I walked into the NJ Peace Action annual dinner, a notebook in my hand, my head full of activism. I wanted to talk about the things I’ve noticed in America. “I’m a trained cultural theorist,” I boasted to my own mind. “I have important analyses to offer.”

It’s true; I do, as do some of the people I met there. The discussion at my table was lively. We talked about the US culture of war. We shared video clips on our camcorders and our iPhones. We ate our salmon, or chicken, or ratatouille. We listened to folk music. I felt righteous. I felt like I knew what was up. I’m no fool, I thought. I’m one of the good people.

Then Phil Donahue spoke.

Author and journalist Christopher Hedges speaks of the despair, destruction, love and truth that he found during his long career of covering wars and social justice throughout the world. Hedges is interviewed by Dean Nelson as part of the 17th annual Writer’s Symposium by the Sea at Point Loma Nazarene University.

A poetry reading from Brave New Voices, 2012.

A piece of Oklahoma tornado footage made me cry a few mornings ago, a mother reunited with a son that she clearly assumed she’d never see alive again. She collapsed into hugging, picked him up, rocked him in her arms, then doubled over sobbing and put him back down. She kept touching the boy’s face, caressing him as if to reassure herself with her palms: it’s ok, he’s ok, it’s ok, he’s ok.

Donald Rumsfeld went on the NPR show Marketplace in an attempt to promote his new book, but he was met with perhaps the hardest questioning he’s ever faced.

This clip from the Majority Report, live M-F at 12 noon EST and via daily podcast at Majority.FM

Someday, after I’m long dead, some super fan will dig into my external hard drive and edit a collection of my letters to student loan debt collectors. Thanks to my country’s moronic commodification of education, this is how I spend a good deal of my writing time. So, while you wait for that future collection—The #njpoet Debt Letters—to finally be published, I leave you with this sample.

One of my regular Twitter followers has launched a campaign to free me from my student debt. If 14,000 people donate $7 each to njpoet.com, she reasons, we can buy my life back from Sallie Mae and NJCLASS.

In their new book, “The Body Economic: Why Austerity Kills,” economist David Stuckler and physician Sanjay Basu examine the health impacts of austerity across the globe. The authors estimate there have been more than 10,000 additional suicides and up to a million extra cases of depression across Europe and the United States since governments started introducing austerity programs in the aftermath of the economic crisis.

They posted a semi-formal letter on the bulletin board last night. This was how they let the wait staff, the cooks, the bus boys, and the bartenders know that the restaurant would be closing forever on June 1st.

But it wasn’t like everyone didn’t already know.

I was going to skip my writing meditation for today. I made my bi-weekly trip to my snail mail box this morning, so very quaint, only to be informed by an ugly green bureaucratic form letter, typed in a psychotic font:

The State of New Jersey has seized your few hundred dollars of tax refund, c/o your student loan debt collector.

Biologist, mother and activist Sandra Steingraber joins Bill Moyers to talk about the need to build awareness about toxins contaminating our air, water and food that threaten our children’s health. With government captured by the very industries it’s supposed to regulate, Steingraber says she’s lost patience with politicians and corporations, but that our kids need to know “mom is on the job” of preventing destruction to the environment.