Susie Cagle: ‘Fire is medicine’| The tribes burn California forests to save them
For millennia, native people have used flames to protect the land. The US government outlawed the process for a century before recognizing its value.
Christine Skarbek: A Personal Pantheon of Phenomenal Fellows
On this Thanksgiving, I survey all the deliciously delightful people who have touched my life and kudize them all. However, there are four in my personal pantheon that are absolute standouts. Oddly, they are all men.
Louie Skipper: Staying put, the contented man looks inward
A poem in my own hand
that goes on without my help or knowledge.
Lindsey Royce: Things I Didn’t Know I Loved
These actual things
allow me to relive the velocity
with which I’ve learned I love him…
Iman Chahine Sharba: God of Dreams
God passed away empty handed
But with regret
And like a sly boy
Broke with his shoe
the last dry loaf of bread.
Video: The Tables
A look at the powerful connection between a pair of outdoor ping pong tables in the heart of New York City and the unlikely group of people they’ve brought together, from homeless people to investment bankers to gangbangers.
Karen J. Greenberg: Donald Trump Is Annihilating Truth Itself
The focus on Donald Trump’s blatant and persistent lying only serves to obfuscate other no less destructive methods of deceiving the public that preceded him into the White House and helped create the conditions that make the president’s lies so destabilizing.
Peter Makuck: Grackles
But after a few minutes
they become bold and
like dark thoughts
return
Nathan Williams: Experiencing Firsthand Failures of UN Climate Politics, I Realized Civil Disobedience Only Route Left
We exist in the midst of planetary tragedy. A tragedy that demands we face the truth and ask the hardest questions about how we now must live.
Sally Bliumis-Dunn : Echolocation
I saw one once—heaved onto the sand with kelp
stuck to its blue-gray skin.
Heavy and immobile,
it lay like a great sadness.
Sarah Gordon: Acta Sanctorum
Aldhelm danced like a clown in the public square,
to win hearts, then souls, he said, and we love him
for that impish joy, that easy surrender
Video: Patti Smith sings “The Tyger” by William Blake
Through song and story, Patti Smith gives us new insight into the transcendent genius of William Blake.
Muhammad Aurangzeb Ahmad: The Muslim tradition of sci-fi and speculative fiction
The short story ‘Sultana’s Dream’ (1905) by Rokeya Sakhawat Hussain, a Bengali writer and activist, takes place in the mythical realm of Ladyland. Gender roles are reversed and the world is run by women, following a revolution in which women used their scientific prowess to overpower men.
