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"Branfman, Fred"
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Voices from the Plain of Jars
During the Vietnam War the United States government waged a massive, secret air war in neighboring Laos. Two million tons of bombs were dropped on one million people. Fred Branfman, an educational advisor living in Laos at the time, interviewed over 1,000 Laotian survivors. Shocked by what he heard and saw, he urged them to record their experiences in essays, poems, and pictures.
Voices from the Plain of Jars was the result of that effort. When first published in 1972, this book was instrumental in exposing the bombing. In this expanded edition, Branfman follows the story forward in time, describing the hardships that Laotians faced after the war when they returned to find their farm fields littered with cluster munitions—explosives that continue to maim and kill today.
eBook
Living Life By Embracing Death; WILL THE CIRCLE BE UNBROKEN? Reflections on Death, Rebirth, and Hunger for a Faith; By Studs Terkel ;The New Press: 408 pp., $25.95 ;TALKING ABOUT DEATH WON'T KILL YOU; By Virginia Morris; Workman Publishing: 320 pp., $22.95
As the candle burns brightest in the darkness, so too is life most fully lived with a day-to-day awareness of death. We spend much of our lives seeking happiness, satisfaction and meaning, imagining that they can best be found by ignoring our feelings about our own mortality. But there is a surprising amount of evidence, including new books by Studs Terkel and Virginia Morris, that few experiences can confer a greater sense of the preciousness of life, profound love, compassion and a sense of the spiritual than openly engaging our feelings about the fact that we will one day die. It is not easy to do so. But we may discover our full potential for life only if we are also willing to face our anguish about its ending. If a wide variety of existential psychologists and thinkers are right, however, we lead far more deadened lives than we realize when we deny our deepest feelings about death. We devote much psychic energy to death-denial, reducing our aliveness. We cut off feelings for loved ones out of an unconscious fear of losing them. Unconsciously wishing to live on through our children, we often punish them when they do not turn out as we wish. Turning religion or nationalism into projects to achieve immortality often leads to violent consequences, as we have just so tragically witnessed. Others were similarly transformed by facing death. Dr. John Barrett's daily exposure to death made him worry less about the trivial things in life like his car breaking down. Filmmaker Haskell Wexler spoke of how being in his late 70s has led him to value personal relations more than his work. Comedian Mick Betancourt said that becoming aware of life's brevity has led him to take greater risks with his career. Most of Terkel's interviewees also report that they do not fear death. Many base this on deep religious or spiritual beliefs that convince them that death is not the end. Even a nonbeliever like Kurt Vonnegut Jr. takes a matter-of-fact attitude: \"In 'Slaughterhouse-Five,' every time somebody dies ... I always say: 'So it goes'--that's all. Whenever anybody had died-- and this would be my sister, my brother, my father, my mother, and I was nearby for those events--that's how I felt...\"
Newspaper Article
Don't look for quick fixes to marriage woes
His ideas -- that success in marriage often requires changing oneself at a cost of emotional pain; that spouses must respect each other's personal, professional, and sexual rights and boundaries; that maintaining a marriage by way of \"emotional bondage\" is more tragic than ending it -- have gained currency in the rush to save the institution. Call it a backlash -- the slow but steady tack is back in grace. A: We all protect ourselves from the pain of separation anxiety and death anxiety, the ultimate separation. We unconsciously withhold loving feelings from our partners in order to protect ourselves against the pain of their potential loss. But we pay a heavy price by doing so, ultimately developing a reduced level of aliveness -- that is, emotional deadness, a lack of spontaneity, the dulling of interests -- and retreat into an inward posture characterized by a reduction in emotional exchanges. A: Pain. We suffer pain when we are emotionally deprived, beginning in infancy. And we suffer anxiety and deep sadness when we learn of our personal death, often at a far earlier age than most people realize. We develop psychological defenses to protect ourselves against this pain.
Newspaper Article
Long Live Zinn
[...] we had a profound faith in America's goodness and decency. Unlike younger liberal historians such as Michael Lind, who argues that our murder of millions of innocents in Indochina is irrelevant to judging the war since we also killed civilians in World War II, Zinn and Chomsky stand for passionate opposition to the injustice and criminality of murdering civilians-a passion that was kindled for Howard in World War II when, as a bombardier, he realized that he was often bombing the innocent in violation of the laws of war, not out of military necessity but out of inertia and indifference. * Integrity, authenticity, and wholeness.
Magazine Article
On the Death of Jerry Rubin
I had shared Jerry Rubin's rage against the Vietnam War and followed his adventures during the Chicago trial. But I met him only recently, when he volunteered to support our Making a Difference project to help inner-city youth learn how to start their own businesses. He had become a successful entrepreneur with a nutritional...
Newspaper Article
On the Death of Jerry Rubin
I had shared Jerry Rubin's rage against the Vietnam War and followed his adventures during the Chicago trial. But I met him only recently, when he volunteered to support our Making a Difference project to help inner-city youth learn how to start their own businesses. He had become a successful entrepreneur with a nutritional...
Newspaper Article
On the Death of Jerry Rubin
I had shared Jerry Rubin's rage against the Vietnam War and followed his adventures during the Chicago trial. But I met him only recently, when he volunteered to support our Making a Difference project to help inner-city youth learn how to start their own businesses. He had become a successful entrepreneur with a nutritional...
Newspaper Article
On the Death of Jerry Rubin
I had shared Jerry Rubin's rage against the Vietnam War and followed his adventures during the Chicago trial. But I met him only recently, when he volunteered to support our Making a Difference project to help inner-city youth learn how to start their own businesses. He had become a successful entrepreneur with a nutritional...
Newspaper Article