During the two weeks that former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin has been on trial for murdering George Floyd, the legend of John Henry has come to mind. According to the great American folk ballad, the railroad laborer was working in West Virginia in the early 1870s when his company …
Read More »Prince's Unreleased Album 'Welcome 2 America' Finally Arrives This Summer
Prince’s unreleased 2010 album Welcome 2 America is the next offering from the singer’s Vault, with the LP finally due out this summer. Prior to Welcome 2 America’s July 30th arrival (pre-order it here), the Prince Estate has shared the title track, a spoken word soliloquy that criticized social media, …
Read More »Dua Lipa: Dancing in the Dark
W e’re standing next to a 15-ton meteorite when it occurs to Dua Lipa that, for maybe one of the first times in many months, her life is back to an approximation of what it might be in that very moment if the coronavirus pandemic had never happened. That is …
Read More »First, It Was Weed — Now, Voters Have a Chance for Legal Psychedelics
This column is a collaboration with DoubleBlind, a print magazine and media company at the forefront of the psychedelic movement. At this point, there’s no question: researchers, investors, and stakeholders agree that psychedelics will be legal as pharmaceuticals in the next decade. The FDA has already granted both MDMA, the …
Read More »Sin and Scandal at Liberty University
O n May 27th, the second day of mounting national outrage over the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police, the president of America’s largest evangelical university decided it was the perfect time to blast out a tweet featuring the crudest of racial imagery. “I was adamantly opposed to the …
Read More »Why Ziggy Marley Made a Children's Album During Quarantine
In the early days of the pandemic, Ziggy Marley found himself stuck at home in California, wondering how to address the pain of the current moment with his music. Since he was also occupied with family, that desire to write led to More Family Time, the new follow-up to his …
Read More »Seattle's Autonomous Zone Is Not What You've Been Told
Seattle‘s Capitol Hill neighborhood is the heart of queer Seattle, where last year’s Trans Pride Seattle March drew thousands. It’s a place battling gentrification, where residents and small business owners feel caught in a stranglehold. It’s a parking nightmare, where meters operate 14 hours a day, six days a week. …
Read More »Marijuana Has Been Deemed 'Essential' — But Essential for Whom?
As the coronavirus spread across the country in March, and stay-at-home orders began to go into effect, every state with a regulated cannabis system allowed weed sales to continue in some form, deeming medical-marijuana businesses essential during the pandemic, along with groceries and pharmacies. This, The New York Times declared, …
Read More »Anti-Choice Politicians Are Using the Coronavirus Crisis to Deny Abortion Rights
Amid the coronavirus pandemic, while the rest of the nation is focusing on staying healthy and social distancing, anti-abortion politicians and movement leaders have been doing the only thing they know — pursuing an agenda to shut down abortion clinics. Capitalizing on the mantra to never let a crisis go …
Read More »Radiohead's 'The Bends': 10 Things You Didn't Know
When Radiohead‘s Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood stepped into New York’s tiny Mercury Lounge in November 1994 to play an acoustic duo show, their band was known for a single song that they’d already grown weary of playing: “Creep.” They’d been on tour for two solid years in support of …
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