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What Would Leo Tolstoy Tell Us About Donald Trump?
To begin to understand the engine of history and politics, Tolstoy said, we must stop fixating on the psychology of political celebrity and direct our attention to a more primal force: our group mind,...
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November 2016: Our Fight Begins
A little after 1 am on the night of Trump's victory, I saw a small group of people sitting down on the long sidewalks and closed roads around 43rd Street and Broadway, as if holding a vigil or starting...
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A Time For Kicks, A Time For Inspiration
Who ever said freedom came cheap? As we face the horrifying reality of a racist right-wing coup in America, many of us are refusing to be silent or afraid, and we are fortifying ourselves with an...
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Our Rhinoceros Year
In Rhinoceros by Eugene Ionesco, two men are sitting in a cafe in a small French town when the improbable news arrives that a rhinoceros was seen in town. Soon the two men look out the window to see...
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Ride to Think: The Lonely Journey of Robert M. Pirsig
The author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, the great 1974 novel about a father who takes his son on a philosophical cross-country journey, has died at the age of 88.
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Miami Diary, August 2017
I've been hiding out in Florida, working hard, staring at the ocean, getting a tan. Today, I've decided to start writing and blogging regularly again.
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Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and Chekhov: Russia's Eternal Literary #Resistance
Because I love literature, I bristle when ever I hear Russia described as my country's enemy. Certainly Vladimir Putin is our enemy, because he is a tyrant who murders journalists, and certainly Donald...
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Dystopia Weekend: America's Ayn Rand Problem
Is it possible every single Republican Congressperson and Senator in the United States of America is a greed-worshipping, Atlas Shrugged-carrying Ayn Randian? Of course not, but you'd never know it...
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Reflections
What I've been up to, including some new channels for antiwar activism, a tribute to John Perry Barlow, and that opera article I'll finish someday ...
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Satori in Brooklyn: Our Shared Spaces
Thinking big thoughts while strolling the beach at Coney Island ...
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Moment of Clarity
Inspired by Greta Thunberg's powerful speech at the climate strike in New York City, here's what I'm up to lately, including several podcast episodes, an exciting antiwar conference and a few goodbyes...
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A Journey Of Voice
I took a walk through Prospect Park today. These hilly acres in the middle of Brooklyn were designed to get you lost, with swerving paths that make you think you're walking in a definite direction as...
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Scorched Earth
There's a smell of scorched earth in the air lately, here in America. It's smoke from Pacific coast wildfires, and it's something more: the warning scent of an authoritarian future we must avoid, even...
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Diane Di Prima's Revolutionary Letters
Excerpts from Diane di Prima's "Revolutionary Letters".
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The Walls Of Our Cage: Reading John Edgar Wideman
I took the #WidemanChallenge, in which a few literary critics, bloggers and journalists spent the end of 2020 calling attention to a writer that too few people know about: John Edgar Wideman, an...
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