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Add to My Group(s)
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By Mike Palecek (about the author)
Become a Fan -- Page 2 of 5 page(s)
We know we should do more and so does Mickey Z.
He tells us.
His lists are subtle switchblades into our stomachs as we carry our "Support The Troops" signs, laughing, pushing the pink and mauve triple-wide strollers, lapping kiwi-raspberry ice cream, on the lunch-hour protest that could not happen any other time because we have stuff to do.
"There are kids dying," Mickey stabs us in the stomach with his face in our face, twisting the knife, stepping back so not to get the slimey liberal guts and goo on his tennis shoes.
While we are a part of the painting, the living, moving painting of the sort that line the halls of Hogwarts we cannot see ourselves. Mickey holds up the mirror and shouts, "Look!"
Mickey Z has all the right friends: Arundhati Roy, Ward Churchill, Bill Hicks, Charles Bukowski.
And all the right enemies.
His lists are subtle daggers that skewer tepid types needing skewering: Nation Magazine, Democrats, liberals, legal protests, liberals, Democrats.
Mickey cares.
How did we produce such a person? That is not what we are set up to do. He is a being the sorters missed. He has escaped. He is free. He runs with the hunted, as Bukowski might say.
Good company.
Fr. Darrell Rupiper is a friend of mine. He is from Iowa, now lives in Chicago. He served as a missionary in Brazil working with the poorest of the poor. He went to Iran in the '70s with a group of clerics to try to free the hostages. He also went to prison for fighting the United States military.
Now he travels everywhere trying to get people to do something about the environment, about global warming. He says nothing could be more important or more urgent.
He asked me to join him. I said, I dunno, not today, maybe tomorrow. I've got stuff to do.
Mickey Z and Darrell cry for the planet. They point and grab our jackets and try to show us where to look.
We look and with the clicker in our hand also point and click and try to change the channel.
Become a Fan -- Page 2 of 5 page(s)
He tells us.
His lists are subtle switchblades into our stomachs as we carry our "Support The Troops" signs, laughing, pushing the pink and mauve triple-wide strollers, lapping kiwi-raspberry ice cream, on the lunch-hour protest that could not happen any other time because we have stuff to do.
"There are kids dying," Mickey stabs us in the stomach with his face in our face, twisting the knife, stepping back so not to get the slimey liberal guts and goo on his tennis shoes.
While we are a part of the painting, the living, moving painting of the sort that line the halls of Hogwarts we cannot see ourselves. Mickey holds up the mirror and shouts, "Look!"
Mickey Z has all the right friends: Arundhati Roy, Ward Churchill, Bill Hicks, Charles Bukowski.
And all the right enemies.
His lists are subtle daggers that skewer tepid types needing skewering: Nation Magazine, Democrats, liberals, legal protests, liberals, Democrats.
Mickey cares.
How did we produce such a person? That is not what we are set up to do. He is a being the sorters missed. He has escaped. He is free. He runs with the hunted, as Bukowski might say.
Good company.
Fr. Darrell Rupiper is a friend of mine. He is from Iowa, now lives in Chicago. He served as a missionary in Brazil working with the poorest of the poor. He went to Iran in the '70s with a group of clerics to try to free the hostages. He also went to prison for fighting the United States military.
Now he travels everywhere trying to get people to do something about the environment, about global warming. He says nothing could be more important or more urgent.
He asked me to join him. I said, I dunno, not today, maybe tomorrow. I've got stuff to do.
Mickey Z and Darrell cry for the planet. They point and grab our jackets and try to show us where to look.
We look and with the clicker in our hand also point and click and try to change the channel.
www.mikepalecek.com
Author, former peace prisoner, journalist, candidate.
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author
and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.
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