Dave Evans Wake Up Call

click for a tribute to Evans on W. Virginia Public Radio

Vietnam Veteran Dave Evans is the subject of a beautiful documentary entitled The Wake Up Call (directed by Alison Gilkey and Eric Neudel) which I had the privilege of seeing recently at a screening in Damariscotta, Maine. The film is making the film festival circuit and I am unable to share anything more than the trailer, but be sure to watch for it. Born in the coal mining country of West Virginia, Dave Evans enlisted, like so many young American men, in the Marine Corps as a young man looking for adventure and a way out. And sadly, like so many other men his age, he was rudely awakened to reality when he lost both legs in an ambush soon after he first saw combat.

Returning to West Virginia as a very angry disabled man, Evans soon decided to channel his anger into something more useful: he became an outspoken activist against the Vietnam War and spent a good deal of time talking to young men like himself. Realizing how lucky he was to live in a country where medical care was accessible, he then turned himself into an expert on artificial limbs and directed at least some of his intense anger against the American government into a life of healing for others. He spent the next forty years of his life traveling throughout the world to many remote areas where medical care was completely lacking, fitting fellow disabled people with prosthetics that would utterly change their lives...Evans was a hero and savior to so many in Cuba, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Cambodia, Angola are other places where he ventured to help set up prosthetic clinics.

Michael Moore: Our Nation's Conscience

Illustration by KeithNegley.com courtesy of The New Yorker Magazine

All through this election process, when I dared not look at the news and truly, I am ashamed to say, buried my head in the sand, Michael Moore was my one source of comfort. His frequent optimistic emails entitlted Mike's Midterm Tsunami Truths (there were forty of them) showed up religiously in my inbox, and maybe yours too, giving us a ray of hope through such heavy dark waters and doomsday predictions. And the glimmer was brightened even more when I remembered that he was no sugar-coater--he was correct in 2016 when he almost solely predicted (like me) Trump's victory over Hillary. Well, he turned out to be right again!

This wise caring man, who tirelessly fights the good fight, has documented our nation's shame in over ten important documentaries (including such films as Roger and Me, Sicko, Where to Invade Next and Farenheit 11/9 to name a few). I think I am going to go back aned watch them all again.

Michael Moore is our nation's conscience and a true national treasure!

Poem by Kyle Tran Myhre

VOTING AS FIRE EXTINGUISHER

by Kyle Tran Myhre

When the haunted house catches fire
a moment of indecision.

The house was, after all, built on bones

Everyone who enters the house feels
that overwhelming dread, the evil
that perhaps only fire can purge.

It's tempting to just let it burn.

And then I remember:
there are children inside.

Smilow Mathiesen Swag:
Unique Gifts for the Holidays

Charity of the Week:

Warnock for U.S. Senate

My portrait of Raphael Warnock, used to make into lawn signs in Georgia. Click to donate and call me to get the image to make your own sign....

About The Author

New York City based contemporary artist, Pam Smilow, began writing the creative lifestyle blog “things we love” in an effort to foster a sense of community during times of isolation and reflection. To read more about her and her art, visit her website and check out the essay written by the Hammond Museum's Frank Matheis entitled The Sophisticated Innocence of Pam Smilow.