The horrific cases in Ferguson, in Staten Island with the death of Eric Garner, and all across the country serve as stark reminders that we must have a say in who polices us, and how that policing is done. We must, we must, let our voices be heard on Election Day.
We always need little reminders that it's gonna be all good.
My own contentious relationship with gaming continued through high school and college: I still enjoyed playing games from time to time, but I always found myself pushed away by the sexism that permeated gaming culture. There were constant reminders that I didn't really belong.
Under the deluge of minute-to-minute text conversations, emails, relentless exchange of media channels and passwords and apps and reminders and tweets and tags, we lose sight of what all this fuss is supposed to be about in the first place: ourselves.
I spent most of the '60s, when I was starting to try to write novels, living and working in Greece and Turkey. These are countries where the ancient past is interfused with the daily present, and I remember being struck with wonder at the constant sense of continuity and connection, the reminders that lie in wait for you at every turn.
The tragedy of 9/11 and the bloody scrambling-up of the Middle East were painful reminders that the world had not yet reached any end-of-history ideal. But these events mattered less to the assumptions and strategies of huge multinational companies than one might guess.
From behind the Iron Curtain, there are signs that tyranny is in trouble and reminders that its structure is as brittle as its surface is hard.
I am always impressed by interviewers who can do the whole thing without notes. I can't. I need reminders on my knee. Dates, first names, quotes in bold text.
It's too easy to forget bad things. By keeping the reminders close, it's the reminder of not just who you are, but how you became what you are.
Libraries are reservoirs of strength, grace and wit, reminders of order, calm and continuity, lakes of mental energy, neither warm nor cold, light nor dark.
