William J. Astore: In Wars and Weapons We Trust
We believe in wars. We may no longer believe in formal declarations of war (not since December 1941 has Congress made one in our name), but that sure hasn’t stopped us from waging them.
Christine Skarbek: Oh, Poland!
My buddy Yolanta invited me over to Park Café to listen to this wizard on the piano, a 17-yr old skinny fellow. I cannot tell you how thin this character was or, for that matter, how long and tapered his fingers and what a master he was at the ivories.
Michael Simms: On the Spectrum with Garrison Keillor
Many of the issues people have had with Keillor’s behavior through the years may have been caused by his autism.
Marco North: Landyshi (their ocean)
At night, the trees bend hard. The crows are awake, chattering their secret language in the darkness.
Sandra Lubarsky: Speak the Name of Beauty
So beneficial is exposure to the natural world that a new global movement has arisen to declare access to nature a human right.
Elizabeth Kirschner: Jones Beach
He went out. Into the ocean’s black maw. To save. To rescue. Didn’t, as they say, come back. Death is funny like that, precise, dissolute.
Frances Moore Lappé: Blood on Our Hands — How We Help Drive Immigration North
Where are the calls to stop the massive illegal transfer of U.S. weapons fueling the very violence that drives innocent people to leave their homes?
Chris Hedges: War and Memory
I asked my grandmother after he left what was wrong with him. “The war,” she said acidly.
Rebecca Gordon: I Had an Abortion and Now I’m Not Ashamed
At this moment in the age of Trump, it’s long past time for people like me to go public about our abortions. Efforts to deny women abortion access (not to mention contraception) have only accelerated as the president seeks to appease his right-wing Christian supporters.
Video: An Ode to Envy — Parul Sehgal
What is envy? What drives it, and why do we secretly love it? No study has ever been able to capture its “loneliness, longevity, grim thrill” — that is, says Parul Sehgal, except for fiction.
Paul Christensen: Second Sight
My mother was Italian, a passionate, sensuous woman who believed in fortune telling and heeding the voice of intuition, which was very strong inside her. She told me she had been born under a veil, meaning the amniotic sack at birth, and that this was the sign of her prophetic powers.
Angele Ellis: Occurrence on the Lake Shore Limited
The officer stopped at my seat and thrust his face toward mine. “Are you an American?”
Charles Davidson: From Blue Mountain Ridges to Desert Sand Concentration Camps
North Carolina Pastor Kim Wells charges her congregation to take action against the government’s abuse of children on the border.
Nick Turse: What Does War Have to Do With Me
TRIPOLI, Libya — Sometimes war sounds like the harsh crack of gunfire and sometimes like the whisper of the wind. This early morning — in al-Yarmouk on the southern edge of Libya’s capital, Tripoli — it was a mix of both.
