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Past Futures

billy woods on the Cycles and Patterns of Human History

It just takes the right person, at the right time, to light the right spark and make what previously would have seemed impossible the law of the land. When I was a child, Somalia had a government. They might not have one again for the rest of my life.

Thoreau and Me

Thoreau was the same sort of hippie I am. The main difference between us is that I do not want my writing to be as absolutely sexless as his. I want to be a Thoreauvian capable of lust.

A Thousand Words

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

Mind the Gap

Melissa Deckman on the Challenges and Strengths of Gen Z

The lion’s share of Gen Z organizing on the Left is being done by young women, because they care passionately about the issues. I think there’s less of that drive among young men. Instead there’s a sense of rootlessness. We’ll have to see whether that actually translates into conservative voting behavior or support for certain policies.

Sunbeams

Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or the darkness of destructive selfishness. This is the judgment. Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, What are you doing for others?

Martin Luther King Jr.

still lives

The omen comes in the ruin of a robin’s egg on the sidewalk: fractured blue splattered with the pink makings of a flightless thing. A plum membrane of skin stretched over eyes like bruises. I make the mistake of looking back at this small disaster, and then the calamity of it fingers the threads of my morning.

Misunderstandings

Missed calls, misheard lyrics, mistaken identities

Transvestite Freak

Many confident, gorgeous men stare at me from the walls. They all seem to be wearing makeup. This is what a man can be too, I imagine them whispering. I’m nervous, but I want what they have.