It is often said that when an elder dies a library burns down. It could also be said that when a tavern keeper dies a tavern burns down. So many moments of fellowship, of shared music and drinks, that would have happened now will never happen—they vanished before they could exist. Jacobsmeyers […]
Nothing sorts extraordinary drives from ordinary ones quite like the selection of music to accompany the journey. That is especially true when the drive is long. A vacation drive has its own curious logistics of pre-planning. Water bottles must be cleaned out, snacks must be chosen for purchase, the endless worry of a […]
Washington University in St. Louis undergraduate student Alethea Franklin and St. Louis writer Marie Wenya Burns are the second annual recipients of the Heartland Journalism Fellowships. Established by WashU and the River City Journalism Fund, the Heartland Journalism Fellowships support development of aspiring minority and underrepresented writers. During their yearlong residency, which […]
The second meeting of the Poverty Council at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago last week, titled “The Fierce Urgency of Now: How Democrats Can Win the Fight Against Poverty,” revealed another tension within the DNC. Susie Shannon, a California Health Commissioner and founder of the DNC Poverty Council opened the meeting […]
When I prepared my reading for the farewell poetry performance at the Way Out Club in July of 2021, I pulled only from my chapbook Shape of a Man because it occurred to me that Bob Putnam, co-owner of the club, was perhaps the first man I ever knew. I was old enough […]
One of the more interesting parts of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago last week was the tensions that developed in the unacknowledged spaces between the show as an international marketing abstraction and the specific idealisms of various Americans. One example was in the second meeting of the Rural Council on Thursday, […]
That’s a wrap, as they say in the biz, or at least I assume that is what some 45-year old White guy with starched hair, skinny pants, and no socks said in DNC Global Media Headquarters after the balloon drop that ended the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago last night. […]
Tuesday there was a convention meeting for the DNC’s Veterans and Military Families Council, held at McCormick Place. Council Chair Terron Sims II, a West Point graduate and veteran, made introductory remarks on the power of veterans as a voting bloc. Veterans and their families make up eight percent of the national […]
The way that the DNC in Chicago works is that during the day there are delegation breakfasts, press briefings, and caucus and committee meetings at McCormick Place, the trade show venue on the lake. The caucus and committee meetings are for “special” interests, such as the Native American Caucus, Labor Council, Small […]
There is new energy in the previously moribund Democratic ticket. This was obvious from the moment President Joe Biden chose not to run for re-election, but it is doubly apparent at the end of the first day of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Kamala Harris and Tim Walz—maybe as important a […]
