Thomas Lux: And Still It Comes
thudding and tearing like footsteps
of drunk gods or fathers; it comes
polite, loutish, assured, suave,
breathing through its mouth
Abby Zimet: Hezbollah and MS-13 ‘R Us, Naked On Bikes In Frog Ears
Despite court losses, public antipathy, ridicule, a shutdown they ignore, the nascent police state lurches on with its daft apocalyptic narrative of an America in flames.
Fred Shaw: Debunking the Right’s Obsession with Antifa
Rutgers University History Professor Mark Bray shares why he and his family fled the U.S. over safety concerns amid the Trump administration’s broad attacks on Antifa.
Audio: Call Me Antifa
Inspired by the spirit of the Greatest Generation who fought fascism in World War II, this song celebrates love over hate, peace over violence, and liberty over authoritarianism.
Mark Danowsky: The Rocky Mountain Locust Surge
One story is about the farmer
who just started running
right into the black mass
Cesare Pavese: Displaced People
Suppose tomorrow, bright and early, we took a trip
to my hills. We could stroll through the vineyards and, maybe,
meet with a couple of girls, dark brown, ripened by the sun,
we could start a conversation and sample some of their grapes.
Abby Zimet: Untethered to the Facts
Two months ago, the United States made the Human Rights Watch list for the first time; rights advocates cited a nation “sliding deeper into the quicksands of authoritarianism” with peaceful protests met with military force, critics treated as criminals, journalists targeted, and support slashed for civil society.
Michael Simms: Baron Wormser (February 15, 1948 – October 7, 2025)
Although history will have the final word on who among us is read by future generations, I’ll put my money on Baron. His writing represents the best of the American spirit.
Adam Patric Miller: A Chill in American Classrooms
I’m trying to be a good teacher, listening carefully to my students so I can make the ten-thousand micro-adjustments in what I’m presenting to them so they will feel how much I really want them to learn.
Laure-Anne Bosselaar: Ode to Sungolds
Sungolds, coughed my old neighbor, a bird
shat the seed.
George Yancy: Trump’s Education Plan Seeks to Make Cruel Domination Into “Common Sense”
Control the curriculum and you control the range of ideas that people are exposed to. This is why schooling is inherently political.
Chard deNiord: Patience Is The Tinder
a silence in which you hear
in the midst of the noise all around you
a voice that speaks inside the ear
inside your ear that depends
on silence for writing it down
Michael Simms: Serene Gorilla in a Cloud of Butterflies
Her name is Malui and she is walking through a cloud of butterflies she’s disturbed.
Baron Wormser: On a Sentence by Albert Camus
Sometimes, the illness of our world, the death-in-life that turns nature into nothing more than the source of raw material, seems so boundless that throwing the lasso of language on it seems impossible.
