Human Rights
The Language of Totalitarian Dehumanization
A week before the massive protests erupted in Cuba, I was celebrating Fourth of July at a friend’s house in Oakland, California, and listening to her tell me stories about her adventures there. She is a Jewish red diaper baby and today seems to identify as some sort of
On the Dangers of Big COVID
Since initial reports of the coronavirus outbreak in late 2019, America has witnessed a rapid and unprecedented transformation within nearly every aspect of mainstream society. At work, many Americans settled into their new daily routines of working from home, hunched over computer screens for hours of caffeine-supported Zoom calls frequently
The Prophet of Dystopia at Rest: Margaret Atwood in Cuba
Ignoring isn’t the same as ignorance, you have to work at it. ~Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale As a Cuba scholar, a student of literature and politics, and an enthusiastic reader of Margaret Atwood’s work, I have collected articles and media clips over the years related to
The Route to Re-Enchantment
The modern world cries out for definition. But only a handful of thinkers have been bold enough to answer the call, searching for that overarching essence which distinguishes the modern age from all that came before it. What does it mean to be Modern, as opposed to Medieval or Early
The 'Gender Supremacist' Threat to the Progressive Alliance: Part One of a Three-Part Series
There have always been conflicts within the LGBT+ community. But the recent capture of Western political and cultural institutions by a faction of radicalized transgender activists presents a more existential type of crisis. The backlash against this clique’s overreach, which we are already beginning to observe, won’t be
Lesbians Aren’t Attracted to a Female ‘Gender Identity.’ We’re Attracted to Women
There is commonly held to be a difference between a sexual preference and a sexual orientation. Sexual preferences include preferences for blondes over brunettes, or macho men over pretty boys. At the more exotic end, they can include predilections for cars, chandeliers, and dalliances with farm animals. None of these
Book Burning at Midnight, May 10th, 1933
At the stroke of midnight on May 10th, 1933, the National Socialist German Students Union ignited a bonfire that—in the American imagination, at least—would never entirely flicker out. Illuminated by floodlights and flames, broadcast live on German radio, filmed by the newsreels, and rewound in archival documentaries ever
James Baldwin and the Trouble with Protest Literature
“The hardest thing in the world to do,” wrote Ernest Hemingway in a 1934 article for Esquire, “is to write straight honest prose on human beings. First you have to know the subject; then you have to know how to write. Both take a lifetime to learn and anybody is
