A fox tail dangling from a leather belt. A key chain dangling from a leather belt. A leather belt with a personalized name buckle. Low top red Converse sneakers. High-top black Converse sneakers. Green suede Puma sneakers. Clamshell white Adidas sneakers. White Nike basketball athletic footwear. Blue chinos with the orange stripe running down the … Read more

In December, 2011 a tiny but vital Chicago program of the Illinois Humanities Council (IHC) launched an on-line auction to raise needed cash for its public programming. The Public Square was celebrating its Tenth Anniversary, and Bernardine and I had been on its Advisory Board from the start. We kicked in what money we could, … Read more

Winslow Homer’s painting “Near Andersonville” faces the first page of text in Perspectives by Incongruity — the new volume in the First of the Year series (which you may order now — see link under the cover photo on our homepage). History is moving fast, but with the GOP’s latest great white hopes competing with … Read more

This is the transcript of a talk Gar Alperovitz gave last fall at the Schumacher Institute. You can see/hear the speech here. The very first book I wrote — my Ph.D. thesis, basically — was on the bombing of Hiroshima. An odd place to start. The puzzlement for me was why this country and its … Read more

I have not participated in OWS. I view it from the outside as reflected or refracted through the media. Friends and family who have gone down to Zuccotti Park speak of the experience with enthusiasm. Anyone who believes that there is a gross disparity of wealth between the super haves and the have-nots must be … Read more

Novelist Jesymn Ward first posted this short meditation on what Obama’s rise meant in the deep South in 2008. I almost didn’t vote for Obama in the primaries. I called El beforehand, and we had a very long conversation. I’m afraid, I told her, afraid that he will not be a viable candidate to beat the … Read more

First writers and readers – Amiri Baraka, Jeremy Brecher, Benj DeMott, Diane di Prima, Mark Dudzic, John Fullerton, Dr. Donna Gaines, Ty Geltmaker, Lawrence Goodwyn, Adam Hochschild, Staughton Lynd, Greil Marcus, Deborah Meier, Dennis Myers, (AKA) Nolemonomelon, Jedediah Purdy, Aram Saroyan, Fredric Smoler, Tom Smucker, Scott Spencer & Richard Torres – comment on OWS. Begin … Read more