One of my houseplants started to wilt last week. Wanting to stop more yellowing or decay, I gave the plant an extra watering. To my dismay, the plant seemed to wilt more rapidly after I doubled its dosage of H2O. I conducted a hasty search on the Internet, wondering what I was missing. After consulting …
Cultural Receivers, Cultural Seekers
As a student of rhetoric, I’m well aware of my obligation to wax eloquent on the democratic process and the power of deliberation on the heels of an historic election, but can I please not, please? Instead I want to talk about punk rock. I was introduced to punk rock in high school when a …
A License to Critique
This summer, amid protests for Black Lives Matter, anti-mask movements, and other instances of social unrest, rapper J. Cole penned the lyrics “My IQ is average, there’s a young lady out there, she way smarter than me / I scrolled through her timeline in these wild times, and I started to read . . . …
An Open Birthday Letter
What will happen tomorrow? As I ask myself this question, I feel, perhaps with many others across the nation and the world, a lurch in my stomach. It’s not an enjoyable question to let lurk in one’s mind, no matter what end of the political spectrum you might land on. Yet the question lurks all …