Words fail as 2,000-pound bombs shred lives and limbs. The sheer number of children killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza is devastating – at least 13,000 children in the first six months…
Tag: Longreads
Saving the news media means moving beyond the benevolence of billionaires
For the journalism industry, 2024 is off to a brutal start. Most spectacularly, the Los Angeles Times recently slashed more than 20% of its newsroom. Though trouble had long been brewing, the…
In the face of death, destruction and displacement, beauty plays a vital role in Gaza
A small group of children in Gaza sit on a lavender and white blanket around a small tray of beverages, singing “Happy Birthday” to a young girl. Like kids her age around…
In a Roman villa at the center of a nasty inheritance dispute, a Caravaggio masterpiece is hidden from the public
I teach Italian Renaissance and Baroque art, so when I was visiting Rome in January 2023, how could I not try to see a notorious villa that was up for sale and…
What’s behind our enduring fascination with wives and mothers who kill?
In March 2023, a Utah woman named Kouri Richins published a children’s book titled “Are You With Me?” which she characterized as an effort to help her three young sons process the…
Why have you read ‘The Great Gatsby’ but not Ursula Parrott’s ‘Ex-Wife’?
In 1925, F. Scott Fitzgerald published “The Great Gatsby.” Four years later, Ursula Parrott published her first novel, “Ex-Wife.” I probably read “The Great Gatsby” a dozen times between junior high school…