The endless Alaska Highway is a famed road shrouded in impossible isolation and amnesia, where boundaries disappear into a twilight zone of the beautiful and the bizarre. It is an endless wormhole where the unexpected and the sublime are so common that they become monotonous, where the emptiness is so complete that you can feel like the last person on earth.
Americana
American Impressions 4 | Alaska: The New Suburb
Big, brutal, poetic, a hero among states, Alaska has always been America’s national park of the imagination, a 600,000-square-mile invention colonized by a few tracts of reality. An exploration of Kodiak Island defeats a few stereotypes and reveals to what extent even Alaska is becoming a suburb of the Lower Forty-Eights.
American Impressions 3 | The Road
The Colorado National Monument, Yellowstone, Salt Lake City and Wyoming frame reflections on the romance of the road, that essentially American love affair made of myths and wanderlust, and those insufferable RVs.
American Impressions 2 | Heartland
America is more paradox than exception, often more invention than reality, an invention as old as 1619 and as recent as the transformation of the American “heartland” into a utopia. The contradictions of Cedar Bluff State Park in Kansas tell a different story.
American Impressions 1 | The Day Before America
In the first of nine installments of his American Impressions series–a reporter’s journey across the 50 states–Pierre Tristam fills in details that marked his youth in war-torn Lebanon and defined his outlook before migrating to the United States and beginning a process of discovery that continues to this day.
To Combat Gun Violence, Artist Mykael Ash Turns Ammunition Into Art
Mykael Ash is turning ammunition into art. Ash, who lives in East St. Louis, Illinois, frequently walks through parts of the city where bullet shells aren’t hard to find. The shell casings represent a cycle of inequality, Ash says, and the art he makes with it serves as a call to action.
America Wins World Cup of Orientalism
It’s been a perplexing World Cup. Should we be watching this thing? Should we be enjoying it? Shouldn’t we be getting outraged about human rights, LGBTQ rights, the death of migrants, environmental impacts? The questions reflect back on our own prejudices and stereotypes as much as they raise legitimate questions about Qatar’s right to host the biggest sports tournament in the world.
Shirley Chisholm Trail, Marking Giant National Legacy, Is Dedicated Along Palm Coast’s Pine Lakes Parkway
The Shirley Chisholm Trail, the work of the Democratic Women’s Club of Flagler County, connects Chisholm’s retirement years in Palm Coast to her historic achievements as the first Black member of Congress and the first woman to run for president from a major party, among many firsts. She died in 2005.
Marco Rubio and Rick Scott Reject Protecting Gay Marriage as Key Step Clears Senate; Waltz Had Voted Yes
The U.S. Senate on Wednesday voted 62 to 37 to move ahead with a historic bill that would give federal protection to same-sex mariage, with 12 Republican senators joining Democrats to overcome the 60-vote threshold for a filibuster. Both of Florida’s Republican senators, Marco Rubio and Rick Scott, voted against the measure.
Churches Are Breaking the Law by Endorsing in Elections, Experts Say. The IRS Looks the Other Way.
For nearly 70 years, federal law has barred churches from directly involving themselves in political campaigns, but the IRS has largely abdicated its enforcement responsibilities as churches have become more brazen about publicly backing candidates.