For one month, one man embraced a number of so-called woo-woo self-improvement practices in his adopted Los Angeles, from crystal healing to “prayer power batteries.” His journey led him to a controversial program called Mastery in Transformational Training, or M.I.T.T.
2018
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction, Story
George Washington Lived in an Indian World, But His Biographies Have Erased Native People
Telling Washington’s story without erasing the people and lands that preoccupied him leads to important new questions; like, just how consequential for American history was the first president’s addiction to land speculation?
Posted inEditor's Pick
‘It’s Not Rair, Not Right’: How America Treats Its Black Farmers
Sugarcane is Louisiana’s most lucrative, stable crop, yet lending discrimination, fraud, vandalism, and intimidation keep putting black farmers out of business. It isn’t just sugarcane.
Posted inBooks, Profiles & Interviews, Story
Celebrating a Profound Literary Inheritance: Glory Edim on the Well-Read Black Girl Anthology
Glory Edim talks about editing her new anthology, the push for equity in publishing, and how black women writers have written themselves into spaces that neglect or ignore them.
Posted inEssays & Criticism, Highlight, Nonfiction, Quotes
A Confederacy of (Dangerous) Dunces
Rebecca Solnit argues that the American Confederacy lives on, with Donald Trump at the helm.
Posted inBusiness, Nonfiction, Quote Posts, Quotes
PFAS, Cancer, 3M, and a Coverup that’s Decades Old
It’s long past time to ditch your Teflon pans.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Cancer-linked Chemicals Manufactured by 3M Are Turning Up in Drinking Water
Studies have shown that 3M-made “per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (or PFAS, pronounced ‘PEE-fas’)” found in Teflon, Scotchgard, and fire-fighting foam have been linked to a weakened immune response and cancer. The chemicals contaminate the ground water around the 3M plant in Cotton Grove, Minnesota creating an “underground plume” of pollution that’s 100 square miles in […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
The American Civil War Didn’t End. And Trump is a Confederate President.
In her new column for The Guardian, Rebecca Solnit makes a solid argument that Donald Trump’s presidency, and his fervent support from white racists, mark an attempt of the Confederacy to rise again.
Posted inArts & Culture, Culture, Essays & Criticism, profile, Profiles & Interviews, Quotes
The Resplendent Photography of Carrie Mae Weems
Carrie Mae Weems may be our best contemporary photographer.
Posted inEditor's Pick, Essays & Criticism, Nonfiction
The Secrets We Keep
Deena ElGenaidi takes stock of the truths she and her Muslim family members hide from one another.