By Mike Hembury — SOAPBOX You hear that horrible grating sound? Like metal on metal, like the awful groan of a ship’s hull striking a solid object? Except louder. Much, much louder. Those are the tectonic plates of history grinding up against each other. Shifting, reconfiguring. Putting into question everything…

By Ryan M. Moser — FROM THE INSIDE I remember when times were easier. Taking a lunch break by the Delaware River and walking over to a shrub of canary-yellow trumpet honeysuckles. Picking one carefully and then slowly, methodically, pulling the thin stem from the blossom to reveal a small…

By Cory Massaro — LET’S DO LUDDISM There’s something delightfully/dismally cyberpunk about tech companies. When I read about things like Google’s — dual citizenship (and similar moves by Apple and others), I imagine us careening toward a future where companies are city-states. I think of corporate sovereignty as described in…

By Caroline Donahue — THE BOOK DOCTOR The idea of ‘Motherland’ creates group identity in the world. It is the source, the culture we were raised in. It is the membership we didn’t have to apply for — for the most part, we got in by showing up in the…

By Maria Behan — SPOTLIGHT With nearly 200,000 of his troops menacing Ukraine’s border last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin likened Ukraine to Sleeping Beauty, casting himself in the role of her rapist: “Whether you like it or not my beauty, you will need to put up with all I…

By Mike Hembury — SOAPBOX As Russian tanks and troops head into Ukraine in an attempt to seize the capital Kyiv, along with other major cities, anti-war demonstrators around the world are taking to the streets to express their solidarity with the Ukrainian people and their opposition to the Russian…

By Ryan M. Moser — FROM THE INSIDE Information is everything in prison. Getting news from other incarcerated residents can be a matter of life or death, or it can be as mundane as a menu change for Wednesday’s dinner. Information is passed back and forth like a tarnished coin…

By Irena Ioannou — GAZE I am a private person. I usually keep my thoughts to myself and I need time to feel comfortable getting close to other people. The older I’ve got, the more reserved I’ve become. I can recognize whether I like a new acquaintance immediately. I don’t…

By Irena Ioannou — GAZE I am a private person. I usually keep my thoughts to myself and I need time to feel comfortable getting close to other people. The older I’ve got, the more reserved I’ve become. I can recognize whether I like a new acquaintance immediately. I don’t…