WEBVTT

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We're talking in the
class today quite a lot

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about nonviolence and violence.

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And you know, this
world you live in

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and the students were
so insightful about it.

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I was very impressed with
them because it seems

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to be such a perennial problem.

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Does the world really getting--

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there's just been a recent
book, did anybody read it?

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That says that actually
things are better.

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Did you read that book?

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Who read it.

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I heard a yeah over here.

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What's the name of it?

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Steven Pinker.

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That's it.

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What's it called?

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I don't remember.

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The end of violence
or the end of history?

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But it says that really
things are better,

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we're not boiling people in oil.

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Right?

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[AUDIENCE LAUGHING]

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A lot of this book was, to
the thoughts in my heart

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during the time
when I was writing,

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and it was during the
Bush-Cheney years,

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was where is the
kingdom of heaven?

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And if it is within us as Jesus
says then who governs there?

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Who governs that kingdom?

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So, this was a poem
that was written

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after I had a falling out
with a friend, a good friend.

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It's called Government.

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"Standing next to
my old friend, I

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sense that his soldiers
have retreated.

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And mine?

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They're resting their
guns on their shoulders,

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talking quietly.

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I'm hungry, one says.

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Cheeseburger, says another.

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And they all decide to
go and find some dinner.

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But the next day, negotiating
the two narrow aisles

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of the health and harmony
food store when I say,

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excuse me, to the woman and
her cart of organic chicken

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and green grapes.

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She pulls the cart not quite
far back enough for me to pass.

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And a small mob in me begins
picking up the fruit to throw.

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So many kingdoms.

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And in each kingdom,
so many people.

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The disinherited son,
the corrupt counselor,

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the courtesan, the fool.

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And so many gods
arguing among themselves

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over toast, through
the lunch salad,

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and on into the long hours
of the mild spring afternoon.

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I'm the God.

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No, I'm the God.

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No, I'm the God.

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I can hardly hear myself
over their muttering.

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How can I discipline my army?

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They're exhausted
and want more money.

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How can I disarm when my
enemy seems so intent?"

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We've been talking
a lot about time.

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I've seen a lot of old friends
here, Rodney and Alison.

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And people I haven't
seen in a long time.

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And those wormholes
kept opening,

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you know, those wormholes of
time you sort of tumbled down

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and suddenly it's 1982 or 1994.

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And I saw Tom, and I was
thinking about our mothers

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and, you know, how a life
can be so wonderfully long.

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My mother died just
about three weeks

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before I went to China to
bring home my daughter.

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My mother was the
mother of nine children

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and I was her oldest daughter.

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So, I want to read
this poem for her.

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It's called My Mother's Body.

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"My mother's body.

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Bless my mother's
body, the first song

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of her beating heart
and her breathing.

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Her voice, which I could
dimly hear, grew louder.

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From inside her body, I heard
almost every word she said.

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Within that girl I drove
to the store and back,

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her feet pressing the
petals of the blue car.

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Her voice.

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First gate to the
cold sunny mornings,

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rain, moonlight, snowfall, dogs.

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Her kidneys failed, the womb
where I once lived is gone.

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Her young astonished body pushed
me down that long corridor.

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And my body hurt
her, I know that.

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She was 24 years old.

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I'm old enough to be that girl's
mother, to smooth her hair,

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to look into her
exultant frightened eyes.

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Her bed sheets stained
with chocolate.

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Her heart in constant failure.

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It's a girl, someone
must have said.

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She must have kissed
me with her mouth.

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First, grief.

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First, air.

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And soon, I was drinking
her, first food.

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I was eating my mother,
slumped in her wheelchair, one

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of my brothers pushing
it across the snowy lawn.

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Her eyes fixed,
her face averted.

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Bless this body she made.

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My long legs, her
long arms and fingers.

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Our voice.

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Our voice in my throat
speaking to you now."

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