Reaching Out to Connect with a Gallant Voice from a War-Ravaged Land
As I was being vetted, administrators asked what I would do if my Ukrainian partner wanted to talk about hardships and loss. I said I could listen. What else could I do?
As I was being vetted, administrators asked what I would do if my Ukrainian partner wanted to talk about hardships and loss. I said I could listen. What else could I do?
Because I worked for Ray at “The Riverfront Times” for 18 years, my thoughts immediately turned to the many other “RFT” alums who loved and admired him. Over the next several weeks, I contacted more than 50 of my old colleagues and asked them to contribute remembrances of their often life-changing time at the “RFT” and to reflect on Ray’s impact on both them and St. Louis. Almost everyone said yes, and this tribute is the result. —Cliff Froehlich
In the end, the only thing to be done with a movie like this is to throw it to the wolves of Reddit.
Some way, somehow, commencement speakers come to embody the ideals and principles of millions of hard-working students who some way, somehow, want their ideals and principles embodied in the choice of commencement speakers across hundreds of institutions of higher education. Basic laws of probability tell us the majority of these choices will not match.
A few days ago, a man in Memphis messaged me by LinkedIn to ask if I was the person who had offered to help him market his book. When I said no, he showed me the email that offered to make his novel a smash hit.
When Tim Robinson in his poorly fitting outfit that he most likely refers to as his “work clothes” describes an incident in which a monster barrels through his doggy door, we laugh. But when he points at the camera and screams “WHAT DID THEY DO TO US?!” who can laugh? Who, honestly, can write him off as absurd?
The French philosopher, Michel de Montaigne, writing in “Of Friendship,” imagines friendship as a bond so complete it resists explanation. It is difficult to read that text now without noticing how much it assumes proximity, continuity, and a shared life that does not fracture across distance.
I left Congo. But Congo did not leave me entirely. I came to the United States not long after. There were moments when the fear came back. But I had learned something in Congo about fear. Get closer. Look at it. It is never quite what it appears to be from a distance.
The women of Lota, Chile, or Lotinas, represent a long feminist movement to preserve cultural memory and reinvigorate the economy of their city. At the end of March 2026, they flew more than 20 hours to be in residency for a week at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), where they led workshops on art “as a tool of historical storytelling and civic activism.”
Not since Prohibition has there been such a strong and widespread public warning. It feels a little odd.