Who knew? The women’s movement to win the vote in the United States (which didn’t happen until 1920) began with book clubs! In my life, “feminism” was a word often expressed with a sneer, the struggle for equality seen as an effort to shed femininity and be man-like. Burn your bra at the peril of […]
We are perplexing beings. I just finished reading Maus, a graphic book by Art Spiegelman banned in Russia and Tennessee. The author’s words and drawings depict his attempt to capture his father’s memories of living through the Holocaust. The young man is conflicted, unable to stand being around his eccentric, obsessive father and overwhelmed by […]
What kind of world allows young American football players to feel comfortable making a video about raping an unconscious girl? A world where the defense against a brutal, fatal rape of a student in India is that “respectable women are not raped?” A world where a young Pakistani student is shot for going to school? The […]
This is a true and funny story that happened a few years ago. It’s about angels and life and Bob. I was thrilled that my book had won a national award but didn’t think it was worth a trip to Chicago just to get a photo made. Sister Laura, however, was hyped about it. She […]
Rob Langford is probably not a name you are familiar with. He was a quiet, thoughtful man who wanted to make things better. When the FBI chose him to serve as Special Agent in Charge of the Birmingham, Alabama office, he came with an open mind. And that changed everything. Langford realized there was edgy […]
Susan had never told her family about her experiences. In fact, before Louisa Weinrib called her in 1990 for an interview, she she had never talked about what happened to anyone other than those who had gone through it with her. Hers is a true story of amazing strength, resourcefulness, and friendship. Susan Eisenberg’s childhood […]
A friend sent me a little story about someone who mocked a man for buying a fancy car, asking him if he realized how many people the money that he spent on the car could have fed. The man recounted all the jobs that were created to make/sell the car and noted that those jobs […]
Last month, I promised a report on my trip to Iceland. Did not expect that they would be waiting for an imminent volcanic eruption from an area we were just visiting! As of this post, one area has sunk and the other risen, and a crack three feet deep appeared in the road in a […]
Who are We? Nothing was more tedious for me as a student than the requirement to memorize dates and events of the past. What’s so important about the past, anyway? As an avid reader of science fiction, I was much more interested in the future. No one has been more surprised than I, here in […]
Until recently, scientists thought humans were the only species with the specialty brain neurons responsible for higher cognitive functions like self-awareness, a sense of compassion, and language. They were wrong. Fifteen million years before humans, whales began evolving these special glial cells, and now a strange phenomenon is occurring off the Baja coast of Mexico. Humans […]