On the campus of Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville, you will spot an unusual, beautiful shape in the distance. A geodesic dome, set apart from the main buildings, and somehow beckoning. This is the Center for Spirituality & Sustainability, designed (in partnership with architect Shoji Sadao) by Buckminster Fuller, back when he was on the […]
Maybe it sat on the sill of your mother’s kitchen window near the sink. Or perhaps it lodged in an old tin coffee can on your back porch. Wherever it resided, this pale-colored solid, speckled with bits of meat floating below a film of watered residue, was the leftover that would […]
I would call it a modest proposal, but Swift did not really mean his to be taken straight. I do think Harvard University, preeminent symbol of American education, intellect, striving, and continuity, should be prepared to go out of business. So should Columbia University, Princeton, Brown, Cornell, Northwestern, University of Pennsylvania, […]
A journalist friend emails: “I’m not sure what to make of Pamela Paul’s decision (assuming she wasn’t forced out).” I stare at the message for a second, thinking only: who is Pamela Paul? A New York Times columnist, it turns out—and I subscribe. But lazily. I write back, saying that after skimming Paul’s goodbye column, […]
Weird, that this global-trade-war market-crash thing feels a lot like five years ago. The cause is entirely different, yet I am feeling exactly the same disorientation and stomach-clenching fear I felt with the spread of COVID-19. And, given the abruptness, magnitude, and destructive power of the change, the same vertigo. There is a […]
Anyone fortunate enough to have an education in classical rhetoric knows by heart the four forms of discourse: argumentation, exposition, description, and narration. Aristotle taught us not only that language was the chief tool of persuasion, but also how to persuade. Centuries later, writers and novelists such as Jane Austen and […]
This is not the story of a sweet, smart, oft-maligned breed of dog, the sort of dog you would expect to find curled at the feet of an expat in 1930s Paris. A dog with a sometimes wry, sometimes goofy sense of humor; a dog who would rather do tricks than hunt rats, […]
April 5 is a date to conjure with for fans of R.E.M., the post-punk pioneers from Athens, Georgia (fronted by Michael Stipe, a military child who attended high school in Collinsville, Illinois, and moved to the University of Georgia from Granite City, of all places). On that date in 1980, the […]
Curious about the psyches of two well-known men—their names are not necessary—I ask Chat GPT 4 to pretend it is their psychiatrist and analyze them. Which personality, I want to know, is darker? I am not even sure what I mean by “darker.” More malevolent in intent? Capable of doing more damage? The […]
Organizers are saying there were some 1,400 “Hands Off!” rallies nationwide Saturday, with three million participants protesting Donald Trump’s tariffs, Elon Musk’s dismantling of government agencies, and the general debasement of America’s standing in the world, among other issues. The website of the organization 50501, which put the movement together, showed […]