Sunday, May 6, 2012
Iphones, ipads, ipods & Thoreau
Dr. Larry Skogen
Facilitator: Janelle Masters
In the mid-nineteenth century, Thoreau “went to the woods” because he wanted to “live deliberately” and “suck out all the marrow of life.” He said he did it because he didn’t want to come to the end of his life to discover that he had “not lived.” Is Thoreau’s experiment replicable in the twenty-first century where omnipresent iConnectors keep us plugged in to a global network of communications and information? And is there anything we can learn from this experiment that matters in this century?
Tag Archives: Karen Van Fossan
Unitarian Universalists to Host Programs in May
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Posted in Community, Current Affairs
Tagged Bismarck, Colleen Reinke, Dr. Larry Skogen, Event, Ipads, Iphones, Ipods, Janell Cole, Janelle Masters, Karen Van Fossan, May, North Dakota, Rev. Willaim Ballou, Thoreau, Unitarian, Universalists
Sticky and Confusing
By Karen Van Fossan
Here I sit on the east-bound Empire Builder, next to a scowling woman whose duffel bag is enjoying an angry portion of my foot space. She pretended to be asleep across two entire seats – hers and potentially mine – before I politely exclaimed, “Excuse me,” and claimed one of the only available seats in this crowded train car. I could have chosen a place by any number of groggy men; I could have awakened other disingenuous female sleepers. But this one I chose simply because her face wasn’t hidden behind one of those popular blankets with the tassels tied together. Continue reading
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Posted in Columnists, Karen Van Fossan
Tagged Amtrak, column, flatbread, food, GRE, Karen Van Fossan, lefse, Norwegian, potatoes, prose-poetry
Spelling I-D-E-N-T-I-T-Y
An energetic and organized person somewhere has probably spelled out the nearly infinite ways children can spend the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day: sledding, ice skating, playing with favorite toys, taunting brothers and sisters.
Somewhere, toward the end of the list, would be this:
“Trying to find healing and hope in a restrictive residential treatment program for children who, with rare exception, have experienced severe abuse and neglect.” Continue reading
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Posted in Columnists, Karen Van Fossan
Tagged Abuse, arts, children, family, holidays, identity, Karen Van Fossan, Neglect, residential treatment facility