“We know your hearts are good, but even with good hearts you have done a bad thing.” – Leo Quetawke, Head Councilman in charge of law and order for the Zuni people Cultural […]
Harry Potter and the Racist Subtext
Rereading Atlas Shrugged as South Africa becomes a dictatorship
Karl Marx was a brilliant diagnostician. His analysis of the way in which unregulated capitalism can drive inequality was incisive, especially considering the lack of data available to him to prove his […]
Novel Journey 9: In which the author figures out his pricing so he can publish
“Father, tell me a story?” asks Isaiah, moments before an alien craft smashes into the jungle near his isolated Nigerian village. Inside is the shattered body of a man. With his orbital […]
Inequality in America: can we find ourselves after losing our way?
If you believe that America’s infrastructure is in good shape, that the American middle class is thriving, that our nation supports our troops by providing them with top-notch care after they return […]
Book Review: Throwing the house from the window by Joshua William Booth
Poems that occasionally challenge readers…the “trigger warning” excuses can begin in 3…2…1…. A couple of things will become obvious quickly for readers of this review. The first is that the reviewer has […]
Anne Bronte’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall: Austen through the looking glass…
This novel will make one at least toy with the idea that Anne Bronte may have been the most talented of the Brontë sisters… When I wrote about Anne Bronte’s Agnes Grey […]
The oyster climbs the Great Chain of Being: Eleanor Clark’s Locmariaquer
“…But thilke text heeld he nat worth an oyster….” – Geoffrey Chaucer Anyone who reads Eleanor Clark’s classic The Oysters of Locmariaquer will come away from the book convinced of two things: 1) cultivating oysters […]
Nature in Focus: Sharp Eyes by William Hamilton Gibson
Once upon a time readers actually wanted to learn from books… After a spate of book reviews for new found writer friends, this essay takes a look at a book from the 2014 […]
Book Review: Alligator Stew by C.D. Mitchell
C.D. Mitchell understands the “Dirty South” better than many who trumpet their knowledge of it… In my recent essay on Richard Ford as an influence on my own writing I wrote about dirty […]
Richard Ford’s Rock Springs and the Light it Provides…
“We have to keep civilization alive somehow.” – Richard Ford, “Communist” Aspiring writers choose role models for all sorts of reasons. Sometimes, as with those who’d emulate Byron or Baudelaire, it’s the attraction […]
Progressive Culture | Scholars & Rogues 