Elle Magazine held its 25th Women in Hollywood event this month in Los Angeles. Those honored on the night included Shonda Rhimes, Sarah Paulson, Keira Knightley, Angela Bassett, and Lady Gaga. Never one to shy away from making a loud fashion statement, Gaga shocked fellow attendees and the press by appearing on the red carpet…
Category: News
The Hula-Hoop Heart
Sammie’s Stand was a cobbled-together lean-to with faded paint that sat at the far end of the grounds shared by the Fillmore Middle School and Junior High. The stand straddled the property line between the school playground and the adjacent city park. That put it in a legal gray zone — both the teachers and…
Floating Toward Ecstasy: How One Man Overcame His Scuba Fears and Learned to Let Go
The fish are fine and all that, but the epiphany is the sensation of floating, of weightlessness. After two days in dive school, I know the term is neutral buoyancy, the state in which you are neither rising nor sinking, but that’s just the science. It’s like explaining why a fish is luminously blue, which…
Gentleman in Blue: A Sentimental Sketch by Laurence Stallings
Laurence Stallings took up writing after being wounded in the First World War. On June 26, 1918, he led an assault on a German machine gun nest in Belleau Wood and was severely wounded. He eventually lost a leg because of his wounds, but was decorated with the Silver Star and France’s Croix de Guerre….
A People's Vote without a referendum
View of Athens from Pnyx, at dusk, 2015. To the left is Lycabettus, to the right Acropolis. Wikicommons/ C Messier. Some rights reserved. The recent publication of Theresa May's Brexit deal incited a number of zealots in Parliament to throw various toys out of their prams so fast that it is hard to believe they…
Costa Rica Skate Park Honors Fallen Youth Advocate And Builds Community
Luis Diego “Luzo” Zumbado was loved in San Rafael, Costa Rica. As a member of the skateboarding group San Rafael Extremo, he encouraged local children to skate and tried to establish safe places for them to do so. Locals saw him as a protector of youth, and through skateboarding, he had hoped to provide a safe haven…
Staycations: Less Stress, More Fun!
Paris, Kentucky, will never be Paris, France, no matter how great the Kentucky Horse Park and Bluegrass Bourbon may be. But you do score some undeniable bonuses with close-to-home travel: No airports, no TSA, no exchange rate, and no translation. Part of the joy of blooming where you’re planted is the spontaneity of flipping open…
#ConsultasPopulares in crisis in Colombia
Panorama of the operational area of Yanacocha. La Minera Yanacocha is the business that exploits this area in which the largest gold mine of Latin America can be found. Wikimedia Commons. Public consultations as a means to determine the future of a territory is a constitutional right in Colombia, but now it’s in danger. This…
Rising to the Surface
This story is a runner-up in our 2019 Great American Fiction Contest. See all of the winners. It’s warm for late October, Amy, and there’s a moon, not quite full. The lake is still, no wind, and I can see the Big Dipper. It reminds me of the nights we used to sit out here…
Why do police tap your tail light when you're pulled over?
There are few things more nerve-wracking than watching an officer slowly walk up to your car through your side-view mirror. Especially when you’re not sure why they pulled you over. Are my registration and proof of insurance in the glove compartment? You ask yourself. Oftentimes, as the officer walks up to your window, he or…