Charles Harper Webb: Bad Dog
Bad Dog licks killers’ bloody hands,
leaps with joy for rapists, fawns at politicians’
crooked feet. “He’s an awful judge
of character,” the owner tells kind-hearted
strangers who scuttle past
Jasleen Singh: The Trump Administration’s Campaign to Undermine the Next Election
The Trump administration is setting the stage for election subversion. This power play poses a grave threat to the future of U.S. election infrastructure. It is also, in many respects, illegal.
Sarah Beckerman: What fantasy stories teach us about defeating authoritarianism
More than offering an escape, fantasy worlds can also show what courage looks like when the odds are stacked against you.
Alfred McCoy: Did Mark Twain Imagine Donald Trump?
If Mark Twain were alive today, he would certainly have written a novel about Donald Trump. After all, his 1873 novel, The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today, distinctly caught a nineteenth-century version of our Trumpian moment, tariffs and all.
Baruch November: After Bracha
A blessing for just being able
to arise in early pink-blue light.
A blessing for when lightning veins
a cloud or strikes the oak into flames.
A blessing for when the earth quakes
Cynthia Kaufman: Jewish Safety and the Weaponization of Antisemitism
The conflation of criticisms of Israel with antisemitism makes Jews less safe.
Octavia E. Butler: Kindness eases change / Love quiets fear
In order to rise from its own ashes, a Phoenix first must burn.
Kristofer Collins: Pineapple Eddie (three poems)
This is not the color
if justice is what we expect. I feel
God’s thumb pushing down our heads
like dull tacks into this offended earth.
Abby Zimet: The Shambolic Grifter In the Arena, Daring Greatly
As King Cheeto lies, scams, babbles and scurries to escape the furor over his pedophile bestie, some fierce unlikely heroes have emerged to call bullshit.
Roberta Hatcher: Early Days
Into the sudden quiet—
riotous flowers and birds,
wildlife in streets and backyards.
Had they always been there,
hidden behind our busyness
and the noise of our machines?
Thom Hartmann: Trump Is the Most Dangerous Criminal in US History
His most dangerous crime is not simply corruption or obstruction, nor even incitement of insurrection: It’s the deliberate attempted destruction of American democracy itself.
Michael Simms: Ecstasy & Envy
Someone offered me Ecstasy
And I wondered what they had in mind.
Perhaps lying on a beach on the island
Of Antigua, the sun on my skin, a red sail
In the distance soon to arrive?
Naomi Shihab Nye: Alive
Dear Board of Education, no one will ever
remember a test. Repeat. Stories,
poems, projects, experiments,
mischief, yes, but never a test.
Alfred Corn: Unforeseen Tragic Scenario
The heavy balls thundered back and forth and collided with the execs, bowling them over like ninepins.
