More clearing out of my backlog of things I wanted to comment on … the backblog, if you will:
Frederick Clarkson points us to the Commencement address at Oberlin College by William Schultz, class of ’71 and Executive Director of Amnesty International USA. (Full disclosure: I’m an Oberlin grad myself.) This is a guy who has seen up-close and dealt with the worst possible things human beings can do to each other.
I’ve excerpted it below as a tease, but it really only makes sense as a whole. Here’s the whole thing: I think I will keep it close for hard times that we have and those that may come.
I have never been tortured nor had my arm amputated but I know of plenty of people who have and I am compelled to make a metaphorical leap from my own trivial sufferings into those of the hearts of strangers. And what I find there is astonishing: what I find is familiarity. Familiar hearts. Of every stranger. Foe or friend. Ally or adversary…
And here are the responses at Kos.
Darn – I had hoped that “backblog” was a neologism for which Blue Mass. Group could take credit. But no such luck.