Browse Topics

A Thousand Words

A Thousand Words features photography so rich with narrative that it tells a story all on its own.

Lesson Plan

Pranav Jani on Free Speech and College Activism

The Right and I agree on the potential of universities as a space in which students develop ideas that can transform the world. The difference is, they want to stamp it out, and I want to encourage it.

Persons of Interest

Sean Vanatta on the Unchecked Rise of the Credit Industry

The idea that a certain kind of people are worthy of credit is entirely a social construct based around an idealized vision of society. Those same people who got credit also got all the other benefits of living in postwar America.

Eating Free

Perhaps this isn’t the case at all Embassy Suites, but in Flagstaff, Arizona, between 5 and 7 pm, the hotel provides unlimited snacks and beer, gratis. I’ll repeat that: unlimited. Granted, I never imbibed more than three Michelobs and a cubic yard of Chex mix, but still. The possibility of unlimited is delectable.

Sunbeams

Slight was the thing I bought, / Small was the debt I thought, / Poor was the loan at best— / God! but the interest!

Paul Laurence Dunbar, “The Debt”

House Hunting

Our sordid credit history seems to sadden more than shock her. Such nice people, she must be thinking. How do these things happen?

Glass Overfull

William Rees on Humanity’s Ecological Overshoot

There has been a boom, and soon there will be a bust, in global human population. And no advanced civilization will be able to reemerge because we will have used everything up. There will be no oil and gas and other supplies of that nature to maintain any civilization that might emerge from the ashes of this one.

Opportunity Knocked

Lily Geismer on the Democratic Party’s Failed Vision for the Working Class

A lot of the Biden administration’s pitch was “In ten years, we promise you you’re going to have a job.” Most people can’t afford to have that long-term view.