I shouldn’t have been surprised. After all, this was the San Francisco headquarters for Hillary Clinton’s campaign, not some cluster of cubicles behind a crossroads gas station. It was three floors of bustling… Continue reading
I have a friend who’s been phone banking for Hillary. No one’s seen her for weeks. This weekend she’ll be frantically making last-minute calls to swing states to pull for her candidate, and… Continue reading
If I don’t clean all this uncooked rice out of my pockets before I do my laundry, will I have clean clothes and a snack when the washer’s done? And rice krispies when… Continue reading
Travel is a capricious deity. I see it as a Her, a capricious She, giving me a perspective I respect, experiences I appreciate, and a sense of life on earth that I find… Continue reading
We’d been like followers of some not very popular religions sect, gathering off-hours to worship in someone else’s oversized church. That’s how Thessaloniki’s train station felt during a rail strike, but a few… Continue reading
Eritrea, Myanmar, Iraq, Senegal, Afghanistan, Syria. It’s not my Travel List (well, that too) it’s a sampling of my students. Refugees all, they came from backgrounds I cannot imagine, experiences I want to… Continue reading
It’s raining. In California! And it’s so ineffably lovely that for the moment it’s washed away the sulfur stink of this presidential election. It’s even soothing the bleeding core of me where my… Continue reading
Daesh (ISIS), Al Qaeda, Boko Haram, Al Shabab, the Taliban, all these despicable groups afflicting our species are obsessed with suppressing and oppressing women and women’s rights. They’re disturbing to learn about, but… Continue reading
Farm bills and agricultural subsidies are always a big deal, from the US to the EU, and definitely in Switzerland. This baffled me a bit. Swiss agriculture? In a country that wealthy and… Continue reading
What do you do when terrorists want you to be afraid? To be closed off, fearful of strangers, and angry? To stay locked in your house, suspicious of others, scared of crowds and… Continue reading
