He's dying.
And dying quickly.
Doctors say there is
No cure
Nothing will fix him.
The fibers rooted
Decades ago
And now are shredding his system
Apart.
Mercilessly.
Organ by organ.
All at once.
I could go visit him.
I should go visit him.
Mom says he always liked me,
always asks about me,
Even from the young, lost,
Ambitious graduate I was then.
But he has mesothelioma
And I don't want to go.
I'm afraid to look him in the eye
and know it will be the last time.
I don't wan't to ask dumb, polite, habitual questions ---
"Hi! How are you, Rich?!"
knowing full-well how dry poor he is.
I don't want to pretend hope and
Insult him even further.
And the sickest part of this sick sickness is
He spent his entire life devoted to
medical texts.
He had never married.
Had no children.
His singular ambition was to teach others to heal.
So he knows
exactly, really
How
Hopeless
Is his
Health.
How do you look that in the eye
and smile?
Pekary Kitch (sic)
"Kitsch is a form of art that is considered an inferior, tasteless copy of an extant style of art or a worthless imitation of art of recognized value."
Wednesday, March 18, 2015
Monday, December 2, 2013
An "Occupational Hazard": Rape in the Military
In 2012, I produced this documentary about sexual assault in the military and in 2013, it was awarded an RFK award for radio journalism.
The Bob Edwards Show presents the premier feature in a series
titled “An ‘Occupational Hazard’: Rape in the Military.” One in three of
active-duty women serving the U.S. military have reported being the victim of
sexual assault while serving, which is double the rate for civilians. Based on
estimates from the Department of Defense, 19,000 servicemen and women were
sexually assaulted in 2010 and most of those violent acts don’t get reported
because in the military, victims are required to report to their chain of
command. As such, only eight-percent are brought to justice, either through
prosecution or some form of military nonjudicial punishment. Defending themselves
in civilian court in 2011, the Pentagon argued that sexual assault is an
“occupational hazard” in the military. Throughout today’s program we will hear
from servicemen and women about their Military Sexual Trauma, advocates who
help treat and raise awareness about the problem, and lawmakers about what is
being done.
Read more, updated in 2013: http://www.bobedwardsradio.com/blog/2013/7/31/how-long-will-rape-be-an-occupational-hazard-of-military-ser.html
Stories from Third Med: Surviving a Jungle ER
This radio documentary, "Stories from Third Med: Surviving a Jungle ER," aired for Memorial Day in 2008 and was awarded a Sigma Delta Chi award for best documentary by the Society of Professional Journalists.
The Navy’s Third Medical Battalion was assigned to treat the
Marine’s Third Division in the Northernmost part of South Vietnam, closest to
enemy territory during one of our nation’s deadliest wars. The battalion
treated thousands of men in Vietnam, but those stories have never been recorded
for broadcast. As a producer for The Bob Edwards Show, I attended the 40th
Anniversary Reunion of the Third Medical Battalion in Charleston, South
Carolina on May 2nd and 3rd, 2008 to capture the stories and the spirit of
these unsung heroes.
Listen to the radio documentary here: https://soundcloud.com/anpekary/sets/stories-from-third-med
Read more here: http://www.bobedwardsradio.com/thirdmed/.
The Invisible: Children without Homes
In 2007, I produced this radio documentary about homeless children
with Bob Edwards. It won a RTDNA Edward R. Murrow Award for best documentary in 2008.
Say the word “homeless” and it most likely conjures up an image of
a bag lady or old man asleep on a park bench. But the fastest growing homeless
population in the United States is homeless families. Increasingly, single
parents are unable to provide basic necessities for their children – food,
shelter, clothing, and medicine. Forty-percent of homeless Americans are
homeless families with children. In New York the number of homeless families is
at an all time high. In Washington, DC the only emergency shelter for homeless
families has been closed, causing hundreds of families to be put on a waiting
list for housing. The challenges facing this young group are crippling–often
lifelong–and sometimes deadly. Yet as the cost of living increases and the
economy tightens, programs for these vulnerable families are being cut. What’s
more, these young children of poor, broken families are in turn more likely to
be homeless themselves as teens and adults. Homeless kids have more health
problems, more learning disabilities, and emotional disorders than other
children. That makes it harder for them to learn and do well in school, making
it harder to get an education and be self-sufficient. And that makes them more
susceptible to homelessness as adults, continuing the cycle of poverty.
Bob Edwards and I spent hours interviewing homeless men, women,
teens and children – at shelters, group homes, and on city sidewalks to report
their stories. These families told of the financial hardship and violence –
verbal, physical, and sexual – that forced them on to the streets, creating
even more difficult and dangerous situations. These are stories of survival and
hope in a time when solutions are quietly debated. Social workers, advocates
for the poor, and government officials generally agree about how best to help
that nation’s homeless children: provide comprehensive services,
education assistance, and medical treatment. In this special documentary, Bob
Edwards examines whether enough being done to break the cycle for homeless kids.
Or read the transcript: http://www.bobedwardsradio.com/storage/The_Invisible.pdf
Saturday, February 23, 2013
The clouds above are weak
the clouds above are weak
too thin to wring out a shower
thick enough to block the moon.
too cheap to rain,
they're too stubborn to move.
Puffs in the sky -
a shadow on my day.
you could open up and share
but instead linger
threatening love and thunder.
like gospel without harmony,
you just hover.
Sunday, January 6, 2013
Roughed-up lips
Have you ever felt like the spoon
that has been mangled
in the garbage disposal
but not yet discarded
as it should have been,
lest it rough-up the lips
of the
innocent ingestor
of otherwise-creamy cherry Greek yogurt?
Saturday, May 26, 2012
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