“True Happiness and Joy”
Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1988. He was the author of 40 novels, 350 short stories, and five plays. When I was in Palestine in 2003, I would read…
Should This Be Added to Gene Sharp’s List of 198 Nonviolent Actions?
Today Spielberg’s The Post opens It’s true! — a film about the Pentagon Papers I texted Max if he’d like to go and he responded in a couple of minutes: “I took a quick look…
Waiting in Line To Order an Espresso
I overheard Sylvie Smith ask Emma Wong “What’s up, haven’t seen you on Snapchat?” “Yeah, I haven’t looked at Snapchat In three weeks” Sylvie looked horrified “THREE WEEKS?!!! What’s going on with you?” “Just into…
Three Hours in the Morning
In Talking with Sartre, U.S. professor John Gerassi explores a fascinating range of subjects with the French intellectual, writer, and activist. At the book’s conclusion, Gerassi writes, “What we must do instead, he said, is…
December 10 Sunday Share the Wealth with Andrew Wimmer: Reckoning with Torture
In November 2005, Stop Torture Now, a project of the Center for Theology and Social Analysis in St. Louis, delivered a Peoples’ Indictment against Aero Contractors and the commissioners of the Johnston County airport in…
In Praise of Sentimental Slop
Back in the late 90s, when the spring semester ended, and the grades had been turned in, I’d treat myself with another reading of Dostoevsky’s magisterial The Brothers Karamazov. I’ve lost track of how many…
On “Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry” by Carly Hofstetter
Carly is taking my Humanities class at Maryville and shared the following with me, and I am happy to share with you. After watching this documentary I realized I know little to nothing about China,…
For All My Friends Who Are Free Spirits
“What is now proved was once only imagin’d.” –William Blake Free Spirits desire the emancipation of all humankind Free Spirits conceive a habitable, harmonian world Free Spirits know that no revolution has gone far enough…
After Reading a 2002 Book by Arundhati Roy
What is happening to our world is almost too colossal for human comprehension to contain. But it is a terrible, terrible thing. To contemplate its girth and circumference, to attempt to define it, to try…
A State of Wonder and Serenity
What is this song or picture, this engaging personality presented in life or in a book, to me? What effect does it really produce on me? Does it give me pleasure? And if so, what…