Postcard by Edgar Orr, Dogwood Trees in Bloom, Atlanta, Georgia, ca. 1930-45.

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Spring has finally come roaring into Georgia, blanketing vehicles with yellow pollen and causing a sudden eruption of three-foot dandelions all across my front and back yards. (more…)

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In keeping with my annual Christmas season ritual, I am currently enjoying a much-needed vacation with extended family in Appalachia. Every year, my aging aunt graciously hosts my family: me, my children, and our dog. This year the experience has been all the more special because she bought a DVD copy of It’s a Wonderful Life, the 1946 Christmas classic starring Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed, and last night we gathered around her flatscreen to watch it. (more…)

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It is often said that we do not know ourselves until we are faced with a crisis. The present crisis wrapped up in the Chinese coronavirus has, unsurprisingly, even further laid bare the agenda of the egalitarian regime. (more…)

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I have lived in this middle-class, predominantly white, aging metropolitan subdivision for nearly 15 years. Despite the palpable demographic changes in the local community, I feel safe and comfortable here. (more…)

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Sleeping area of a PodShare co-living space.

Right-wing Twitter fumed earlier this week over the provocatively-titled essay “The Nuclear Family Was A Mistake.”

The Atlantic essay, written by New York Times columnist David Brooks, wasn’t necessarily an attack on traditional families. But that didn’t stop the deluge of anger that Brooks would dare slander the family. (more…)

Typical Feminist

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So I’m sitting in my local suburban library doing my writing thing and at a table across the room some old ladies have gathered for “Senior Crafts Hour”. One of the younger librarians appears with a box of paper and glue and scissors. They are going to do collage, or maybe they’re just going to cut things out and glue them to other things. (more…)

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“There were many whose hearts told them that they should begin to tell the secret runes.” Thus begins an ancient manuscript written in Old Saxon. It may surprise the reader to learn that these are, in fact, the opening lines of the Christian Gospel in the version known as the Heliand, produced for the Saxons in the early ninth century, after their conquest by Charlemagne. (more…)