During my Fulbright a few years ago, I went to Paris to give a talk. While there, I took a ride on the metro, and a few seats over from me I saw a woman dressed in a niqab. Fear consumed me upon seeing her, sitting in her seat as the train sped along the tracks. When the fear hit me, I immediately knew … Read More The Politics of Fear
+ american history, fascism, history, nora krug, on tyranny twenty lessons for the twentieth century, politics, timothy snyder
During our trip to Washington D.C. a few weeks ago, I picked up a copy of Timothy Snyder and Nora Krug’s On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century. The book is part history book, as the “lessons from the twentieth century” indicates, a part guide to how to work to preserve democracy when confronted with fascism or totalitarianism. Multiple things stand out to … Read More Why we “read books”
Frequently, when I was a kid, I’d go shooting with family. I shot replica M1-Garands, shotguns, AR-15s, handguns, and more. I remember one time holding a handgun, I can’t remember if it was Colt .44 or what, but when I pulled the trigger, the kickback knocked me backwards and my hands ached, from the grips. I enjoyed shooting, going out to the country and … Read More Why do we continue to accept this?
As a parent, I keep thanking my lawmakers for the stands they are taking against any materials that may be “harmful to minors.” Here in Georgia, Senator Jason Anavitarte proposed Senate Bill 226, a bill that would protect my children from encountering anything that may be deemed “harmful to minors.” I wish, when I as a kid growing up in Louisiana back in the 1980s … Read More Keeping My Kids Safe from Materials That are “Harmful to Minors”
“We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and to the future.” — Frederick Douglass What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? (1852) The proposed Senate Bill 377 serves as nothing more than a coded bill aimed at limiting the dissemination of information to students, faculty, and staff, and to the stifling of educational inquiry in the … Read More Open Letter to Georgia Senators on SB 377
Interminable Rambling 