The rise and fall of Pyramiden, a Russian mining town located in the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard.
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Posted inBooks, Member Pick, Nonfiction, Story
The Wandering Years
Thoughts, observations, and reflections from the travel journals of Lawrence Ferlinghetti.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The Technology of ‘Nonlethal’ Weapons and Crowd Control
What the “protesters” had come up against was the Active Denial System, a weapon, we were told, that “could change the rules of war and save huge numbers of lives in Iraq.” Active denial works like a giant, open-air microwave oven, using a beam of electromagnetic radiation to heat the skin of its targets to […]
Posted inNonfiction, Reading List
When Our Troops Are Abandoned and Neglected at Home: 6 Stories
This October 2014 New York Times investigation by C.J. Chivers is about more than just the discovery of old chemical weapons in Iraq—it’s about how shabbily we still treat our troops when they return home. We leave our all-volunteer army with inadequate medical care, emotional trauma, and fragile families. Here are six stories on our […]
Posted inNonfiction, Story
Well-Aimed and Powerful
The death of the shuttle, the moon hoax conspiracy theory, and why one man deserved to be punched in the damn mouth by Buzz Aldrin.
Posted inNonfiction, Story
Buried Alive in a Grain Silo
Grain-bin accidents have become a consequence of our massive corn consumption.
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction, Story
The Rise of Joan of Arc: How a Visionary Peasant Girl Defied a Dress Code and Challenged the Patriarchy
Following the guidance of the voices only she could hear, Joan, a peasant girl living in a world dominated by aristocrats and men, left her home to convince the dauphin—and many men along the way—that only she could save France and make him king.
Posted inNonfiction, Reading List
What Ails Us: A Reading List About Disease
In last week’s Reading List, I wrote about Eula Biss and her new book, On Immunity: An Inoculation. It is a meditation on the United States, disease, race and motherhood, using vaccination as a metaphor/catalyst. With that on my mind, this week’s list is about diseases—four essays about Ebola, Parkinson’s and more. 1. “My Mother, Parkinson’s and […]
Posted inQuotes
The Last Living Recipient of VA Benefits from the Civil War
Ms. Triplett’s pension, small as it is, stands as a reminder that war’s bills don’t stop coming when the guns fall silent. The VA is still paying benefits to 16 widows and children of veterans from the 1898 Spanish-American War. The last U.S. World War I veteran died in 2011. But 4,038 widows, sons and […]
