Author archive: Linda

Linda’s Favorite Poems — Gerard Manley Hopkins

There are days (too many of them!) when writing is beyond me, but reading, hearing, feeling some of my favorite poems is not. Here is one of the lyrics I have loved, and been profoundly moved by, for decades: The poet is Gerard Manley Hopkins, and I’m using the edition posted by the Bartelby Project….

Fear and Trembling — Panic Attacks and Me

The first time I had a panic attack, I didn’t know what was happening, and neither, it seemed, did anybody else. I felt what folks who suffer from anxiety states and panic attacks will well recognize — that foggy, sticky sense of doom. Mind whirring, heart galloping, palms slick and limbs unsteady — surely I…

Women and HIV-AIDS: Disappointing News

This week’s medical news brought a report about the disappointing results of one of the (thought to be) most promising weapons in the small arsenal against HIV-AIDS: a vaginal gel microbiocide, Carroguard. The gel was being tested in a large-scale trial in South Africa and Botswanna. This clinical trial had been ongoing for three years,…

President Hillary — It’s About Damn Time!

I’ve been following politics more this year than I usually do because I have something huge at stake — the possibility of seeing something I didn’t expect to see in my lifetime: the first female President of the United States. As a child in the 1950s, I briefly believed that I could dream any dream…

J. K. Rowling’s Openhearted World: Dumbledore is Gay

Cheers for J. K. Rowling! The author of the wonderful Harry Potter series has shown courage in her choices before, particularly when assailed by some extreme members of the religious right who burned copies of her novels (shudder) for their supposedly evil influence on our children. No doubt the book-burnings will begin anew now that…

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