“If we’re going to be damned, let’s be damned for what we really are.” — Captain Jean-Luc Picard As 2022 continues its dawn and we learn more about Russia and other state actors’ long-term leveraging of malign influence campaigns against our democracies at the municipal, state, and federal levels, it’s…

Special Thanks to DefendingDemocracyTogether.Org for maintaining RussiaTweets.com “And on the pedestal, these words appear” - Percy Bysshe Shelley With the Supreme Court’s recent overturning of Roe V. Wade with the sorrowful Dobbs decision, people in the United States and around the world find themselves horrified by a renewed threat of…

Robert Jay Lifton’s 2019 book is an amazing instrument for any reader attempting to slough the distinction between their own sincerity and our greater shared reality. With style and grace, Lifton begins by introducing the question “Who can own reality?” and then aptly commands attention to a top ten list…

Originally Published on LinkedIn (5/5/2020) Don’t know where to start? Try ‘ere. The Ambassadors: America’s Diplomats on the Front Lines / Paul Richter Often by design, middle-persons seldom get accolades for the rich and complex problems they solve on behalf of others. While some may consider it appropriate for all the credit to trickle up to the top, the exercise of…

The Case for the Personhood of Gorillas by Francine Patterson & Wendy Gordon Published in 1996 as part of The Great Ape Project: Equality beyond Humanity edited by Paola Cavalieri and Peter Singer We present this individual for your consideration: She communicates in sign language, using a vocabulary of over 1,000 words. She also understands spoken English…

By Colin McGinn Published in 1996 as part of The Great Ape Project: Equality beyond Humanity edited by Paola Cavalieri and Peter Singer As a child, you tend to take your position in life for granted, as written into the natural order of things. You were born, say, into a…

Im Jahr 2015 organisierten nachdenkliche und intelligente Führungspersönlichkeiten der Universität von Missouri eine Informationskampagne rund um den Hashtag „#PrayforMizzou“, die darauf abzielte, Wahrnehmung, Warnung und Wirkung in als Reaktion auf ekelhaft rassistische und homophobe Aktivitäten zu schaffen in der Gemeinde. Tage nach dem Start der Kampagne innerhalb einer kleinen Gruppe…

An excerpt from Life on the Mississippi By Mark Twain First Published in 1883 There was no use in arguing with a person like this. I promptly put such a strain on my memory that by and by even the shoal water and the countless crossing-marks began to stay with…

By Ralph Waldo Emerson First Published in 1841 Nature centres into balls, And her proud ephemerals, Fast to surface and outside, Scan the profile of the sphere; Knew they what that signified, A new genesis were here. The eye is the first circle; the horizon which it forms is the…