Fund Drive Special: Leary, Weil, and Ram Dass
Ram Dass, Andrew Weil, and Timothy Leary are among the featured voices on the audio compilation “Let’s Take a Trip: A Social History of LSD.”
Against the Grain
12:00 PM Pacific Time: Mondays - Wednesdays
Acclaimed program of ideas, in-depth analysis, and commentary on a variety of matters—political, economic, social, and cultural—important to progressive and radical thinking and activism. Against the Grain is produced and hosted by Sasha Lilley.
Open any world history book and you’ll read that the Neolithic Revolution was a turning point for humanity, when hunter gatherers gave up roving in small egalitarian groups and settled down to farm. Out of that, civilization was born, with all the benefits and ills connected to it: the rise of cities, the emergence of … Continued
Ram Dass, Andrew Weil, and Timothy Leary are among the featured voices on the audio compilation “Let’s Take a Trip: A Social History of LSD.”
As Covid tragically illustrated, large numbers of Americans are in poor health and especially vulnerable to viruses and other pathogens. How did we get here? According to physician Robert Lustig, it started with the turn toward processed food, which has led to an ongoing national and global public health crisis, while enriching corporations and the … Continued
Penn professor Paul Goldin discusses the Chinese philosophical text “Lao-Tzu,” also known as the “Tao Te Ching,” which has inspired and intrigued readers for more than two millennia.
Fund Drive Special: The Myths of U.S. History
Every October, the United States officially celebrates Columbus Day. Yet the story of Columbus is shrouded in myth and falsehoods, on display in the textbooks American kids are assigned. Sociologist and educator James Loewen, who died recently, set out to challenge that myth-making in his book Lies My Teacher Told Me, providing a salutary antidote … Continued
The Zen master and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Thich Nhat Hanh, who died on January 22, spoke about how to generate and cultivate happiness, mindfulness, and compassion. photo: Fabrizio Chiagano via Unsplash
Retirement is something many of us don’t think much about, hoping we’ll have enough to live on when the time comes. But chances are, unless we’re lucky, we won’t. James Russell argues that the widespread shortfall in retirement income is the result of a bipartisan effort going back decades to move our savings away from … Continued
Species extinction and loss of biodiversity may seem like twenty-first century concerns, but, according to Wai Chee Dimock, nineteenth-century thinkers like Thoreau anticipated irreversible changes to the natural world. Thoreau, she asserts, was deeply concerned about the fate of both wildlife and Native American populations. Wiggins, Fornoff, and Kim, eds. Timescales: Thinking across Ecological Temporalities … Continued
Over a decade ago — in response to grassroots organizing against mass incarceration and police violence — a bipartisan coalition took shape. It brought together billionaires, large liberal non-profits, universities, rightwing think tanks, and politicians from both parties. Its stated aim was to reform the bloated criminal justice system on humanitarian grounds. Kay Whitlock argues … Continued