Phyllis Bennis, Richard Falk: Americans must demand a credible investigation into Shireen Abu Akleh’s killing
If our tax dollars are furnishing the weapons that kill journalists and other innocents, that’s not just an international crime — it’s against U.S. law, too.
Derrick Z. Jackson: Roe v. Wade Draft Bodes Ill for Air, Wetlands and EPA
If Alito’s draft remains the foundation of the court’s final ruling, then he is also likely prepared to let white-run industry off the hook for fouling the land, air, rivers, and lakes, poisoning communities, which today are disproportionately of color.
Doug Anderson: Be Whole Again Beyond Confusion
The young blame us for everything that is wrong
with the world, as if we’d plotted it that way
just to torment them, as if poisoned
the very land we’re standing on. Some of us did.
Richard Deming: Struth’s unpeopled photos evoke the loneliness of urban life
Sixth Avenue at 50th Street (1978) by Thomas Struth I’m making my way across lower Manhattan on an early May afternoon, my mask snug and my glasses quickly fogging … Continue reading
Michael Simms: Trigger Warning | Old White Guy Talks About Racism
White people don’t spend a lot of time talking about racism. Right-wingers dismiss racism as a talking point that black people use to get special treatment while left-leaning white people simply state that racism is an evil tendency among other white people, but not themselves.
Video: Elif Shafak | The Politics of Fiction
Listening to stories widens the imagination; telling them lets us leap over cultural walls, embrace different experiences, feel what others feel. Elif Shafak builds on this simple idea to argue that fiction can overcome identity politics.
Video: Bruiser
After his father gets into a fight at a bowling alley, Darious begins to investigate the limitations of his own manhood.
Robert Bernard Hass: El Duende | On the Origins of Rafael Nadal’s Tennis Artistry
As Rafael Nadal attempts to win his unprecedented 14th French Open title, whether he wins or loses, we can rest assured that he will dazzle us with an athletic beauty that emerges from this ethos.
Piedad Bonnett: Two Poems (with translations)
Someone is telling us an old tale —
someone is sobbing and praying
to be given a pair of wings.
Erica Etelson: In order to transcend Trumpism, we must tend to suffering — not celebrate it
Our survival as a species depends on our ability to turn away from the delusion of sweet revenge, and show compassion for those we may dislike or detest.
Video: The Opposites Game
An English teacher asks his class: ‘What’s the opposite of a gun?’
Abby Zimet: Concerned Collins Calls Cops On Constituents Committing Communist Chalk Crimes
Susan ‘Snowflake’ Collins was so troubled by chalk-wielding desperados who hate-crimed the (public) sidewalk outside her house by (politely) asking she protect the rights of those women that she called the cops on them – this, while her party of neo-fascists and Christian zealots works tirelessly to drag us all back to the 1300s…
Jon Queally: Buffalo Gunman’s Racism Directly Tied to Mainstreaming of White Nationalism
White nationalism is the greatest threat to our nation’s security and we must hold everyone who spreads this hate accountable before anyone else is harmed.
The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant (Egyptian Middle Kingdom 2000 BCE)
A poor peasant, Khun-Anup, is traveling to market with his donkeys heavily laden with goods to exchange for supplies for his family when Nemtynakht, a vassal of the high steward Rensi, notices the peasant approaching his lands and devises a scheme to steal Khun-Anup’s donkeys and supplies.
Vox Populi 