"Will We Become Our Enemy?": Rare Salman Rushdie Address

Renowned Indian British novelist Salman Rushdie is in critical condition and faces a long road to recovery after he survived an assassination attempt Friday morning. We feature Rushdie in his own words, a 2004 speech on freedom of expression at a  PEN America event. "Will we become our enemy or not? Will we become repressive as our enemy is repressive? Will we become intolerant as our enemy is intolerant, or will we not?" Transcript.

American History Is a Parade of Horrors — And Also Heroes

Stephanie Coontz Los Angeles Times
Some folks celebrate American exceptionalism and resist dwelling on horrors like slavery or settler colonialism. Others primarily see a centuries-long saga of white supremacism and oppression.

What Is Food?

Mark Bittman Bittman Project
Food, like climate, like income, like “the environment” raises all the important issues, and it’s as good a tool for grappling with those issues as anything else. If we can’t sustainably and reliably provide ourselves with good food, we’re looking at a future of increasing illness and planetary degradation.

The Strength of the Strong Force

Chris Patrick Phys.org
Interactions with the Higgs field only generate about 1 percent of ordinary mass. The other 99 percent comes from phenomena associated with the strong force, the fundamental force that binds quarks into protons and neutrons that comprise the nucleus of the atoms of ordinary matter.