Three years ago, a friend did some historical research and created a character named Caroline, a woman who was enslaved here in Missouri. She did a few Q&A presentations in that persona. She wanted to tell kids, especially, about the history of enslavement—and also about the White
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The essential limiting factor, here, is the intense desire not to adorn your clothing with greasy bits of burger, fry, cheese, pickle or brightly colored condiments.
Writing first for an alt newsweekly, then a city magazine, I worked on (I finally counted) seventeen “Best of” lists. Every year, the same relentless push to tackle a category of existence, drive around, sample, ask, research, compare, make an agonizing choice, then find a clever way to sum…
We seem to need symbols to be sure of who someone is. And since one is supposed to avoid moping virtuously in sackcloth, a sign of holiness is helpful.
Carnivorism is the expensive habit everyone believes they can afford, despite their best interests, financial or otherwise. Breaking the spell of carnivorism might lie in the looming threat of artificial intelligence.
Audiences might ask, what do those three hours “do”? The answer may be: to portray the helpless, confused feeling of disbelief at our not-knowing in a world where enormous, supra-state power is wielded by gangsters, weirdos, grifters, criminals, and haters, whose choices weaken our societies and make our lives worse.
Pain scares us. Destruction and loss scare us. But what scares us most is ceasing to feel anything at all.
Stark’s electronic fires crackled in the open air. The strings, clarinet, and keyboard of the Unheard-of Ensemble breathed as a fire can only dream of breathing.
These women followed their own instincts. Yet the world ignored them.
This is not an anti-multiculturalism rant. It is instead a warning. States composed of different peoples do not fail because they are composed of different peoples. They fail because many of those different peoples refuse to equally share the benefits and the burdens of a common state.