The Polygamist
Imam Idris Sultan was unmarried, and for this reason he approved of polygamy. He was a religious figure in "this irreligious society" where polygamy was looked down upon. His open advocacy of the...
Category: Themes
Heartbreak Hill: will it be Clinton or Obama?
Around mile 20 of the 26 mile Boston Marathon, runners come upon an incline called Heartbreak Hill. They hit a fatigue point at a time when the course calls for some tough slogging before the stretch...
My Bee
Lalla M’Zouda took pride in the thicket of her burning bush. “Gardens are the scene of assignation,” she told Moulay Aly. “First, your tongue is to brush, barely brush, the dew from the outer...
48 hours in Warsaw
I arrived in Warsaw by train from Krakow. I forgot to take a book for my train ride, but this was a blessing in disguise, because Polish people have devised a wonderful system for book promotion:...
Birth rank and its privileges
From fairy tales to film, everyone is obsessed with the idea of one's "firstborn." But what about the lastborn? For my part, I've recently discovered that the lastborn child has magical abilities. Of...
America’s prison problem: if iron bars were cellophane
America loves prisons. Not just in the sense of just thinking they’re a good idea, or that we need to build more of them. No, prisons appear to American voters much the way strippers appear to...
Journey to Istanbul
“Is Turkey a part of Europe or the Middle East?” I asked my fellow passengers as we waited for the plane to Istanbul. Two of them, Turks who graduated from Germany with degrees in Engineering,...
Peanut Butter and Magic
Why did I eat that doughnut? Why? What possessed me? I knew it looked sketchy, all sealed up in that plastic bag with a giant smiley face stamped on the front. My innards are so not smiling. Why...
Acting Like a Rectal Polyp Does not a Feminist Statement Make
Any good idea can get hijacked for the sake of advancing asininity, and feminism is no exception. Back in college, flyers tacked up on the walls of computer labs read that "feminism is the radical...
Election 2008, from the mouths of babes
Shockingly, my 15-year old son has recently become interested in politics. We’re not ready to take off the ski hat, cut our hair, pull up our pants, and don a coat and tie like Michael J. Fox in...