Articles

BY RICHARD C. GROSS Photograph Source: Ron DeSantis – CC BY-SA 2.0 “Without the truth of the people, politics degenerates into mere spectacle and democracy declines, leaving demagoguery and cynicism to fill the void.” — Jerry Brown, Democratic California governor, 1975-1983 and 2011-2019 Rightwing Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis is overturning every liberal rock in his state of Florida because he’s running for president in a war against a woke America, aiming at books, institutions and sexual orientation he doesn’t like. And not only is no one stopping this renegade self-appointed censor of some of the cream of American literature and life – Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn? C’mon! – but most libraries are bowing before him as Mr. Fahrenheit 451 of the book burning wor...

BY REBEKAH ENTRALGO Photograph Source: Environmental Protection Agency – Public Domain The toxic clouds that billowed up from a derailed freight train in Ohio earlier this month are a chilling metaphor for the toxic greed that has infected so many of our big corporations. After having to evacuate, residents of the town near the derailment are cautiously going back home, but they still don’t know the full extent of the damage to the area’s environment and public health. The Norfolk Southern train was carrying dangerous chemicals, including vinyl chloride, a highly flammable carcinogen that is more harmful than even ammonia and natural gas, according to federal regulations. Following the derailment, locals have reported evidence of the sudden death of fish and w...

BY STEPHEN F. EISENMAN Ferdinand Holder, The Night, 1890, Kunstmuseum, Basel. Riddle What’s scarier? A) Hundreds of military bases, all bristling with advanced, offensive weapons, controlled by your avowed enemy, close to your heartland. OR B) Unfinished military bases on three tiny islands, stocked with defensive weapons, about 9,000 miles from your nation’s capital. Plus, a few balloons. Answer: B, but only if you are the United States, the insecure superpower. The nation with most enemy bases close to its border is China. There are nearly 200 U.S. installations in Japan and South Korea alone. Last week, the U.S announced it would add four additional bases to the five existing ones in the Philippines. One of these, on the island of Itbayat, is just 93 miles f...

BY RICHARD FALK Photograph Source: The White House – Public Domain I listened to your prideful nationalism in the State of the Union address with stunned disbelief, wondering how such sentiments could have slipped by your entourage of previously reliable self-censoring staffers. When I received a private email text the next morning featuring your words, I was perplexed and disturbed. I began to understand better your intentions when it turned out that this follow-up was one more in an endless succession of daily appeals from Democratic leaders for money to support the Democratic Party, with even a listing of proposed pledge amounts.  These are the most offending words drawn from your long presidential address, which you seem in the process of adopting as a theme heading int...

BY SONALI KOLHATKAR Photo by Weiye Tan My favorite chair is surrounded by piles of art supplies. There is yarn stacked high in baskets that I once aspired to organize. Metal boxes of paint and brushes are squashed next to jewelry supplies that are threatening to fall off the edge of a too-full shelf. I want so badly… to want to clean. But then I invariably set aside such desires and settle in to knit for the night. This is not what the mini Marie Kondo inside my brain wants. But it’s what the giant beating hub of the artist inside my heart wants—perhaps inspired by the likes of Yayoi Kusama’s organized chaos. And, it’s what all women, indeed all people, ought to want as we aspire for a just world. Cleaning is women’s work. This is not an assertion. It’s...