“Grandma” Cora’s Sweet Potato Pies
Down a couple of old Maryland country roads that barely show up on state maps you’ll find Grandma Cora, an elderly African American lady who is known throughout those parts for her delicious sweet potato pies, which she lovingly backs on her old stove and sells to make ends meet nicely. I spent an afternoon […]
Ken Steele and the Experience of Schizophrenia
Many of us are familiar with people who walk down the street conversing with people and other entities that we cannot say, but which exist in a hyper-real and undeniable way to them. What is it like inside their minds, what do those voices sound like and what do they say? And what happens when […]
Migrant Farmworkers: How They Live and
What They Do
If California were a nation of its own, it would have the twelth largest economy in the world; agriculture would be a huge percentage of it. Much of the labor that produces is done by migrant farm workers who come to the US, sometimes illegally, and follow the crops, before returning home to Mexico and […]
Astrobiology: The Search for Extra-terrestrial Life
The search for life forms (or life-like) forms has intensified in recent years as our technical prowess has increased and our understanding of the forms and chemistry of what life could be has expanded and grown more refined. This piece examines the branch of science that deals with this, and looks at various ways we […]
The Ink Dark Moon: Buddhist Love/Sex Poetry from Courtly Japan (written by women)
This is a story about some of the most beautiful short poetry I have ever come across. Edited by the poet Jane Hirshfield (see “Given Sugar, Given Salt” elsewhere in this blog), it is a collection of short erotic haiku-like poems written by Ono No Komachi and Izumi Shikibu, who were part of the Japanese […]
Nanotechnology and Molecular Machinery
Nanotechnology, which deals with matter in billionths of a meter, allows for the manipulation of matter on an atomic scale. As such, it may represent humanity’s most profound and far-reaching scientific frontier. This documentary looks at how it works, and what is possible, and what to prepare for, willy-nilly. The story won VOA’s Annual Award […]