The Children Issue
by the Editor
It's a good thing we found someone to cover the #Occupy Movement for EAP just in time for the CHILDREN issue, since if #Occupy is about anything, it's about what kind of a world we're leaving the kids. Mira Allen, a young journalist, volunteered to write her take on it for us, and we think it's one of those pieces you'll want to share, so clear headed and commonsensical as it is. TO #OCCUPY WITH LOVE .
As if that wasn't enough, ASK WENDY is back, with her own take of the responsibility of Fictional Characters and Their Stories to be on side with #Occupy. Tiger Lily reports from Occupy Wall Street.
It surprised me, and cheered me no end, too, to see how many different changes EAPers could ring on the subject of CHILDREN. There's everything from Linda Sandoval's Golden Books , about her own childhood and the people who most affected it, to David Budbill's great two poems, named by us here as Alternative Views of Parenting (one guess which poem was our preferred method).David D. Horowitz contributes one of his precise and 'small' essays. Brian Griffith gives us a few paragraphs about China's Childhood . EAP's favorite writing team, Marie Davis and Margaret J. Hults do it again, writing a story the likes of which no one else would ever have even dreamed, but that still is exactly true, about one of the many ways love can take the young (or the old, for that matter). Graeme Talboys sends a nicely creepy story, Shadows , Mark Saltveit sends an American Koan, which you're going to want to read to your kids (with them, too). And Julie Prince's offering is about toilet training, which made me laugh out loud, why don't we have more stories about that? And who would have ever imagined a Doo Doo Barbie?
A new EAPer, Chad Parmenter, has sent along a book of poems, BAT & MAN , that we'll publish bit by bit. This month, we start with his sonnet sequence that references both Rilke and Batman, in what has to be a brand new partnership arrangement. The subject? Batman and our childhood, of course. (But Rilke fans will notice a lot of homage to the master, as well.)And Alena Deerwater sends a charming love story about…her daughter.
Kelly Reynolds Stewart , who we here at EAP are beginning to think of as our Real Health Correspondent, has done a terrific (and hilarious) job of laying out all the benefits of breastfeeding . And if you want to get totally blown away, and I know you do, please do not miss Mike Madrid's interview in Is Nothing Sacred: The Mu m. How would you find your place and your family's place in the world if your new baby was diagnosed with incurable leukemia? When you looked inside of yourself to see what you really believed in, what would you find? (Also, see if you can read it without wanting to pound the well meaning Buddhist and Christian who told the Mum that it was actually reasonable that her baby was dying. I know I couldn't. In fact, even thinking about it…)
Finally, EAP is based in a small alpine valley in Oregon, and our state representative is a terrific, hard working, articulate guy named Peter Buckley. We always cheer on his newsletters to constituents, but this one, a speech he gave about Rebuilding the Middle Class , was so full of the kind of common sense and reality grounded determined optimism that we at EAP admire, that we asked his permission to reprint it in this issue. Thanks for that, Representative Buckley! (And thanks for helping EAP's local volunteer fire department with that tricky little issue of the railroad's trash that other time.)
We love being in a community. And you can't have a community without children. Not for long anyway. And of course we all agree that when Children grow up, they've got to have good jobs, basic dependable services, health care, and a safe place to live. We do agree on that. Don't we?
Welcome back.