FRESH AIR: Antidepressants and medications for bipolar disorder can be life-changing and even lifesaving, but journalist Lauren Slater warns that the long-term side effects of these drugs are “cloaked in mystery.”“As a nation, we’re consuming them; we’re gobbling them down,” she says. “And we don’t really know what we’re taking into our bodies.” Slater, who suffers from depression and bipolar disorder, has firsthand experience with psychotropic drugs; she’s been taking medication for 35 years. Her new book, Blue Dreams, dedicates separate chapters to drugs such as Thorazine, lithium and psilocybin. Slater says she wanted to “unveil” the drugs by explaining […]

[Illustrations by ALEX FINE] EDITOR’S NOTE: This interview originally published on December 7th, 2011. We are re-posting it now, for obvious reasons. BY JONATHAN VALANIA In advance of her reading at the Free Library tonight to promote her new book Reimagining Equality: Stories Of Race, Gender And Finding A Home, we present a conversation with Anita Hill, professor of social policy, law, and women’s studies at Brandeis University. Discussed: The fantasia of a Post-Racial America; the mendacity, narcissism and hypocrisy of Clarence Thomas and Herman Cain; the right wing’s racializing the blame for the 2008 financial crisis; how she passed […]

Photo by ANDY WILSH Generally speaking, and for good reason, it is considered poor form to simply cut and paste a band’s press kit bio onto your Q&A and call it an intro, but this time we’ll make an exception, for the following will likely be the closest we ever get to a definitive explanation of the hushed grandeur of The Clientele: The Clientele formed a long time ago in the backwoods of suburban Hampshire, playing together as kids at school, rehearsing in a thatched cottage remote from any kind of music scene, but hypnotized by the magical strangeness of […]

Image courtesy of ERIC KIM BY DANIEL PATRICK WARD When Aldous Huxley composed The Perennial Philosophy, humanity was just beginning to recover from the epic horror show of the Second World War. Across the globe, communities struggled to understand the reality of the tragic events that allowed millions of people to perish at the hands of an evil that was previously unknown to mankind. Amidst all of the conflict and confusion, Huxley produced a masterpiece that could help unite a divided world through something that reaches every corner of the globe: spirituality. At its core, The Perennial Philosophy is an […]

  Twenty Lessons from the 20th Century by Timothy Snyder Housum Professor of History Yale University “Americans are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience. Now is a good time to do so. Here are twenty lessons from the twentieth century, adapted to the circumstances of today . 1. Do not obey in advance. Much of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then start to […]

  My grandfather was born in 1900 and his life followed the historic trajectories and sociocultural contours of America in the 20th century — he weathered two world wars and the Great Depression and lived to tell. He was educated and well-read, a cement company executive who traveled widely on company business, clapping the backs of power in foreign lands — the Shah of Iran gave him an incredible wall-sized Persian rug, the ambassador of Mexico gave my grandmother a sterling silver tea set, etc. He taught Sunday School. Always voted Republican and subscribed to the National Review. He was […]