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Mirra Mitta and the occult
Happy Halloween. Ryan Briggs shares an incredible account of the Victorian-era cult of “Mirra Mitta” in South Philadelphia: The stench of death hung heavy along South 11th Street in 1905. The smell had grown so bad that neighbors had gone to the local police district to complain. They claimed that a crazed man and woman […]
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‘You might be the source of your own pain’
Karen Swallow Prior, author of On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life through Great Books, reflects in an unexpectedly beautiful way on the good life after she was literally hit by a bus: Sin is like this in that one small lapse can cause great damage. The split second in which I did not see…
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Rowers on the Potomac
Often after work in Arlington, I’ll get one of the nearby Capital Bikeshare bikes and ride across the Key Bridge to Georgetown. Recently I’ve been riding across the bridge near sunset, and a number of times I’ve been coming across just as what I presume are Georgetown rowers are rapidly making their way along the…
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Nearing Halloween in Georgetown
I’m catching up on reading and writing today, and sharing these scenes from various points over the past week in Georgetown. I’ll be at Notre Dame on Halloween, so I’ve been making it a point to enjoy the decorations in the neighborhood. As the seasons change again, we’re reminded that we’re all getting older together.…
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Even distributions and new norms
Nellie Bowles reports on the unexpected impact of new technology, namely its unequal utilization across American communities and among the young: It wasn’t long ago that the worry was that rich students would have access to the internet earlier, gaining tech skills and creating a digital divide. Schools ask students to do homework online, while…