At Mother's house in late October

We parceled out all the mementos;

I found the Stevenson banner I had 

Removed from the '56 convention hall.

Al Lowenstein helped me grab

the banner---he, a dangerous radical.

I posted this last year, but, given the season, I thought I should re-post it.  It's a story I wrote many years ago, stuck in a drawer and forgot about.  In 2009, I was going through the drawer and found it, and promised myself that I would not put it back in the drawer again.

Twas the night before Christmas,
The birthday of Jesus,

Sometimes, good, novel recipes are borne out of desperation. I had that happen to me recently when I found myself with only one egg and needed to make a two egg omelet. In lieu of the other egg, I substituted Greek yogurt (which I had on hand).

The recipe is as follows:

Profiles of Protestors

Did you see the runners up?

William McRaven - I had never heard of him, but I gather he helped nail OBL.
Ai Weiwei - a noted protestor himself.
Paul Ryan - He represents what they were protesting.
Kate Middleton - WTF?

The president pondered the two messages. The first, from an African country's deposed president whom he did not know, was warm and supportive, offering to share assets that would otherwise fall to undeserving usurpers.

How could his African peer have known how close Lincoln himself had, again and again, faced the same risk of failure at the hands of rivals? There are connections between kindred hearts, he thought. Not just wires, but connections of a spiritual composition.

This week's batch:

                  GOD

http://www.thedailybeast.com/videos/2011/12/03/2012-election-for-atheists.html