BY KATE VIEIRAUniversity of Wisconsin, Madison I am not an expert on the effects of the forcible separation of children from their parents. I believe the experts. I believe the American Association of Pediatrics president who says that the policy, in that it affects children’s brain chemistry, causes irreparable harm. I believe the scholars of … More ¿Cómo Ubico Mis Hijos? (How do I locate my children?)
BY KELLY OLIVERVanderbilt University Most of us in the US remember the horror of seeing pictures of the tiny body of three-year-old Alan Kurdi laying face down on a Turkish beach. Or the small, ash-covered face of Omran Daqneesh as he was placed in an ambulance in Aleppo. Alan and Omran became tragic “poster children” … More Children are collateral damage in Trump’s border war.
Butterfly weed, like other milkweeds, is a host plant for monarch butterflylarvae, who eat the leaves. Unlike other milkweeds, this one has clear sapand flowers that range from pale yellow-orange to vivid orange to deep red. BY PHYLLIS ROOT AND KELLY POVO We’ve been to the big woods to see the springtime flowers, we’ve been … More Wildflower Series #3: A day full of prairie
BY THOMAS BIOLSIUniversity of California, Berkeley How should we make sense of “red states” and “blue states,” and in a way that does not fall victim to the political polarization that seems to have reached a crescendo in the present? My new book, Power and Progress on the Prairie, seeks to uncover the history of … More Governing the countryside: On modernity and progress in rural South Dakota.
“Feeling lurks in that interval of time between desire and its consummation. Shorten that interval, break down all those old unnecessary barriers.” —Aldous Huxley, Brave New World *** BY MICHAEL HAWORTH In 2016 Amazon introduced a new range of products called Dash Buttons. These are pocket-sized internet-enabled interfaces consisting simply of one button mapped to … More From Amazon’s Dash Button to Google Glass: Is there no limit to the capabilities of today’s radical neurotechnologies?
BY MICHAEL TYMKIWLecturer in art history at the University of Essex For many people, events such as the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, with its torchlight parade, eagle-emblazoned shields and Nazi flags, bring with them uncomfortable reminders of fascist visual culture from the 1920s to 1945. While individuals and organisations associated with the … More What Nazi exhibitions tell us about how the far right engages audiences today
True to its name, bog rosemary grows only in a bog,where the plant has adapted to the cold, acidic environment. A bog and a book signing BY PHYLLIS ROOT AND KELLY POVO Heading up north to our first bookstore book signing in Park Rapids (last weekend), we detoured to the Lake Bemidji State Park bog … More Wildflowers Series #2: Oh, for Peat’s Sake
If you’re scoping out Minnesota’s woods, chances are good you’ll run intoDutchman’s breeches this time of year. The flower gets its name because theblossoms look like tiny breeches drying upside down on a line. Our new book, Searching for Minnesota’s Native Wildflowers, is officially out this month—and we’ve already begun this year’s searching in the bursting … More Spring abloom: Scouting for wildflowers in Minnesota’s great outdoors (Wildflowers Series #1)
BY FRANCES GUERIN I recall the day The Truth Is Always Grey was conceived. I was visiting the Alberto Giacometti retrospective at the Centre Pompidou in Fall 2007—a huge exhibition in which Giacometti’s portraits, sculptures, and busts were placed in dialogue to shed new light on the oeuvre. As I walked from room to room, … More A look behind the challenging, provocative, fascinating history of the color grey.
BY CARY J. GRIFFITHAuthor of Gunflint Burning Eleven years ago this month, the most destructive wildfire in modern Minnesota history at the time rallied more than one thousand firefighters, consumed 75,000 acres of forest, with firefighting costs around $11 million and structure losses estimated to top $100 million. Writing about the Ham Lake fire was … More From environmental impact to community saviors, here are seven things you might not know about one of the largest wildfires in Minnesota history.
