Ames Progressive

[Editor’s note: Revised and updated for the Web.]
Since the twin towers collapsed in flames on the 11th of September, 2001, a state of fear and unease has inundated America’s psyche as the nation has turned its ear to Washington’s power players and the national news media for the latest on the fight against terror, tragically […]

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Nick Lindsley, senior in Architecture at Iowa State University, sent Noam Chomsky an e-mail asking for a short interview. Chomsky replied and said that he was too busy at that time, but he encouraged Nick to write back to him in a year. Lindsley did just that; he waited a year to the day and […]

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In the small town of Jena, Louisiana (population 3,000) a complicated civil rights debate has erupted. The story originated in September 2006, when a black student requested permission from school officials to sit under a tree in his schoolyard that was typically understood as being reserved for white students. Rightfully, he was told to sit […]

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A boycott started by over 150 immigrant organizations across the country has targeted the money transfer giant Western Union. The boycott has criticized Western Union for charging immigrants excessive fees and non-standard exchange rates for money they send home. “We aim to get justice for immigrants and allow them to build the wealth that […]

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I.
Here heavy, this ground. To be used
or called dirt. Call the dirt
whatever it grows. If nothing,
call it dirt. I am ready to be called
what I am. This undergrowth
will spread itself perversely-reach
out with sad avarice. Be ready to be
ready to pluck me. Be ready to be
unprepared-to see me act out my
obstinacy.
These reaches are always
reaching farther-through
thinning arms.
The […]

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SKY POEM 1.A.
cataract sky:
i looked up expecting the diamond face of God
and found only a cyclops.
the floating precipitate veils the visaged-view
but makes globes of the fluorescent rust hue
that streams from the streetlights
and illuminates the crow-crowded tree.
they saturate it’s limbs like it’s the only tree in hell,
and it would they take their leave of it,
but they […]

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The first posthumous collection of Elliott Smith’s songs, 2004’s From a Basement on a Hill (ANTI-Records), showcased the music he had been recording in the months immediately preceding his death. There he can be heard leaning more heavily on electric guitars, experimenting with trippy ambient noises and sounding at times like a self-conscious one-man Beatles. […]

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I and many others have had the privilege of being born in one of the greatest social experiments ever known to man: The United States of America.
It is our responsibility to take the legacy handed down by our forebears, guard it, and then pass it on to other generations.
I see our liberties being watered down […]

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Test Excerpt.

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