I’ve lived most of my life with a chicken superiority complex. Largely because I have an opposable thumb and—on a good day—a higher IQ than my Buff Orpington and Barred Rock hens, compounded by the fact that I “own” these chickens, I’ve considered myself superior. I’ve justified eating their kind because they’re “dumb” animals—not just mute, but intellectually inferior to myself and other animals, probably just above fish, which congregate […]
The Hero’s Journey
Thousands of movies have been made on the theme of overcoming adversity. In fact, “the hero’s journey,” in which a reluctant protagonist is thrown out of his routine existence and into a heroic undertaking that threatens his life, reveals his strengths, and transforms him for the better, is a classic movie-making formula. The Wizard of Oz, Star Wars, Avatar, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and Beverly Hills Cop are all […]
Immaculée Ilibagiza | Surviving genocide
Immaculée Ilibagiza was a 22-year-old engineering student at the National University of Rwanda in 1994 when life as she had known it came to a horrific end. Over the course of approximately one hundred days following the assassination of Hutu president Juvénal Habyarimana, the remaining Hutu leadership, supported by the national army, local military and civil officials, mass media and ordinary Hutus, carried out the slaughter of as many as […]
Thomas M. Atkinson | River’s Edge
We’re on an island in the middle of the Ohio just upstream from Manchester. Spite’s tied up behind the brush line nibbling at some weeds, and I’m down by the water in my panties, reaching out past the line of coal dust lapping at the sand, trying to wash the blood out of my split knuckles through a rainbow film of diesel fuel. I swam him over from Kentucky in […]
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