December 2011

It’s hard to hear messages from the past.  They may pre-date any notion of environmentalism, of equal rights for women, or of morality without religion.  Their goals may seem small precisely because those goals have already been achieved.  But sometimes it can be useful to us to look back at long-gone hopes and plans that were later fulfilled, so that we can move on to the next step. 

In 1849, peace activists gathered in Paris, and Victor read more

I’m torn between the pleasure of having just read a brilliant and moving first-person stream-of-consciousness account of a true story of one woman’s childhood, and the deep sadness that comes from learning about the absolutely horrific hell that this woman is extremely lucky to have survived — a hell that many others have known and will know, despite the ease with which it might be prevented.

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote: “These novels will give read more

This time of year is ideal for reflecting on the miracle of Christmas 1914, that famous temporary truce and friendship between opposing sides in the midst of a war. Here was a new type of slaughter confronted with a new type of humanism, the leading edges of two opposing trends.

An op-ed in the New read more