Opinion Forum

Healing from War 2012

May 17th, 2012

By Jan Barry About 100 people turned out for a Saturday night event in April that offered no booze, dancing, live music or political speeches. The attraction was a display of art created from military uniforms and war memories. The event—called Healing from War Through the Arts, at the Puffin Cultural Forum in Teaneck, NJ—featured [...]

Articles written by Jan Barry
Tags: Combat Paper, exhibition, poetry, PTSD, veterans, war, Warrior Writer
Categories: Arts, Life, Military | Comments (0) | Home

Vet Arts Profiled on PBS

May 2nd, 2012

By Jan Barry PBS Newshour ran an unusual program the other night, providing an insightful look at the Combat Paper Project that I’ve been working with for some time. “Finally tonight, transforming the wardrobe of war into art,” PBS Newshour anchor Gwen Ifill said in introducing this report aired on April 30. “In 2007, a [...]

Articles written by Jan Barry
Tags: Afghanistan, combat art, Combat Paper, Iraq, PBS, veterans, vets
Categories: Arts, Military, News | Comments (2) | Home

Government and the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal

April 26th, 2012

By Dan Miller Douglas Adams’ Ravenous Bugblatter Beast is a beacon lighting the way for government. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy clarifies much that would otherwise remain puzzling to sentient beings. With the explanations it provides, even carbon-based, bipedal ape-descended life forms on Earth — who are “so amazingly primitive that they still think [...]

Articles written by Dan Miller
Tags: Afghanistan, apology, bow, Hitchhiker's Guide, Obama, ROE, satire
Categories: Arts, Military, Politics | Comments (0) | Home

A Muse’s Art

February 14th, 2012

By Jan Barry Poets and artists since ancient times have fervently cited or called upon a female Muse for inspiration. Seldom did the Muse speak for herself. This thought arose as I read and reread a privately printed chapbook of poetry by Lovella Calica, the founder and director of Warrior Writers, a notably inspiring creative [...]

Articles written by Jan Barry
Tags: Lovella Calica, poetry, PTSD, veterans, war, Warrior Writers
Categories: Arts, Life, Military | Comments (1) | Home

Merry Christmas!

December 25th, 2011

Articles written by Editor
Tags: Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas
Categories: Arts, Life | Comments (2) | Home

Merry Christmas from Santa and His Chorus!

December 24th, 2011

Articles written by Tom Carter
Tags: Merry Christmas, reindeer, Santa Claus
Categories: Arts, Humor | Comments (0) | Home

Writing the Way Home

December 20th, 2011

By Jan Barry Across America, a special gift is arriving at numerous homes this week. This gift is a new book by Warrior Writers titled After Action Review: A Collection of Writing and Artwork by Veterans of the Global War on Terror. What makes this book decidedly different from so many other gifts this holiday [...]

Articles written by Jan Barry
Tags: After Action Review, photos, poetry, PTSD, veterans, Warrior Writers
Categories: Arts, Life, Military | Comments (1) | Home

Happy Holidays

December 17th, 2011

By Jan Barry

Articles written by Jan Barry
Tags: Afghanistan, Combat Paper Project, Holidays, Iraq, veterans, Vietnam
Categories: Arts | Comments (9) | Home

Christopher Hitchens’ Death and Conservative Blogs

December 16th, 2011

By Dan Miller As almost everyone living in the West and able to read already knows, Christopher Hitchens (1949 – 2011) died yesterday at the age of sixty-two. Conservative fairness toward and even appreciation of Agnostics, Atheists and others with whom many disagree has long been a conservative energizer. The extent of this ability to [...]

Articles written by Dan Miller
Tags: agnostic, atheist, Christian, Christmas, Christopher Hitchens, conservative
Categories: Arts, Life, Media | Comments (3) | Home

What Would Woody Say?

December 1st, 2011

By Jan Barry “Woody Guthrie spoke plain About deportees and dust bowl days… So what would Woody write? Right now in these hard times” That’s the sobering, yet enticing question that activist-songwriter Sharleen Leahey raises in her new CD collection, entitled “Rumors of Peace.” What would the “Poet of the People” who sang about plain [...]

Articles written by Jan Barry
Tags: activist, music, peace, Rumors of Peace, Sharleen Leahey, Woody Guthrie
Categories: Arts, Media, Politics | Comments (1) | Home

Can Your Kindle Cause Mental Illness?

November 25th, 2011

By Dan Miller My wife gave me a Kindle reader for my birthday in June. Although she sought to do good rather than harm, I have become addicted to it and to its free collection of old classics. I should have known that this would happen. Even a year ago, it was written that The [...]

