My dad, Nathaniel Spain Chism, whom we all called Daddy Cheese, or just Cheese, told the following story. He got drafted and went into the Navy. But he ended up in the brig–in prison. Why? The Navy, of course, had wanted all its soldiers to declare that they were going to fight “the enemy” for […]
Another Person’s Shoes
In 2005 I was hired by a non-profit in San Mateo County to design and teach classes in a combined English as a Second Language and Family Literacy program in the community room of a low-income housing development. The development was run by a different non-profit, and yet another non-profit ran an on-site childcare facility. […]
In memoriam: Joffre Stewart
Devastated. My long time friend Joffre Stewart has died. Joffre, a long time anarchist and pacifist (after serving in the military during World War 2) was a poet and was referred to in Allen Ginsberg’s Howl. [Ginsberg was taken by Stewart when they met years ago at a gathering in San Francisco. In his poem […]
World of Interconnected Strangers
As I parked, I heard a tap on my window. The tap came from a neighbor from the building next door, a 40-ish African-American man with an unfashionable, immaculately coifed Afro and John Lennon-style glasses, radiating quiet intelligence and blue-collar dignity. We had never interacted much, outside of a few occasional nods, but he seemed […]
David Ranney “Living and Dying on the Factory Floor” Upcoming NYC Book Tour
Hard Crackers is excited to co-sponsor a series of talks with David Ranney about his new book. Recently, Jarrod Shanahan caught up with David Ranney to discuss his book and the important lessons for today. Check out their interview at Jacobin. Also take a look at the trailer David made for the book, courtesy of […]
Morbid Symptoms, Part II: Attack on Rikers Island
This is the second of six reviews chronicling the pseudonymous Fred S. Kreider’s Rikers Island Series, a horror franchise set on present-day Rikers Island. In the first installment we met narrator Nicholas Billings, a rookie guard whose scrupulous recounting of guard life at Rikers is often more grim and terrifying than the book’s horror story, […]