Journalists and politicians venerating John McCain’s civility and decency have a short memory. By Branko Marcetic.

Hazel Scott

There he is in my six-year-old notebook, very much alive, still demanding peace with the Palestinians, peace with Hamas, and generosity and a Palestinian state on the old 1967 borders – and he believes Israel could have peace tomorrow. By Robert Fisk.

Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Krzysztof Urbański conducting

Hazel Scott was a piano prodigy who wowed the worlds of music, TV and film. But when she stood up for her rights, the establishment took her down. By Lorissa Rinehart.

Aretha Franklin

Mr. Hendricks, known for both his sky paintings and his experiments in art as performance, was also a longtime teacher at Rutgers. By Neil Genzlinger.

Who Killed Hunter S Thompson? is a big and beautiful compendium of friends’ reminiscences of the infamous writer. By Scott Bradfield.

Review of "Richard Nixon: The Life" by John A Farrell. By Barton Swaim.

What more can be added to the debate over U.S. interrogation methods, and whether waterboarding is torture? Try firsthand experience. The author undergoes the controversial drowning technique, at the hands of men who once trained American soldiers to resist—not inflict—it. By Christopher Hitchens. (Aug. 2008)

In 1931, she sought to publish an important piece of American history. Instead that oral history languished in a vault. Until now.

The Ladies of Llangollen fell in love, ran away together, and lived a scholarly life of “delicious seclusion” — secluded, that is, except for all the visitors. By Patricia Hampl.

‘Let’s dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.’ By Joe Sommerlad .

Bruce Springsteen

The late publisher of Consortium News was a trailblazer who held lazy reporters and groupthink in the highest contempt. By Kelley Beaucar Vlahos.

Martin Luther King’s ‘helpmate’ was a seasoned civil rights campaigner in her own right – ‘never just a wife, never just a widow.’ By Jeanne Theoharis.

The Ramones

A time capsule meant to teach aliens about humans could consist of math, DNA, a bot, or a brain—or something else entirely. By Stephen Wolfram.

King should be appreciated in his full complexity… By Nathan J. Robinson.

King’s vision for civil disobedience cannot be separated from his anticapitalism and his concern with the “evil” of poverty. By Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor.