FBI Director James Comey gave an unprecedented speech yesterday [full text] on law enforcement and race relations, giving a thoughtful -- though at times frustrating…
Continue reading → FBI Director on Race + Law Enforcement: Quick Thoughts
No diss intended, but here's a recent example of an article that takes too long to get to the point. In a commentary entitled "What the…
Continue reading → Writing Tips: Don’t Take Too Long to Get to Your Point
On August 31, 1999, a handmade bomb exploded in a popular Moscow shopping mall. I was there, and watched rubble, dust, and screaming erupt around me. Read more about the event and my changing understanding of this experience in an essay over at Pacific Standard.
I am having trouble making sense of it all, so I point you to a few things I've been reading: The National Guard arrived in…
Continue reading → Readings on #Ferguson #MikeBrown #GrandJuryVerdict
Readers, I've started a newsletter so you can receive monthly updates on my writing life, snarky commentary on what I'm reading, and photos of my…
In The Origins of Totalitarianism Hannah Arendt argues that totalitarian rule is truly possible only in countries that are large enough to be able to…
People want to call abusive men—men like the man I used to love, and men like Ray Rice—“monsters.” But that term, with its connotations of…
There’s not much difference to me between the adjunct crisis in higher education and the labor conversations that fast food and other low wage workers…
Continue reading → Adjunct Crisis No Different Than Fast Food Labor Crisis, Says McMillan Cottom
As many reviewers have already said, Dana Goldstein's The Teacher Wars is a super smart look at the history of the American education system, with…
Continue reading → Dana Goldstein’s New Book and Why Teachers Are Not “Angel-Magicians”
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -Oh, Bari Weiss. You’re being so glib…
Continue reading → My response to WSJ’s transphobic (&idiotic) op-ed:
