Julia Conley: Violent Arrest of Emory Professor Spotlights Brutality of Police Crackdown on Campus Protests
“To sustain this level of blind support for Israel, the U.S. must erode its own democracy,” said one foreign policy expert. “And that is what we see happening on U.S. campuses now.”
Michael T. Young: Two Poems
we never see that ball of light cradled
in their green palms
Mel Duncan: There’s a better way to make communities safer — and it’s taking off around the world
A growing number of courageous and creative people are showing that unarmed civilian protection is far superior to any smart or dumb weapon.
Laure-Anne Bosselaar: Brief
It happens so often: there — somewhere
in a line, waiting room or store — I see you,
& it’s something about your work-wrecked
hands, cow-lick, the perfect curl of your lips
Tony Gloeggler: Blessings
The moral of these stories is that all blessings are mixed —From John Updike’s TOO FAR TO GO These days we make appointments to play slow motion basketball in Long … Continue reading
Desne A. Crossley: O Rosie Girl
it was one thing for a white man to bed a black woman, but unthinkable that he would marry her. And it was commonplace for a black woman to be forced to open her legs to her employer or his sons. But Martha married white and returned home with the man!
Elizabeth Gargano: How Parables Teach Us Who We Are
Octavia Butler’s novel begins in what then seemed a distant future, our current year of 2024. Lauren Olamina, the novel’s protagonist, leads a ragged band of followers through an America that is coming apart at the seams.
Emily Cataneo: A New Chapter in the Quest for a Longer Life
In “Why We Die,” biologist and Nobel laureate Venki Ramakrishnan explores the science of aging and life extension.
Jake Johnson: UN Rights Chief Demands International Probe of Mass Graves Near Gaza Hospitals
More than 300 bodies were reportedly discovered in the mass grave near the Nasser facility in Khan Younis, Gaza, and eyewitnesses said Israeli soldiers executed civilians during their two-week-long raid of al-Shifa last month.
Al Maginnes: Lydia Loveless’s X
And just over her heart,
a tattooed X, a set of crossed sticks, stitched
into the skin with a sewing needle and ink,
jailhouse style.
Joan E. Bauer: Remembering Sanora Babb
Ray Bradbury knew Babb from a longtime workshop: The author of a promising Dust Bowl novel that editor Bennet Cerf shelved in ‘39, saying— What rotten luck! claiming her work … Continue reading
Laurence Musgrove: All
We learn all kinds of things
Whether they are taught to us or not,
And nothing is more deeply learned than
What it means to be among our own.
Juan Cole: The US House Just Gave Israel $26 Billion for Its War on Gaza’s Children
The enormous windfall will allow the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to continue to kill or wound a Palestinian child in Gaza every 10 minutes.
Rose Mary Boehm: “Apolitical Preferences” by Hans Magnus Enzensberger
The cellist’s little smile
after the cadenza in the second movement,
even though the Security Council
just convened
Vox Populi 