Philippe Labro: The Rule of Engagement
The Rule of Engagement, along with the coat and tie dress code, was one of the university’s two unbreakable traditions. It involved saying “Hi!” to everyone you encountered, or – if that person were first to greet you – responding in kind. I was taken aback at first, not so much by the idea of saying hello to a stranger crossing campus, but by the mindset that required me to say it, and say it, and say it again, all day long, no matter my mood and no matter who it was coming up alongside me.
Erma Bombeck: Housework Can Kill You If Done Right
I come from a family where gravy is considered a beverage.
Elizabeth Gargano: Why We Should Try Talking to the Dead
After my father’s death, my mother kept talking to him.
Paul Christensen: The Journey We All Must Take
When you’re a knee-scabbed, scruffy looking kid, a tree-climbing ruffian hanging from the neighbor’s crab apple tree and running away from some irate neighbor after soaping up his car windshield, on Halloween, you don’t know it but you are the unacknowledged expert of what it means to be living in your pre-pubescent body.
Gabes Torres: Reclaiming Abundance Under Capitalism
Is there a way we can be critical of our cultures of consumption, while also preserving the spirit of abundance? Perhaps beyond preservation, we can reinvent the meaning of abundance altogether.
Adrienne Maree Brown: Accountable to Our Ancestors
Lately it feels like ancestors are talking to me all the time.
Baron Wormser: Against Hope
Hope gives us a margin for our industriousness that keeps inventing new purposes for new machines, an industriousness that often seems to be only making everything worse.
Video: Stella Young | I’m not your inspiration, thank you very much
In this very funny talk, Stella Young breaks down society’s habit of turning disabled people into “inspiration porn.”
Michael Simms: God, Poetry and Trauma
In the 19th century, if you asked a scientist whether he believed in God, he would have answered, ‘Of course, I don’t believe in God, I’m a scientist.” But if you ask a scientist today whether he believes in God, he would answer, “Of course, I believe in God, I’m a scientist.”
Paul Christensen: The Bennie Thompson Crusade
The closing remarks of Bennie Thompson were so pure in their simplicity and directness, I had to hold my breath.
Adrienne Maree Brown: Accountable to Earth
Imagine a common reality of collectively prioritizing our most universal gift…
Lise Ragbir: What if We Believed Anything Was Possible?
Does flinching at new information that veers from our sense of truth bring too much discomfort?
Matthew J. Parker: The Misplaced Paean to the South
Southern disdain for centralized authority is an extension of the post-Civil War rebellion against federal efforts to impart a level of equality upon the scarred backs of freed slaves.
