On Guthrie, Robeson, Seeger, Lomax, Dylan, the Red Scare, the fall of labor, and what folk music had to do with it.
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Posted inArts & Culture, Current Events, Nonfiction
R.E.M.’s Political Songs Still Resonate Today
The band was never afraid to push social activism through their music.
Posted inEditor's Pick
J.D. Vance, the False Prophet of Blue America
“No one wrote escape narratives about Staten Island. Few plumbed the psyches of suburban Trumpists. And no one examined why Democratic Buchanan County had become Republican. Instead, the media class fixated on the spectacle of white trash Appalachia, with Vance as its representative-in-exile.”
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Resonant and Beautiful: The Meaning of ‘Allahu Akbar’
Mehreen Kasana reveals the many true and beautiful meanings that you’ve never heard of behind “takbir” — the expression of Muslim faith, “Allahu Akbar” — literally, “God is great.”
Posted inBlog Post, Nonfiction
A President in Search of An Enemy
A brief history of the phrase, “enemy of the people.”
Posted inCurrent Events, Reading List, Story
The Best Longreads From Trump’s First 100 Days
After an exhausting first few weeks, the media dug in for the long fight ahead.
Posted inEditor's Pick
On Wisconsin
In the wake of the Presidential election, it’s fitting to highlight this evergreen personal essay from the literary magazine Witness. In it, one man meditates on his home state, a cold place where a distrustful, resistant tribalism intersects with a history of early progressivism, harkening back to a time “when the Republican Party was on […]
Posted inBlog Post, Reading List
Celebrating a Second Independence Day: A Juneteenth Reading List
Nine stories that explain the fraught history of the holiday, and the need for celebration.Â
Posted inBooks, Profiles & Interviews, Story, Writing
The Real Obama: An Interview with Pulitzer Prize-Winning Biographer David J. Garrow
The author offers insights into the 44th President of the United States after interviewing over 1,000 people for Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama.
Posted inBusiness & Tech, History, Nonfiction, Story
My Journey to the Heart of the FOIA Request
Fifty years ago, the Freedom of Information Act gave the public access to government secrets — all you had to do was ask. How a simple request became a bureaucratic nightmare.
