Commentary

Design Commentary: Department of Play — Creating a New Urban Planning Paradigm

May 27, 2023
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Participatory, small-scale planning is a powerful step forward because it doesn’t pay lip service to cliches about “listening to the community.”

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Book Review: Searching for “Truth and Repair” — Asking Rape Survivors For Their Vision of Justice

May 26, 2023
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For real change to happen, argues Judith Herman, “crimes of dominance and subordination would need to be approached as a matter of public health as well as public safety, with prevention as a primary goal.”

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Arts Commentary: The Goldsmith-Warhol Copyright Decision — Reason to be Concerned

May 21, 2023
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Decisions like these are increasingly troublesome because they will dictate what constitutes”fair use” for decades to come, even as technology evolves in threatening ways.

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Book Reviews: Chronicles of Russia’s War on Ukraine — Hope Is the Thing with Teeth

May 15, 2023
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Two powerufl volumes show that Ukraine’s greatest weapons against Russia are hope and unity.

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Book Review: “Fearless Women” — A Vivid, Rounded Portrait of the Choices Facing America’s Women

May 9, 2023
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Fearless Women is so well-written, so well researched, and so engaging that you will find it of real value even as it tells some stories you thought you already knew.

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Author Interview: Dr. Peniel E. Joseph on the Third Reconstruction and Hope for a Multiracial Democracy

April 25, 2023
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Blake Maddux talks to Peniel Joseph about his latest book, “The Third Reconstruction: America’s Struggle for Racial Justice in the Twenty-First Century.”

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Music Documentary Review: “Music Under the Swastika” — Uncomfortably Timely

April 23, 2023
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The road to ultimate destruction is lined by spiritual apathy, intellectual carelessness, and moral equivalency.

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Arts Remembrance: Visiting the Birthplace of the King

April 17, 2023
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Our last Mississippi destination was a major reason for my trip South. I told Bob I wanted to see the boyhood home of Elvis Presley in the small town of Tupelo, the singer’s Bethlehem.

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Book Review: Advertisements for Democracy — Norman Mailer’s Anti-Fascist Eloquence

April 9, 2023
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Guns, anti-Semitism, paranoid conspiracy theories — it never gets old.

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Jazz Album Review/Commentary: “Don Quixote’s Adventures in the World of Jazz” — Is Jazz Intrinsically Quixotic?

March 31, 2023
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It’s hard to think of music that is more foolishly impractical than jazz, even with its pursuit of lofty ideals.

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