Printed Word Matters

GEORGE KENNAN ON THE FATE OF THE SOVIET UNION AND NATO EXPANSION

<div>It is hard to explain why George Kennan's voice was heard and proved right when he wrote the Long Telegram in 1946 and helped shape the post-World War II world, and then was left almost unnoticed when he wrote a short letter in the New York Times after the fall of the Soviets (just as he predicted) in 1997, at the end of the Cold War. Why was Kennan right and heard for the fall of the Soviets and not right and heard for the expansion of NATO?</div>

GAZA: WHEN THE COST OF WAR IS MUCH MORE THAN LIVES

In better times, and there were better times, diners would file into the Al Salam Abu Haseira fish restaurant near sunset to feast on plates of shrimp, grouper, sardines, sea bream, and anything else Gaza’s fishermen would haul in from the sea—given the restrictions on the distance from the shore they were allowed to fish—monitored by the Israeli military. If grouper were aplenty the kitchen would whip up its specialty, zibdiyeh, a tomato-based stew made with pine nuts, herbs, tahina, shrimp, an

STONE CRABS AND KISHKEHS: THE HISTORY OF MIAMI BEACH

Miami Beach, Florida is one of the most well known resort cities in the world. However, during the 20th century this glitzy 'fun-in-the-sun' paradise was also a haven for elderly Jewish immigrants, many of whom had fled from Czarist Russia. It was also home for recent survivors of the Holocaust. They were easy to identify, always dressed in short sleeves, proud to display the numbers branded on their arm - but some wore long sleeves, even on the hottest days of summer, hiding a memory from hell.

‘HOW STATES THINK’: THE RATIONALITY VS THE EMOTIONALITY OF FOREIGN POLICY

‘How States Think: The Rationality of Foreign Policy’, a new book by John J. Mearsheimer and Sebastian Rosato, is a well-written and insightful examination of a central question in international relations: are states actually rational actors? That is, does the empirical record show that they are routinely rational or routinely non-rational? The issue is crucial for both the study and practice of international politics and the authors make the case that “only if states are rational can scholars a

WATERGATE IN THE COUNTRY | A Poem by Arjen Boswijk, Art by Uko Post

<div>Under threatening gray skies...</div>

THEY SHALL REAP THE WHIRLWIND: ON THE ONGOING ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR

<div>She spoke as to a child who could not understand. All the futility that lay ahead. Yet who she knew would go on to repeat. Repeat repeat the things men had to learn....</div>

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF JOUISSANCE

<div>I hear you— 'Jouissance! Now you’re making up words!' Well, you’re kind of right, but, doggone it—I don’t have much choice. Do I? There’s really no word that captures the qualities at issue. Is there?...</div>

WHERE HAVE ALL THE CORINTHIANS GONE?

<div>A spirit of goodness haunts the Earth. Never quite dominant, never quite disappearing, always beloved...</div>

SON OF TERAH | Short story by Jessalyn LeBlanc

<div>He hasn’t mentioned a child in years. Not since we got the farm and the linen tablecloths and the cattle with their promise of riches. Not since that first September, when the wheat bloomed in abundance. Not since that night against the oil lamp’s unsteady flame when we came to the synchronous and silent understanding that I would not bring a baby into this world...</div>

WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO JOEL KUPPERMAN?

I’ll never forget that day in 1944 - it was extremely warm for November – people called it 'Indian Summer' – but I didn’t see any Indians. It was the day I saw Joel Kupperman at school. He was in a hallway carrying books - alone. We were walking toward each other - face to face. This was my chance to introduce myself, but I was too scared to speak to the most famous kid in America (at least since Shirley Temple - but she wasn’t very famous anymore). It was an exciting moment, but I froze...

MUSIC OF THE DEVIL-1955 | By Myron S. Lubell

<div>They called my generation of teenagers 'juvenile delinquents' – mainly because of our'wild and crazy' music. Drugs weren’t a major problem in the mid-1950’s, and the 'sexual revolution' hadn’t started. I’m not saying we didn’t think about sex – we sure did, a lot – but the 'respectable' girls knew how to say NO – at least with me...</div>

TO DEAL WITH INEQUALITY, IT MUST BE BETTER UNDERSTOOD

<div>Extreme inequality is the sometimes mentioned but not well seen elephant in the room. Mostly noted and then ignored, it continues its 45-year explosion, especially in the US and UK without pause or concerted opposition. How extreme is it?...</div>

FOUR POEMS FROM OVID’S CREEK

<div>What we cannot speak about we must indicate with sighs, shouts, grunts, tears, and shrieks...</div>

SEARCHING FOR CERTAINTY: SEPARATENESS AND THE SELF

<div>Cogito, ergo sum: I think, therefore I am. Over and over again. Descartes was driven to the extremity of his wits, desperate to prove to himself that the external world existed, and that such certainty came with a sense of personal agency within that world. Once again, he fell back on Plato’s allegory of the cave: not for him is that which is what it appears to be!</div>

THE OTHERWORLDLY TRINITY: DEATH, DIVINITY AND DREAMS

<div>The human brain specializes in figuring things out. But, after thirty thousand years of homo sapiens inquiry, countless cosmic mysteries remain – God, gravity, the electron, black holes, dark matter, etc. Not least of all, we have yet to understand the instrument of our understanding: the mind itself and its two dimensions: Consciousness and Unconsciousness...</div>

HOW HUMOUR LAID THE WORLD BARE, FROM THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY TO THE PRESENT | Katharina Van Cauteren

<div>Homer’s gods can roar with laughter. Zeus, Hera, Poseidon and the rest of the cabal — grinning, giggling, splitting their sides. Anything man can do, the gods can do better. The Greek pantheon is a projection of the terrestrial on to the celestial. It’s only when God becomes man that he stops laughing. Jesus doesn’t do stand-up. There are no gags in the Bible, no guffaws or gales of laughter. The Christian faith is an awfully serious thing...</div>

WHAT DO WE OWE ANIMALS?

<div>For most of human history our conceit has ordained that animals exist for us, to do with them as we please. We employ them for sport, entertainment, experiments, and work; their lives are crushed by inhumane methods of slaughter, transport, battery farming, and more. Their legal status in most countries differs little from a chair or a table...</div>

GARY SOTO’S PILGRIMAGE

<div>In the brief essay 'Catholics,' from his first book of nonfiction, Living Up the Street (1985), prolific Chicanx poet and author Gary Soto depicts himself as an elementary school student in a parochial school 'standing in a waste basket for fighting on the day we received a hunger flag for Biafra'...</div>

THE PALE HORSE OF OLYMPIC CEREMONY

<div>One Friday night, over the dark tides of the Seine, the river that cuts through the body of Paris, the ancient city of Catholic and secular faith, a metal horse with a rider on it appeared. It came from the Pont d'Austerlitz, galloping toward the Eiffel Tower. Water poured out that night, horizontally from above as rain and vertically from below as a river...</div>

THE MODERNITY IN ROUSSEAU’S AUDIAL SELF

Psychology urges that we are never so authentic as when we encounter the self; philosophy counsels that we are never so modern as when we ponder the self. Might one then speak of a perspective that sees the self as both authentic and modern? These two disciplines seem to speak with two distinct voices. And the insistence of early twenty-first century society on specialization seems to encourage the segregation of one from the other. Indeed, we live in a culture that accords status only to the s