Erin McCarley: An Open Letter to the DNC From an American Centrist
I respectfully encourage the DNC to abandon its corporate allegiance, re-configure its membership and shift into alignment with the will of the people.
Jason Irwin: Smoke Rising
Back then to see dark clouds of smoke
rising above the housetops meant that God, in his wisdom and mercy,
was still on our side.
Buddha Shakyamuni: Well-Spoken
A statement endowed with five factors is well-spoken, not ill-spoken; it is blameless and not faulted by knowledgeable people. Which five?
Peter Schireson: Good Morning
Across the street, Ginkgo
sway in the breeze
like a gospel choir.
Ralph Nader: It Should Be Easy to Defeat Trump, But Corporate Democrats Look Ready and Willing to Blow It
Trump should be the most defeatable president in history.
Sandy Solomon: Amédé Ardoin
And now only his voice remains
as it cries through the needle scratch.
Across decades, that voice has entered
our voices: our style, our common despair.
Audio: The Ballad of Birmingham
At 10:22 a.m. on the morning of September 15, 1963, some 200 church members were in the building—many attending Sunday school classes before the start of the 11 am service—when the bomb detonated on the church’s east side, spraying mortar and bricks from the front of the church and caving in its interior walls.
Kazu Haga: Why we need to move closer to King’s understanding of nonviolence
When we use nonviolence to confront violence and injustice, we are not disturbing the peace, we are disturbing complacency. We are disturbing the normalization of violence.
Molly Ivins: Greatest Hits
“I have been attacked by Rush Limbaugh on the air, an experience somewhat akin to being gummed by a newt. It doesn’t actually hurt, but it leaves you with slimy stuff on your ankle.”
Audio: WeWeWeWe The Remarkable (for Gwendolyn Brooks)
The Pool Players.
Seven at the Golden Shovel.
Karl Evers-Hillstrom: Senators overseeing impeachment trial got campaign cash from Trump legal team members
Former independent counsels Ken Starr and Robert Ray, who investigated then-President Bill Clinton around the time of his impeachment, each made large campaign contributions to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) last year before joining Trump’s legal team.
Judith Sanders: The Farewell
“Picture a staircase,”
the hypnotist said.
“At the top, a door
will open
onto a landscape.”
Abby Zimet: RIP Fresh Water and Life on the Planet
Trump’s bold plan to poison his own citizens in the name of corporate pandering came after a Davos trip where he bad-mouthed mean Greta Thunberg and other “prophets of doom” who “want to see us do badly,” and praised Elon Musk, “one of our very smart people, one of our great geniuses,” who “does good at rockets.”
Walter Bargen: Which brings us to one certainty. . .
can you tell me the colors
sweeping the sky this evening,
can you tell me exactly the volcanic-ash
effects, the drought and dust effects,
the shift of light along the spectrum
