I’m writing this from Arkansas, on the long screened porch of my sister’s cabin on the Arkansas River. It is miles away from anywhere, and so very quiet and dark at night that it’s easy to pretend that you are a Cherokee who lived here two hundred years ago. In fact, the area probably was busier in 1814 than it is now in 2014.  Read More 

I usually don’t comment here in “In Context” on the subjects that flood all of our inboxes, but I’m going to do so about “Fangate.” As everyone knows by now, Governor Rick Scott pitched a petulant fit because former Governor Charlie Crist had a small fan under his podium at their recent debate. The rules had prohibited “electronic devices,” and Scott tried to use that legalistic argument to refuse to come on stage.  Read More 

Did you happen to hear the NPR radio interview with the Middle Eastern man who objected to the recent Nobel Prize winner, teenage Malala Yousafizi? Afghanistan’s Taliban shot her because of Malala’s brave insistence on girls’ education, and her family went with her to Britain where she has survived the near-fatality. She covers her hair and wears long dresses, but that conventionality was not nearly enough for the preacher who was interviewed.  Read More