Video: My Dead Dad’s Porno Tapes
Was my father’s leftover stuff the key to who he really was?
Rory Leyva: The Lessons of Mortality
Even though I am only 12 years old, I know my life won’t last forever, and someday I, too, will reflect on my past decisions. We were all born to exist and eventually die, so we have evolved to value things in the context of mortality.
Bernd Brunner: Here’s to the lost art of lying down
The legendary Roman dining couch, known as the klinai, was made from wood or stone, covered with cloth, and designed for lying down. I sometimes wonder how comfortable it really was. Then again, since people 2,000 years ago weren’t acquainted with comfort in the modern, well-cushioned sense, they probably enjoyed it much more than we would today.
Mike Schneider: Father Ted & Voting Rights
Republicans have closed polling places, reduced early voting, purged voter rolls, and added ID requirements. Nearly all these changes are in predominantly African-American districts.
Paul Christensen: A Memory
I remember standing in a south wind staring at a cut bank of the Brazos River. The ground above was lush and green, with some beef cows nibbling on tufts … Continue reading
Frida Berrigan: Liz McAlister’s fearsome mom-ness
The world may know her as an antiwar leader, a fearless Plowshares activist and the wife of Phil Berrigan, but to her children Liz McAlister is simply mom — and … Continue reading
Vandana Shiva: Everything I Need to Know I Learned in the Forest
The war against the Earth began with this idea of separateness. Its contemporary seeds were sown when the living Earth was transformed into dead matter to facilitate the industrial revolution. Monocultures replaced diversity. “Raw materials” and “dead matter” replaced a vibrant Earth.
Paul Christensen: The American Dream
I never mastered the art of the hustle, and the bar, with its stench of stale beer and cigar smoke, intimidated me. I shined my father’s shoes for a dime, and scrubbed the polish off my hands with cleanser. Life is hard, and I was getting beat up by it.
Video: Emily Levine, Philosopher-Comic
In this brilliant, funny, and largehearted meditation recorded in April, 2017, Emily Levine offers a meditation on life and death as she faces her own terminal illness. Some years back, Emily graduated cum laude from Harvard, intent on pursuing a career as an Oracle.
Jacqueline Keeler: Notre Dame and the Fight for Sacred Lands
An Indigenous journalist reflects on the 800-year-old cathedral and what “sacred” means to her.
Daniel Becker: The Rhyme and Reason of Uncertainty and Doubt
Wallace Stevens taught us there are 13 ways to see a blackbird. Actually, there are more than 13 ways. Just the other day my wife mentioned that blackbirds mourn their dead.
Patricia A. Nugent: Who Needs the Library?
I’ve been looking forward to our book reading in the community associated with “three days of peace and music” in 1968. Woodstock, New York has long been considered a sanctuary … Continue reading
Belle Chesler: Defunding Children — A National Crisis of the Soul
Our kids are struggling not because we’ve forgotten how to teach them or they’ve forgotten how to learn, but because the adults who run this society have largely decided that their collective future is not a priority.
Adrian Blevins: Our Maine Ruinlust
“What we seek, at the deepest level, is inwardly to resemble, rather than physically to possess, the objects and places that touch us through their beauty.”
