Patricia Nugent: It Feels Bad
It feels bad that we are the only industrialized nation that doesn’t have women’s equality built into its constitution.
Andrea Mazzarino: Children of War
Armed violence has percolated into just about every aspect of this country’s being — from violent video games to still-spiking mass shootings to local police forces armed with weapons of war.
Richard Horan: Notes from Il Campo
It’s carciofi (artichoke) season here in the Eternal City. Everywhere you go, those fat-stemmed, strongly evocative of Bacchus, violet-and-green buds are still-lifing the display tables out in front of every osteria and trattoria from Prati to San Saba.
James Crews: A Few Things I Have Learned
Watching birds will save you on a daily basis—the shaggy barred owl clinging to a pine branch with its deadly claws, eyes lazing in the glaze of a winter morning, head swiveling back and forth.
Sonali Kolhatkar: Embrace the Mess
Women can reject the pressure to maintain spotless homes year-round and focus on what really matters to us.
Matthew J. Parker: The Era of Idiocy
I did over a decade in jails and prisons because a squad of Pence-like puritans felt it immoral of me to get high on anything other than the drooling drunkenness of alcohol, an endeavor not only baldly hypocritical but so too borderline absurd; a worldwide farce manifesting in the militarization of both the cartels and the police, all of which, of course, was and is more great news for arms dealers.
David Hassler: Spaghetti Dinners
I pour Lynn a glass of wine and make a toast: “To our future life together.” We stare into each other’s eyes and smile. Unable to wait any longer, I ask Lynn if she will marry me. She says yes, and I begin to cry. I am here, in this place, with a beautiful woman who loves me.
Rebecca Gordon: Rain and Heat, Fire and Snow
Life in a Destabilized California
Mike Vargo: Lies from Pre-History to Post-Santos
George Santos lied profusely. Elizabeth Holmes lied scientifically. Vladimir Putin has at his command an organized system for propagating lies and deceit, and he’s not alone.
Paul Christensen: The Ice Man Cometh
Vermont has gone into deep storage, buried under a foot of sticky snow, with drifts reaching up to a few feet in some places. The silence is as pure as a church on Saturday.
Sabine Oishi: When the US bombed Switzerland
Although Switzerland was not actively involved in WWII, it suffered a total of seventy bombings by Allied airplanes between 1940 and 1945.
Ira Chernus: Who Will Speak Up for My Child, the Drag Queen?
How we treat the most marginal and vulnerable among us determines the quality of life for the rest of us…. A good society takes care of the most vulnerable by assuring their safety…
Baron Wormser: Doing Great
If a book can be both good-natured and lacerating, Voltaire’s is that book.
Nan Levinson: Is There a World Beyond War?
Women have been at the forefront of peace actions since Lysistrata organized the women of ancient Greece to deny men sex until they ended the Peloponnesian War.
