Video: Thandiwe Newton | Embracing Otherness, Embracing Myself
Actor Thandiwe Newton tells the story of finding her “otherness” — first, as a child growing up in two distinct cultures, and then as an actor playing with many different selves.
Paul Christensen: Late Summer
Time holds everything in its ghostly hands, like someone touching the hot wine glasses on a merchant’s table.
Christine Skarbek: Jocelyn
It soon became obvious she could not speak. Finally, after many attempts, I got her name out of her, Jocelyn and finally, she looked at me straight on and said in a whisper, “You know, I used to be pretty. I used to be smart.”
Rachel Hadas: Lessons of Poetry
It is easier to lecture about the time and place of a book, the culture that produced it, the special historical or linguistic problems involved in it. It is harder…to face the book as a masterpiece and to help the student understand why it is a masterpiece….
Jose Padua: In Proclamation to the Emperors of Agony
Seeing an audience in Central Park holding up their middle fingers in unison is one of my fondest memories—even though I wasn’t among those for whom the finger was intended.
W.D. Ehrhart: Afghanistan | Vietnam Redux
The real tragedy in all this is that the United States of America invaded yet another foreign country, imagining that we could bend it to our will and create a “Mini-Me” version of ourselves, and then spent twenty years, trillions of dollars, and thousands of lives ignoring what was obvious from the very outset.
Rebecca Gordon: Debt and Disillusionment
In 2019, the average debt of those earning a graduate degree was $71,000 on top of whatever the former students had already shelled out while in school. And that, in turn, is before the “miracle” of compound interest takes hold and the debt starts to grow like a rogue zucchini.
Paul Christensen: Back in France
When we pushed open the door to our village house, an old familiar odor of sun-warmed plaster rose up to us as if to give us an embrace.
Tom Engelhardt: Our Not-So-Slow-Motion Apocalypse
A heating planet is a danger, not in some distant time, but right now — yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
Video: J.D. Vance| America’s Forgotten Working Class
J.D. Vance grew up in a small, poor city in the Rust Belt of southern Ohio, where he had a front-row seat to many of the social ills plaguing America: a heroin epidemic, failing schools, families torn apart by divorce and sometimes violence.
Hanan Abukmail: A Doctor’s Torment
Weeks have gone by since the fourth Israeli war on Gaza came to a close. And although the world has moved on, we in Gaza are left to pick up the pieces. And me? I find myself questioning my decision to become a physician.
Doug Anderson: The Gravestone and the Continuing Self
When I was in my twenties I thought old age was an island only accessible by a bridge I’d never cross. But I’ve crossed it, and at seventy-eight the subject … Continue reading
Paul Christensen: The Pandemic Blues
Everyone around here is sluggish. The young woman who checks my purchases off the conveyor belt dabs her eyes and stifles a yawn. She keeps shaking herself awake as the … Continue reading
Greg Thielen: As the World Burns
At this very moment, as my pen inks this page, the entire Western United States is scorching. Death Valley recorded a high of 140 Fahrenheit.
