Stronger at the Broken Places

photo: Amy Campbell

A volunteer ambulance driver, injured in the first world war, writes: “The world breaks everyone, and afterward many are strong at the broken places” (Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms). 

world cracks us open

our broken places will heal

stronger than before

As corporate legacy media earns plummeting grades in truth telling, independent media flourishes.  Without financial investors and people-powered by their subscribers, independent news sources win scads of new readers.  Two stars showcase the leaping and bounding rise of progressive, pro-democracy journalism.   

Count on daily correspondence from Boston College’s Heather Cox Richardson.  Since 2019 she’s written “Letters from an American” to millions of her subscribers.  Professor Richardson reports current events in a simple and engaging style.  She delivers a hefty amount of crucial information without drama, lists her sources, and offers an herstorian’s wide viewfinder.  Take a look at January 14, 2025—a letter-writer caffeinates her readers.  And for a love letter, follow along as she captures one hundred years in the life of a Georgia peanut farmer.

Ann Telnaes, former Washington Post editorial cartoonist, resigns over the corporate decision not to print her cartoon satirizing, among others, the Post’s owner.  “Democracy can’t function without a free press,” Telnaes headlines her announcement.  Other cartoonists celebrate the “killed cartoon” with their own spanking riffs.  She sketches her praise of “opinion art” on the ten-year anniversary of the murders of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo journalists: “Can’t silence voices who speak out against autocratic politicians.”     

Speaking in 2006 at Virginia Tech, Nikki Giovanni sings in chorus with Telnaes: “We can never let words be silenced.  We can never let words be taken away from us.  We can never let people, because they don’t like what we’re saying, shut us up.  Words are the most important things that human beings have.”  Snuggle into the warmth of Giovanni’s “Winter Poem.”  Loving the first snowflake fallen on her brow, she kisses one after another.  A few squeezes and the flakes become “a spring rain and i stood perfectly / still and was a flower.”    

When Lucille Clifton asks, “won’t you celebrate with me,” we answer yes.  What does this Black woman decide when she finds no model for how to create her life?  “what did i see but to be myself?” she responds.  The poet fastens her hands and makes her life of “starshine and clay.”  What does a boy from the staunchly-segregated south long to do before he dies?  Jimmy Carter casts his ballot for Kamala Harris.  Won’t you celebrate the 39th president with me?

Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg says about a Sunday School teacher who won the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize: “President Jimmy Carter’s leadership, intellect, and moral example ennobled our country, during and ever since his presidency….  There will never be another, but his life and example will continue to make the world a better place for generations to come.”  The first president born in a hospital—a young child schooled in the Depression.    

Watch Vice President Kamala Harris’s eulogy for President Carter “on behalf of the American people.”  The slow cadence of her reverent delivery—the heightened emotion in her dignified composure.  Harris recalls during her middle school years her mother’s excitement about voting for Carter.  How far ahead of his time, this president from 1977-81: protections for the environment…expansion of national parks…appointment to the federal judiciary of twice as many Blacks and five times as many women as all of his predecessors combined…establishment of the Department of Energy in 1977 and FEMA and the Department of Education in 1979.  This “gifted man who also walks with humility, modesty, and grace” stays in supporters’ homes when campaigning.

For four decades after he left the White House, Carter offers us a “a new model for a former president.”  He founds the Carter Center in 1982, home base for global efforts in promoting public health, advocating for peace, and securing democracy.  This toolbelted carpenter rides the bus for Habitat for Humanity projects, once giving his private room to newlyweds and sleeping on the church basement floor with other volunteers.  He labors in local villages to eradicate Africa’s guinea worm plague, crediting local field workers for the project’s success. 

Vice President Harris begins her eulogy with this line from a favorite hymn: “May the works I have done speak for me.”  Yes, she concludes her tribute, his works will speak long and clear.  “May his life be a lesson for the ages and a beacon for the future.”    

A couple of tales from the Carter White House rooftop.  This energy policy initiator installs solar panels (1977!) that were quickly removed by his successor.  Sadly symbolic—awfully prophetic.  Willie Nelson regularly plays for his longtime friend’s presidential campaigns, his Nobel Prize party, at his home in Plains.  Let’s tag along with Willie as Jimmy’s son Chip escorts him on a White House tour, from the basement bowling alley to the stunning rooftop panorama.  While the outlaw country musician claims in his autobiography that while admiring the DC grid he smoked weed with a staff member, it’s Chip’s dad who corrects him.    

little light music

for heavy January

thanks peanut farmer

Bluebirds and rolling river lullabies drop first from Carter’s playlist.  “You’re my Blue Sky, you’re my sunny day,” rejoice members of the Allman Brothers Blues Band, featuring songwriter and guitarist Dickie Betts.  Hailing from Macon, Georgia, the Allman Brothers perform benefit concerts in 1975 for music-loving candidate Carter and then at the White House.  “Early morning sunshine / tell me all I need to know.” 

Two duets in perfect union.  For both Willie Nelson and Ray Charles, a sweet song keeps “Georgia on My Mind.”  Old friends smiling, piano and guitar chatting.  “Still in peaceful dreams I see / the road leads back to you.” 

Carter White House performers, Rooftop Willie and Paul Simon, sing and strum that they’re “Homeward Bound.”  Stronger at the broken places.  “Home where my love lies waitin’ / silently for me.”  Love seals cracks.  See you.     

nineteen ninety-five

Atlanta World Series game

look at this first pitch