By Jan S. Gephardt We rarely think to ask a fundamental question: what should police do? What part should they play in a multicultural, representational democracy? The ubiquity of police forces around the world argues that many societies believe police do have a role in civilized life. But what – exactly – should it be? As a novelist whose primary characters are science fictional detectives, I am in an unusual position, both to ask and to answer this question. But…
By Jan S. Gephardt I feel as if I’ve been on the road to Release Day for most of this summer, but at last it’s here! We made it! A Bone to Pick should now be available in print and ebook formats through a wide variety of outlets! What’s it about? In case you’re new to this blog, here’s the book description for A Bone to Pick: XK9 Rex is a dog who knows too much. Now his past is…
In the wake of the holiday that honors him, I’ve been wondering “what might Dr. King say to us today?” The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is a man whom many of us consider a moral beacon for the ages. His life ended more than fifty years ago, but we value moral beacons because their guidance transcends their own times. We certainly could use a moral beacon right now. We’ve just lived through a year of historic tumult and…
So much for 2021 being a quieter year than 2020! “Weird Sisters” Jan S. Gephardt and G. S. Norwood both posted pleasant, hopeful blog posts early in the day on January 6, 2021. They went live before the treasonous terrorist riot at the US Capitol. But this week we couldn’t go on as if nothing had happened. The riot at the US Capitol might not have had the same death toll as 9/11, but we will always remember that day….
In last week’s post I promised to talk about politics on Rana Station this week. As I said in that post, I built the Station’s system on ideas garnered from decades of teaching, studying history, and observing our contemporary society. Those experiences inspired the guiding question, What kind of environment would allow ALL of my students to reach their full potential? I’ve spent most of my career teaching both urban and rural students from lower-income areas. I knew our current…
By G. S. Norwood “How can this be legal?” is a re-blog from The Weird Blog. We live in crazy times. At a time when most of us are just trying to stay safe from the coronavirus pandemic and stay afloat in an unstable economy, we have seen armed counter-protesters turn out to threaten peaceful protesters in a quiet town like Weatherford, Texas. How can this be legal? Protesters and militiamen have died in places like Kenosha, Wisconsin, and Portland,…
Does it seem to you that all the easy answers have gone away? We live in a complicated time, a complicated world. Covid-19 upends our lives with its invisible, omnipresent death-threat. The American West is burning. Women’s progress in the workplace has turned into eroding sand beneath our feet. Relentless inequities, laid bare by the Covid-19 recession, have thrown our social order into chaos. It is terrifying. Infuriating. And exhausting. If only things were easier Remember the ad campaign with…
By G. S. Norwood When armed civilians take to the streets, what are they thinking? The news out of Kenosha, Wisconsin, is bad. A 17-year-old boy, armed with an assault rifle, killed two protesters and wounded a third. I wanted to finish up this cycle of protest-related blog posts by trying to answer the question: What are they thinking? Peaceful Protests or Armed Militia? To get to that answer, I’ll recount a conversation I had online with two men who…
By Jan S. Gephardt and G.S. Norwood They say that the winners get to decide whose history—that is, whose version of history—becomes the “official history.” But when it comes to the so-called “Lost Cause,” that isn’t necessarily so. The pro-slavery South has got to be working some kind of North American record for being persistent sore losers. They’re certainly not the only ones to hold a long-term grudge in world history, but they’ve hung in there for more than 150…
A troubling rash of UF0 sightings — Unidentified Federal Officers — cropped up in June and July. They showed up first in Washington DC, and then in Portland, OR. Unidentified Federal Officers are a problem Unlike the more widely-known UFOs, as in the Unidentified Flying Objects of science fiction and popular culture, these UFOs are all too verifiable. Just . . . not that easy to trace. And that’s a huge problem. They showed up to oppose what often had…