The Von Braun Center sits in downtown Huntsville, a brutalist concrete slab of a building that reminds you of an old Stasi interrogation and torture center. Or, more appropriately, a Nazi one. Wernher Von Braun, the father of America’s rocket programs and whose work transformed Huntsville from a backwater Southern textile town into a major […]
The Lyceum Was Empty
Reese didn’t understand. 1. Walking through the grounds of Cannonball Church, we came upon a homeless man curled up in the corner, resting in a narrow sliver of shade on a hot, sopping humid day. I took a photo. I didn’t say anything. Reese and I continued our walk. “Why did you do that?” I […]
The Chicago Women’s Liberation Rock Band, 1970-1973
A Memoir and Reflection on Badass Boffo Revolutionary Feminist Music by Naomi Weisstein Introduction by John Garvey Naomi Weisstein was a founding member of the Chicago Women’s Liberation Union in 1969 and, soon afterwards, a founding member of the Chicago Women’s Liberation Rock Band. In the the following essay, which we are re-posting from the […]
Conversations with “The Enemy”
Last year on my then-job, work was slow. A late middle-aged RN supervisor who worked in a different wing came in to file papers. We exchanged superficial pleasantries, the mask everyone wears in everyday life. And then suddenly that mask dropped for some reason I still don’t understand, she sat down and started talking very […]
The Peril of Voting and the Promise of Action
It may well be that no outrage yet carried out under the Trump regime has so galvanized popular disgust and opposition as the decision to implement a policy of separating children from parents when they arrive at the Mexican-US border. Although the news reports from the detention centers are not as revealing as they could be […]
Boats Against the Current
The desperate search for a bathroom in New York City teaches one much about the surrounding world and one’s place in it. With my pockets empty but my bladder and small intestine poised to burst, I stilt down 9th Avenue struggling to maintain the poise and composure necessary for the daily fight to satisfy basic […]