Reading Materials The new novel, The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine by Alina Bronsky, is the story of Rosa and her family in Russia.  Bronsky shows off her talents by letting her characters twist in the wind, so that each of the readers can feel differently about them.  This humor gives the readers a [...]

I spoke neither French nor Arabic, and the nice man in the booth was trying to explain something to me in a mix of the languages.  But it only took a minute or so of passionate pantomime for me to understand:  They only sold one-way tickets.  I would have to buy another one on my [...]

This piece was cross-posted on Huffington Post Young people today are growing up in a complicated and challenging world, and will face the meta-challenges of the 21st century: climate change, economic restructuring, job creation, and resolving conflict at home and around the globe. We need to ensure that we are investing in the most diverse [...]

I recently read a post about domestic partnerships for straight couples as an alternative to marriage.  It’s an interesting proposition, but what exactly is the different?  To me there didn’t seem to be a huge difference. A domestic partnership is a legal form of recognizing a relationship without the cultural aspect that weddings and marriage [...]

I started taking birth control pills five years before I actually had sex. No, my parents were not worried I would become a teenage mom. 16 and Pregnant wasn’t even a shadow of a dream then. My birth control prescription was mandated by the government. At the time, I was on a medication that included [...]

Once upon a time women were dying from too many pregnancies.  Women suffered injury, disease, and had dangerous illegal abortions.  Once  upon a time there was no birth control pill.  There were ways women had to avoid getting pregnant in any given instance.  None of it was long term, none of it allowed them to [...]

In about a month, I will be leaving my job and home to move 2800 miles away for law school. Lately, this has seemed like a daunting task: is it really necessary to do all that packing, make new friends, and take out student loans? Couldn’t I make a difference here in D.C.? Of course [...]

We’ve all seen commercials that made us want to *not* buy a product. For men like myself, that might be the effect of a new “Got Milk?” campaign aiming to convince men that milk can reduce the symptoms of PMS. The campaign is centered around the micro-site everythingidoiswrong.com, which features a few basic flash graphics [...]

On January 2, 2009 when I landed in India, to spend three months teaching English in a slum of New Delhi I had no idea what to expect. During that time, I grew to both love and struggle with India. I found everything to be a contradiction: the extreme, in-your-face poverty contrasted with a country [...]

I spent some time over the last few days reading through the Marriage Vow, getting an idea of what the Republican candidates are really being asked to sign on to.  I found the contradictions to their own statements confusing, and their constant mention of the protection of women and their rights while stating at the [...]