Sherry Brennan: You can teach kids hard work, but first feed them
Growing up, I hated being on “food stamps.” I hated being walked into a welfare office and inspected, queried to make sure we were really our mother’s children. I hated … Continue reading
Doug Anderson: I am always in love
I am always in love because that is what we are here to do. It feels like dyspepsia when it can’t find its object or its object is abstract. It … Continue reading
Yolanda Parker: I grew up in the segregated South. For me, Supreme Court rulings are personal.
I fear a return to a time when our rights were considered secondary, if at all. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh has a history of interpreting the law in a way … Continue reading
Jill Richardson: Why Women Don’t Report Sexual Assault
When Christine Blasey Ford came forward to report that President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, sexually assaulted her in 1982, you could cue the response: Why didn’t she speak … Continue reading
John Samuel Tieman: Walking Drag
Here’s a little war story I never told anyone.
Paul Christensen: Wearing my corrective lenses
. Sometimes I find myself wandering out of a book into a rambling daydream, one that has neither a beginning nor an end, just a labyrinth of choices and minor … Continue reading
Stephanie Van Hook: Why Mister Rogers Is the Role Model We Need Right Now
The unconventional children’s television pioneer celebrated dignity and kindness in the age of mass media. Rogers says that in times of “scary news,” of tragedy and disaster, his mother taught … Continue reading
John Samuel Tieman: The Lynching Museum — A Pilgrimage
Truth and reconciliation are sequential. You can’t have reconciliation until you have truth. — Bryan Stevenson . On the 28 April 1836, the steamboat “Flora” docked in St. Louis. The … Continue reading
Paul Christensen: Feast Days
In Provence, we’ve just passed through August 15, one of the summer’s biggest festival days, the Assumption of Mary, the day in which Mary ascends into heaven escorted by a … Continue reading
Patricia A. Nugent: From Ugly to Mean
Travelogues don’t typically interest me. I cringe when I ask someone (just to be polite), “How was your trip?” and they give a blow-by-blow of the sights, activities, and food. … Continue reading
Paul Christensen: Europe’s Heat Wave
Here’s what you give up in a heat wave here in southern France. You don’t leave the house much, since the paved streets can reach well above one hundred degrees … Continue reading
Elizabeth Gargano: Why I Chose to Be My Mother’s Caretaker
Living on Human Time When I tell friends and acquaintances that my eighty-nine-year-old mother will be moving in with my husband and me, I get two kinds of stares. One … Continue reading
Marc Jampole: The long-term effects of separating children from their parents
The real tragedy of separating children from their parents will come years from now when the kids suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. These past few days, I’ve been feeling a … Continue reading
Sara Bir: A Brief History of the Feral Blackberry
The Himalayan blackberry was introduced to North America as a food crop. Like a Gremlin doused with water, it escaped its confinement and became almost impossible to eradicate. . Blackberries … Continue reading