Articles written by Dan Miller
Tags: addiction, dreams, e-reader, free classics, Kindle, mental illness
Categories: Arts, Humor, Life | Comments (7) | Home

At the Movies: Rising Up Down South

November 23rd, 2011

By Jan Barry The myriad marches, sit-ins, camp-ins and other protest demonstrations sweeping across America these days didn’t spring up out of nowhere. Such actions against entrenched injustice were honed in the civil rights movement that shook up authorities in the 1950s and 1960s. That movement energized and inspired a groundswell of grassroots movements against [...]

Articles written by Jan Barry
Tags: civil rights, democracy, demonstrations, dissent, environment, film, protest
Categories: Arts, Life, Politics | Comments (3) | Home

Planting a Peace Pole

November 18th, 2011

By Jan Barry Dedicating a Peace Pole at a community cultural center in Teaneck, NJ drew a small crowd of local officials, school children and war veterans the other day. The carved wood pole was dedicated at the Puffin Foundation, as a band from Thomas Jefferson Middle School played and adults took turns exhorting the [...]

Articles written by Jan Barry
Tags: activist, NJ, peace, peace pole, Puffin, Teaneck, war
Categories: Arts, Life, Politics | Comments (4) | Home

Weather Wise

November 15th, 2011

By Jan Barry Early Warning Winter dropped from the October sky Two days before Halloween— Tree branches smothered in snow On summer leaves snapping deep into the night Made darker by downed power lines Global warming! skeptics scoffed— As this part of suburban civilization Staggered for days without electricity, Closed schools, postponed Halloween Until tangled [...]

Articles written by Jan Barry
Tags: electricity, global warming, New Jersey, snow, weather, winter
Categories: Arts, Life | Comments (1) | Home

Celebrating Drew Cameron’s Healing Art

November 14th, 2011

By Jan Barry Remarks I gave at “Envisioning Tomorrow,” the Printmaking Center of New Jersey’s awards dinner at the Somerville Elks Lodge, Bridgewater, NJ on November 12. The center honored Drew Cameron, the co-founder and co-director of Combat Paper, “a touring project with a compelling mission to use the healing power of art to transform [...]

Articles written by Jan Barry
Tags: Combat Paper, Drew Cameron, poetry, PTSD, uniform, veteran, workshop
Categories: Arts, Military, News | Comments (3) | Home

From Making War to Book Making

October 28th, 2011

By Jan Barry Tearing a leaf from Edgar Allan Poe’s literary leave from the US Army, a similarly brash band of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans called Warrior Writers is raising money from friends, family and fellow vets to publish a collection of their own poetry, prose and art drawn from military experience. Poe parted [...]

Articles written by Jan Barry
Tags: Afghanistan, anthology, Iraq, poetry, veterans, war, Warrior Writers
Categories: Arts, Life, Military | Comments (0) | Home

Saving Grace

October 7th, 2011

By Jan Barry Saving a corner of the Earth in its natural state is increasingly hard work. It takes many hands and, often, many organizations. So it was that, the other day, an eclectic crowd of people gathered beside a forest-fringed lake about 38 miles northwest of New York City, to celebrate the latest conservation [...]

Articles written by Jan Barry
Tags: 9/11, Arrow Park, conservation, FDNY, Native American, New York, NY-NJ
Categories: Arts, Law, News | Comments (0) | Home

Welcome Home

August 10th, 2011

By Jan Barry Bob and Moe Eaton’s marriage, shadowed for more than 30 years by nightmares from the war in Vietnam, was about to implode. Ken Kraft, an Army officer who proudly served in Iraq, felt betrayed by his son’s refusal to carry on the family tradition of military service. Eli Painted Crow, a former [...]

Articles written by Jan Barry
Tags: Afghanistan, film, Iraq, Oregon, PTSD, The Welcome, veterans, Vietnam
Categories: Arts, Military, News | Comments (0) | Home

Ed Driscoll Interviews Mark Steyn

August 8th, 2011

By Dan Miller Ed Driscoll of Pajamas Media interviewed Mark Steyn today about his new book After America: Get Ready for Armageddon. A link is here. The interview is 21 minutes in length and the “lo-fi” version is about 6 meg. The interview covers many topics and I think Steyn is correct. Please listen.

Articles written by Dan Miller
Tags: after, America, Armageddon, book, Mark Steyn
Categories: Arts, News, Politics | Comments (0) | Home

Poetry and Cannons

August 7th, 2011

By Jan Barry The last time cannons were fired in battle at Governors Island in New York harbor was in 1776. After a long run as an Army and then Coast Guard headquarters, the ancient forts and cannon, 19th century officers quarters and rows of barracks were given over a few years ago to New [...]

Articles written by Jan Barry
Tags: Bowery Poetry, festival, Governors Island, poetry, veterans, Warrior Writers
Categories: Arts, Military, News | Comments (0) | Home

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