Here's an Anishinaabe poem and creation story by Kimberly Blaeser, the Poet Laureate of Wisconsin. It's the story of the lowly muskrat, and it reminds us that we are constantly building new worlds - and have been doing so since before the beginning of time.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
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Wanna make it in America, a good education gets you a long way, right?. That’s especially true if you’re not a white kid from a high income family. Parents and filmmakers Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson have just released an astounding documentary about their son's journey through an elite New York prep school.
You can also hear our uncut conversation with them.
Jon Stravers — also known as "Hawk" — is an ornithologist, a musician, and a Vietnam veteran. To say that he's obsessed with birds might be putting it mildly. Since he came back from Vietnam he's spent most of his springs and summers along the Mississippi keeping an eye and ear out for birds. His latest obsession is the Cerulean Warbler, a species once thought to be in decline in the Upper Mississippi.
Andy Behrman describes some of the excesses of his manic state and talks about the course of electric shock therapy that finally got his illness under control.
What's the perfect drug for a culture of distraction? Adderall. Sales of the prescription drug have increased exponentially and not always legally, especially to young adults. Casey Schwartz spent her twenties gulping down prescription stimulants to help her get through school and start her career. She wrote about her experience in a story for "The New York Times Magazine" called "Generation Adderall."
Ali Allawi is a visiting fellow at Harvard and the former Minister of Defense and Minister of Finance in Iraq. He talks with Steve Paulson about Islam and modernism.
Have you every actually read Thoreau's "Walden"? If not, you've really missed something. Here's the next best thing: excerpts from the book, set to music.
Writer Andre Aciman says a good memoir can capture emotional truth even when certain historical details are fictionalized. He describes the art of the memoir.
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