Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. A simple idea, the core of Christianity and every other world religion. I remember parroting it as a kid. Later I realized it instilled equity—all human persons have the same value, and no one should be treated as somehow less than you. […]
His is not an easy name to forget. Selam Deutschmann. There is a story behind it. His partner’s first name is Eritrea, which was her heritage but not yet a nation when she was born. There is a story there, too. Selam Deutschmann is a chiropractor, Eritrea Habtemariam a nurse practitioner. They live in […]
When newly sworn U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced—approvingly—that the president of El Salvador had volunteered to accept United States prisoners (including U.S. citizens) for custody in Salvadoran jails for a vendor’s fee, it triggered memories from a far distant time for El Salvador, the United States, and prisons. It was […]
Last week, even a Martian could have heard the buzz of anticipation in WashU’s Graham Chapel. Its pews were smooshed with an overflow audience eager to hear Tim Alberta, staff writer for The Atlantic, make sense of something we have struggled with for a decade: how to reconcile Christian support for a president […]
A Reddit thread Tuesday night lit up with rumors that Elon Musk was on the move again, this time to the VA (the Department of Veterans Affairs). Some commenters were freaking out. The worry was that Musk and his young disciples would push past security in order to access military service […]
“You know you have a crack in this back molar?” the hygienist asks, poking with a sharp thing. “Um…no?” She nods briskly, insists on showing me with a little mirror. “Wwwhat do we do about that?” I ask, using the plural to comfort myself. They are my team, right? We are all invested […]
In the only recorded inter-species war in human history, the humans lost. Meet the victor. Skinny, leggy, frizzy-haired and feathered, with a long, pale blue neck, buggy amber eyes, and wings too short to fly. Instead, they flap when the emu runs, spindly legs blurring at thirty miles per hour. Emus may not […]
To know someone you love died trapped, their body scorched and melted by wildfire? To stand and watch a home that has been your sanctuary for thirty years burn to the ground? To then comb through the rubble and find nothing you can salvage, or worse, see an album of wedding photos so […]
When Stephen Sondheim flew into town to accept the St. Louis Literary Award, my friend Lana Pepper, then president of the organization bestowing the prize, planned a dinner for him. Upon learning that Sondheim only drank vodka, Lana, the quintessential host, drove all over town in a frenzy, because the only vodka […]
Grinning, I requested Want, Gillian Anderson’s collection of women’s anonymous sexual fantasies, from our all-knowing small-town library. Why not? If a few were especially intriguing, I could read them aloud to my husband in a husky voice…. He saw the book on the kitchen table and snuck it away the next time he […]
