Keep Pope alive: One of 54 Chicago schools on the death list
Filed under: Education, Race and gender, Society and Economy
A cacophony of young voices competed with the low whistle of a cold wind on a gray Chicago spring day as children skipped down the sidewalk in front of Pope Elementary. The school is located across from Douglas Park on Chicago’s West Side in the North Lawndale community. It is also one of the 54 Chicago schools slated for closing. Pope, like most of the schools on the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) death list, is located in a predominantly African American working class neighborhood.
The Lost Woods of Rachel Carson
Filed under: Environment, Global issues
“Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature — the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.” ― Rachel Carson
Rachel Carson had a life-long love affair with nature that was accompanied by a deep and terrible sense of loss because of the human destruction wreaked upon the biosphere. Although Carson’s literary fame is based on only 5 books, she also wrote numerous short pieces during her employment at the US Fish and Wildlife Service, as well as newspaper stories, magazine articles, speeches and personal letters. She was among the finest writers of the 20th century USA.
Her biographer Linda Lear has done a great service by sharing a sample of these virtually unknown Carson writings in the anthology Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson. These give us a glimpse of the living breathing woman behind the environmental icon.