“There are a few lonely places in this world, and the wastes of the great Alaskan Interior are the loneliest of them all.” Isolation is omnipresent in the pages of Guy Salisbury’s The Cruelest Miles. The book describes the 1925 sled dog relay to deliver medicine to the Alaskan city of Nome, where a diphtheria … Read more
Karthik Chandramouli has always been an active citizen. Growing up in Kentucky as the only son of two Indian immigrant professionals, Chandramouli recalls his third-grade classmates in 1979 being unable to tell him apart from the Iranian refugee in their class. The experience sparked his interest in the politics of racial justice and civil … Read more
On a quiet Mississippi road, one evening in June 1964, a gang of Ku Klux Klansmen attacked three workers canvassing with the Congress of Racial Equality. James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, all under 25, had volunteered their summers to register African Americans throughout Mississippi to vote after decades of suppression by Jim … Read more
The days when the Italian financial system was on the brink of collapse are not long gone. Not a year has passed since Monte dei Paschi di Siena, the world’s oldest surviving bank and once Italy’s third-largest lender, failed to recapitalize itself in the private market, and had to be bailed in by the Italian … Read more
While the world’s eye is turned towards Syria and Iraq, the planet’s largest humanitarian crisis rages just to the south: the Yemeni Civil War. With the World Food Program reporting that two-thirds of Yemenis—almost 17 million people—are in a “crisis” or “emergency” food situation, the breadth and severity of the issue transcends the bloodshed on … Read more
Anthony Kapel “Van” Jones is a CNN political contributor and the host of The Messy Truth, which aims to spark conversation between people with different political views. He is the author of two New York Times best-sellers, The Green Collar Economy (2008) and Rebuild the Dream (2012). His newest release, The Messy Truth, came out … Read more
When the Atlanta rap trio Migos released “Bad and Boujee,” the rambunctious lead single off of their second album, it quickly became a viral sensation. Actor Donald Glover called it the “best song, ever” at the 2017 Golden Globe awards, spurring a 243 percent spike in Spotify streams. Memes adopting the song’s opening line—“raindrop, drop … Read more
With the holidays upon us, it seems like the “White Christmas” of Irving Berlin’s treasured melody is finally here. And yes, I mean Christmas and Christmas alone; forget Hanukah and all that other crap. This year, just as Donald Trump promised time and time again on the campaign trail, Americans will be saying “Merry Christmas” … Read more
= Four American F-15 pilots in Alaska. For Gina Ortiz Jones, the military was more than just a career: it was a path to the American Dream. “I know what it’s like to be on free and reduced lunch. I know what it’s like to live in subsidized housing,” Ortiz Jones said in an interview with the … Read more
In the 1970s, the most coveted consumer goods in China included a radio, bicycle, sewing machine, and wristwatch—the “four big items.” These were replaced in the 1980’s with color TVs, refrigerators, cameras, electric fans, washing machines, and tape recorders—“six big items.” Today, many urban households are more concerned with private apartments, private cars, computers, and … Read more