BEN QUICK: Author, Son of Viet Nam Veteran, Father of Part-Time Indian

Take a walk with me through Kolkata (in photos)

Ben Quick — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 08:17:13 +0000

Maybe someday in real life, but for now...just photos. You probably wouldn't want to walk with me through Kolkata in person right now. It is so very hot here. (Think Nashville on the hottest day in August. Very hot & humid. You can't go anywhere without sweating. You can't sit still without sweating.) It is so hot, that it is difficult to even think.

My 66-th Birthday!

Ben Quick — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 20:53:59 +0000

Reblogged from cancerkillingrecipe:

It's my Birthday again! Happy Birthday to me!
A year ago I have published "My 65-th Birthday" post on April 6-th. But my Birthday is on April 4-th. It took me two days to post it. :) !!! My apology.
So here is my Birthday again and I'm alive, happy and very proud of myself that I have survived other 365 days, or 8.760 hours, or many, many minutes.

You Buy This Book! Or Else!

Ben Quick — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 08:15:42 +0000

Aisha’s essay collection, The Fluency of Light: Coming of Age in a Theater of Black and White, was published by theUniversity of Iowa Press in March of 2013. Order here.

One of the most original, startling memoirs I have seen in the past ten years, Sabatini Sloan’s The Fluency of Lightcharts an entirely fresh course through the tangled territory of race and class in modern-day America. Each page offers fresh insight, unexpected information, crystal-clear thinking on the current cultural moment—a nation about to turn more brown than white, more mixed than ‘pure.’

—Dinty W. Moore

Filed under: Arizona, literature, memoir, Tucson Tagged: Aisha Sloan, biracial, Detroit, fathers, Lester Sloan, Los Angeles, race, University of Arizona

From The Prospect: Smith’s Unsisterly Move @Jaclyn Friedman April 4, 2013

Ben Quick — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 00:48:38 +0000

……………I have to admit I’m not sure how to feel about an all-women’s college in 2013 period.

Smith’s Unsisterly Move.

Calliope Wong isn’t woman enough for Smith College. At least that’s what Smith’s admissions office has decided.

Wong is a charming, smart teenager with a strong writing voice who calls Smith, an all-women’s college in Northampton, Massachusetts, her “dream college.” She’s also transgender. Last summer, she reached out to Smith to see if her application would be welcome. After some back-and-forth, Smith’s dean of admissions, Debra Shaver, told Wong that she was welcome to apply as long as she checked the “female” box on her application and explained her situation in the Additional Information section of the application. Yet on March 10, Smith returned Wong’s application unconsidered, citing her gender as the reason.

Filed under: education, Gender, Tucson Tagged: college, discrimination, segregation, smith, smithcollege, transgender

Obama: "Tears aren't enough."

Ben Quick — Sat, 30 Mar 2013 05:55:11 +0000

Reblogged from Emily L. Hauser - In My Head:

Update: As of Tuesday, April 2, the number of Americans fatally shot since the Newtown massacre has risen to 3,292; that's 239 additional deaths since the President spoke on the issue last week , and it includes 4 year old Rahquel Carr, shot in Miami-Dade in a parked car. For details on those statistics, please go to Slate; for Rahquel's story, …