I’ve enjoyed The Sun for years, and I devour each issue cover to cover. In the February 2026 issue, two articles really stood out for me. The first was “The Fourth Estate,” Finn Cohen’s interview with Sheila Coronel. Coronel offers reassurance that fact-based investigative reporting is still being taught in journalism programs, and that brave souls continue to pursue it despite the risks. She also validated my feelings about the importance of commentators and comedians like Jon Stewart, John Oliver, Stephen Colbert, and Jimmy Kimmel.
The second was “Sleeping Children,” Kevin Peraino’s essay on what he witnessed in Gaza as a reporter for Newsweek in the early aughts. His chronology of Palestinian politics gave me a new perspective on the events that have led to Israel’s diabolical erasure (with US weapons and support) of a people and their homeland. I used to hope for a “two-state solution,” which I thought was fair and just, but as I read Peraino’s essay, I didn’t feel as if he was pushing me to take sides—rather, he was helping me understand the different factions’ strategies to consolidate power, and how families became the collateral damage.
I read “Sleeping Children” with dismay. Kevin Peraino provides an objective-sounding view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since 1948, leading the reader to conclude that Israel was, and is, largely to blame. He leaves out a significant part of the picture, however, and the information he omits leads me to a different conclusion.
For example, Peraino makes it a point that Israel made few concessions in the years following the 1993 Oslo Accords. Yet despite having visited Gaza in the spring of 2005, he does not mention Israel’s disengagement and withdrawal from Gaza that August, which included the forcible removal of Israeli settlers. This was a major concession even though it did not occur in the immediate aftermath of Oslo.
He also writes that “Israel maintained merciless travel restrictions on Palestinians.” Of course Israel placed restrictions on Palestinians’ ability to travel. Hamas, backed with millions of dollars of Iranian military armaments, was firing rockets into Israel. Peraino does not mention the flow of arms or funds from Iran. Instead he says that “Israeli and American leaders, taking Hamas at its word that it sought to destroy the Jewish state, did not ultimately welcome Gaza’s new democratically elected government. Instead they sought to subvert it.” Why wouldn’t they take Hamas at its word? Its charter, which Peraino seems to find amusing, called for the killing of all Jews. Hamas wrote openly about destroying Israel and had a constant supply of weapons to achieve their goal.
I am sad that The Sun would publish an essay that appears to hold Israel responsible for the horror and destruction that this conflict has brought down on both Palestinians and Israelis.
I read Finn Cohen’s interview with Phyllis Johnson about coffee production [“Crop to Cup,” January 2026] with great interest but was disappointed to find no mention of Puerto Rico. Johnson says that Hawaii is the only state in the US that produces coffee. While this is technically true, it is only because Puerto Rico is not a state but a territory that the US has governed since 1898.
The Sun’s readers deserve to know that Puerto Rico has been growing some of the world’s finest coffee since the eighteenth century, when it was a major exporter to Spain, France, Germany, and even the Vatican. It still produces excellent specialty and everyday coffees.
The island has a deep coffee culture. The unique growing conditions found in Puerto Rico’s central mountain range make it possible to cultivate both Arabica and Robusta varieties. And, despite the challenges of extreme weather, Puerto Rican farmers are resilient. New generations of growers and roasters have been inspired to revive specialty-coffee production, which they see as a critical step toward alimentary and economic autonomy.
Moonshine Matthiessen’s intimate essay “Waterfall” [January 2026] resonated deeply with me. My sexuality was once how I communicated, on the deepest level, with others. But when my husband stopped wanting sex and withdrew into his quest for spiritual purity, I adapted out of respect for a person I loved. I was filled with resentment, though, and, twenty years later, I still feel it was a huge sacrifice. Matthiessen’s essay reminds me to continue to honor and attend to my inner “animal” in its secret hiding place.
I enjoyed reading Becky Mandelbaum’s short story “Love in All Directions” [January 2026], not least because I live in the Vancouver-Bellingham-Seattle corridor and know well the journey down to Trader Joe’s. If I could talk to Mandelbaum’s protagonist, I would assure her that the Canadian customer who deprived her of the tomatoes is atypical. She would undoubtedly have gotten that can from me and all the Canadians I know.
Unfortunately, the infantile bloviator in the White House has gotten between Americans and Canadians, and right now there are way fewer British Columbia plates in the Trader Joe’s parking lot. We sorely miss you and your generosity of spirit. I hope we can give each other a hug when we get back together.
I am grateful to Rebecca Krell for her Readers Write contribution about her mother, who deliberately generated tension between Krell and her sister [“Stirring the Pot,” January 2026]. My mother does the exact same thing, and her tactics kept my sister and me apart for decades. I only recently learned that this is one of many behaviors that narcissists employ to control those around them. Learning about narcissistic personality disorder helped me change my own patterns of behavior and become happier in my relationships. My sister and I are now best friends.
Sometimes I share a piece from The Sun because it is emotionally resonant or intellectually rich, but other times I really need the unfettered humor of a phrase like “Psychic Wigs.” I’m glad Sparrow’s essay “The Danish” found a place in the January 2026 issue.
I just finished Alice Bradley’s short story “Don’t Be Alarmed” [December 2025]. It felt like Beatrice, Bradley’s protagonist, was a real person, and I was living her whole life story. This piece is a mirror reflecting not only the emotions we imagine that no one else has ever felt (although others have, of course), but also the minor, seemingly inconsequential moments that ultimately form our lives.
“Don’t Be Alarmed” was a perfect slice of life and a small celebration of humanity. I adored that ending.
Leath Tonino’s interview with William Rees on humanity’s ecological overshoot [“Glass Overfull,” December 2025] was outstanding. I shared it with my nephew, who commented that Rees seems a bit nihilistic. To my mind, Rees’s words are not nihilistic but sobering. This distinction is exemplified by the Rebecca Solnit quote that appears in the December Sunbeams: “To hope is to accept despair as an emotion, though not as an analysis. To recognize that what is unlikely is possible, just as what is likely is not inevitable.”
Rees inspires me to seek community with like-minded people who are ready to pursue the structural changes necessary to find balance with the natural environment, for the good of all living things.
I spent long moments with Carson Antley’s photograph in the October 2025 issue.
Antley’s human subject, bounded by the trees and the night sky, seems—like me—to long for the liminal, for the knowledge that exists between waking and dreaming, between earth and eternity, between life and death.
I think I may frame it.
