The Sixties

50 & 60 years later

By Ed Rogers

[10 years ago (on April 2, 2013), Ed Rogers remembered the Sixties. This re-run of his “Tuesday Voice ‘The Sixties’” gives us [and him] a chance to remember (or imagine) them again: the Vietnam War, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, marijuana….]

Reflecting back on my life, as most of us old farts do, I realized that most people only know about the sixties through history books, newspapers, or bullshit stories that people like me tell. I don’t claim to have been in the belly of the beast, but I had a hold of its tail.

The Parting (a poem)

By Shirley Skufca Hickman

He hands me a form stating:

Permission to withdraw from English 1-A.

His hands are shaking,
and he tries to make a joke.
“I got caught in a draft.”

Side Story: What exactly came of those 1960s protests?

With apologies to the 1961 American
musical romantic drama directed by
Robert Wise & Jerome Robbins

Ed, your “Hippy vs Protester” was great, as always. Have you ever pondered why Richard Nixon might today be considered too liberal to be the Democratic nominee for president, much less be nominated as a Republican? What exactly happened to all that positive liberal change the 1960s protests were supposed to bring to this country? —Paul Clark

Reply by Ed Rogers

Hippy vs Protester

Let’s get something straight

By Ed Rogers

Reading Chuck Smythe’s story “A Creek Runs through It” the other day brought back to mind the misconception that we were all hippies back in the sixties. We had long hair and dressed the same as the hippies, and smoked the same weed and listened to the same music as the hippies. However, we were as different as night and day.

Book Review: A Slipknot into Somewhere Else

Poet Michael H. Brownstein’s “Journey to the Borderlands of Dementia”

By Moristotle

A lot of books are easier to read and review than Michael H. Brownstein’s A Slipknot into Somewhere Else. Maybe most books. Some of the poems in this collection, on their first reading, seem to be only just begun and not yet fully formed or developed, as though an early draft had made it to press by mistake. But read them again.
    For that first impression of “undeveloped” is when the work of reading begins, and – if you enjoy the intellectual and emotional challenge of reading difficult poems whose author you trust – the pleasure of discovery also begins, not only of meanings and associations in the poet’s words, but also of depths and meanings in yourself. This review may be more a report of some of my experiences reading the book than a critical appraisal of it (that, fortunately for me, is one definition of “review”). Other readers will have their own experiences.

Movie Review: The Post

The war goes on

By Jonathan Price

Perhaps it’s just my imagination or prejudices, but it seems to me an inordinate number of recent feature films – supposedly a form of film fiction, and hopefully art forms in themselves – are either infinite sequels of mildly successful previous films, or retellings of actual events (history or news in some sense). What’s missing, more frequently than before, are fiction films that create characters that probe deeply into what’s behind history or human character or behavior. I suppose to some extent, this is a false dichotomy, and there have been very good films made from actual historical events: I could mention, e.g., Patton. But when I go through my deep mental catalog of great intriguing films, they are nearly all fiction films, even if their origins are murky or dubious or quasi-historical: The Rules of the Game, Shoot the Piano Player, Citizen Kane, The Godfather, McCabe and Mrs. Miller. This is a brief list, but for me it seems representative.

On fanciful ideas

Reflections over the kitchen sink

By Moristotle

Spellbound at its revelations, my wife and I have been watching Ken Burns’s Vietnam War. Watching it is tearing at my heart, and hers too, I think. The war’s stupidity, our leaders’ pathological need to “save face,” the hundreds of thousands of deaths, square miles of beautiful land burned and bombed, the angst of soldiers, their families, their fellow citizens torn asunder by opposed stances on the war….

Correspondence: Nightmares

“The Nightmare,” by Henry Fuseli

Edited by Moristotle

I had an election nightmare last night . It was November 8, 2016, and recent polls showed that American voters preferred Hillary Clinton to Donald Trump, 67% to 29%, with 4% undecided.

What is really behind the Trump phenomenon?

By Bob Boldt

As early as 1968 I witnessed the death of Liberalism when I saw the Democrats ignore the strong voices of dissent against the Vietnam War and proceed with a war agenda that was as foolish as it was doomed. The irony of the situation was that the nominee that year, Hubert Humphrey, could have successfully come out against the very war the Johnson administration had been so vigorously losing. More bizarre still, President Johnson knew that Nixon and Kissinger could have well been charged with treason for their private negotiations with the South Vietnam delegation to the Paris peace talks [see “George Will Confirms Nixon's Vietnam Treason,” August 12, 2014].

Tuesday Voice: A great privilege

Dick Gregory as pictured in announcement
of January 2015 talk at Lincoln University

To have covered 
Dick Gregory

By Bob Boldt

Shortly before Thanksgiving 1967, I filmed comedian and peace activist Dick Gregory's announcement in Chicago of a fast to oppose the Vietnam War. The Chicago Tribune announced on November 23, 1967: