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. […]
Recently on a trip I picked up a copy of The Southern, the regional newspaper for Southern Illinois, where I grew up. The paper is physically smaller than it used to be, but the fact that it is still printed is remarkable. The Pew Research Center said, a couple of years ago, […]
This year’s Super Bowl was two big rivalries for the price of less than one, given how handily the Philadelphia Eagles defeated the Kansas City Chiefs 40-22 and how deftly Kendrick Lamar used the biggest stage in the nation—the N.F.L. halftime show—to score another round against his hip-hop rival, Drake. The […]
WashU’s Center for the Humanities hosted an event last week titled Fragment, by Russian theater director Dmitry Krymov. To be honest, I did not know beforehand what I was going to see. The brief promotional materials said it had something to do with Chekhov’s Three Sisters. I had hopes it would be […]
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 […]
Between my late teens and early twenties, when at last the finite nature of time and the seemingly infinite number of “Best Of” lists pressed on my mind, I relied on the book John Kobal Presents the Top 100 Movies (1988) to find a way through the yet undiscovered terrain of great […]
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 […]