NRU - mish mash, 114th edition

One of the boxes my stuff ended up in was labeled:

It was a label left over from the friend who had given me the boxes.  In fact, this box contained only shoes.  But, the label is perfect for this news round up.

Enjoy.

I truly enjoyed this opinion piece by an Asian American researcher on the myth of the model minority and those who would perpetuate it.

It is a rare and beautiful treat to find an earnestly researched memorial about a homeless man.  The lovingly recalled remarks are the best part.  Here is an example:

"I kind of irritated him and he irritated me. But he was interesting," Baumann said. "Although he was dirty and homeless, he was not stupid. ... He wasn't somebody you feel sorry for; he was an active part of that community."

In nearly every place I have lived, I have had relationships with the people without homes in my neighborhood, but never as close as this community held with this man.  In a time when we are absolving policemen from taking their aggression out on mentally ill people on the street, it is good to recognize that there are those of us who see people on the street as human beings.  It brings us all a little more humanity.

If I won the lottery, I would give a big chunk of it, if not all of it, to Father Greg Boyle.  I am sure he could put it to good use with Homeboy Industries.  If only they had a celebrity supporter who could open his/her pockets and invite some others to do the same.  It is bad enough that Homeboy Industries has to do the job of the city, county, state, schools and social services ... someone should be pitching in.

Turns out collecting stuff can turn into a treasure that can be sold and bring something to the world that it might not have ... feeling like I might need to make a trip to the Huntington.  It also makes me wish I were an archivist ... I wouldn't mind being the person who cataloged this collection.

What will your papers/journals/letters say about you? Would you ask that they be burned?  What would happen if someone published them instead?  All this and more (or not) in these two articles... Robert Frost's letters and Pope John Paul's diaries.  Of course, if you want to read JP's innermost thoughts, you will have to know or learn Polish.