigan judge lamented missed opportunities that could have prevented their teenage son from possessing a gun and killing four students in 2021. —AP, April 10, 2024 The judge says,  These convictions confirm  repeated acts, or lack of acts,  that could have halted  an oncoming runaway train— the parents who’d purchased the weapon,  the unstable son who had killed with the weapon,   the genocide in Gaza the US and UK giving ..read more

by Matthew E. Henry State police in Massachusetts have begun implementing a program to improve interactions with people on the autism spectrum, building upon legislation that won Senate approval in January and remains before a House committee. —WBUR, April 10, 2024 the purpose: to support drivers with autism spectrum disorders  during traffic stops. to ensure more sensitive communication by law enforcement, drivers with ASD will hand a blue-backed  envelope containing their license, registration, and a checklist  of tips for the officer(s) on scene.   as a ..read more

by Lynn White Source: The Guardian When will we count the dead in Gaza? Those buried in named graves we know,  all the tens of thousands of them, those buried in the rubble, the disappeared  with no one left to name them, are still unknown uncounted. Then the other Disappeared, prisoners of war if it were a war, but with only the rights of terrorists who have no rights at all in this unequal conflict that some call ‘war’. And how can we count the injured in Gaza when there are no hospitals left and its people don’t count so no one can count those numbers. and perhaps ..read more

by Adele Evershed In the quiet of a collective breath-holding / Ladies Night / accidentally played on the radio / so an Israeli spokesman / delivered words / about exacting a price from Iran / to the throb of a disco beat  I listened to the ballistic bass / and retorting trumpets / cut with words of war / as if this was a movie / the music an ironic middle finger / to the inevitability / of the end of the world / and it seemed like another sign / in a week of medieval omen  After / the BBC made no mention of their mistake / Johnnie Walker just played the song / so we could all ..read more

by Susan Vespoli My dead son was in the car  with me as I drove to the lawyer’s office to pick up my net-settlement check and we drove past a laughing-Buddha chihuahua  running against traffic down the center of Dunlap   and we drove through a split of mountain crags  and we drove past a guy twirling and tossing a red-arrow  sign at an intersection and my heart and gut felt on fire  with raw grief and I said, “Well, here we are, Adam,”    meaning the end of the lawsuit  and even as I wanted to sob and flail I could feel him smiling beside me ..read more