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Trump’s Oink-Oink, er, Inaugural Speech

By Stan Persky | January 21, 2017

The joys of free speech and writing columns-by-number.

John Berger, 1926-2017

By Stan Persky | January 3, 2017

The death of a storyteller.

Letter from Berlin: Read the News Today, Oh Boy

By Stan Persky | December 28, 2016

Berlin terrorist attack. The here and there of it.

Numbers and Narratives: Notes on the Trumpiad

By Stan Persky | November 25, 2016

If one picture is worth a thousand words, is one narrative worth a thousand numbers? The 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Brawl on the Beach: The Making of an Absurdist Masterpiece

By Stan Persky | November 2, 2016

How Albert Camus’s literary classic came into being, despite an absurd world and an absent divinity.

Mein Trumpf, or Through a Cracked Crystal Ball Darkly

By Stan Persky | October 17, 2016

Reading the far-right subculture.

Bob Dylan wins Nobel Prize for Lit. Well, why not?

By Sidney Australia | October 14, 2016

Snobbishly enraged by Nobel for Dylan? “Ah, but I was so much older then / I’m younger than that now.”

In Madrid: Landscape with Ghosts

By Stan Persky | September 5, 2016

In Spain’s capital there are absent poets, the absence of government, and terrace cafes on a late summer afternoon

Say Something

By Stan Persky | July 17, 2016

What distinguishes humans from other animals? Here’s Noam Chomsky on the language question.

Toronto Pride Meets Black Lives Matter

By Stan Persky | July 12, 2016

We Canadians can probably live with it. But, can Facebook users?