All Culture
How women are helping communities defeat food insecurityHow can women, facing food insecurity amid a pandemic, make their families more resilient? A small El Salvador cooperative helps answer the question.
Disney’s hopeful ‘Raya’ is another leap for female heroes“Raya and the Last Dragon” offers an exploration of finding faith in others, and some welcomely complex characters that ought to become the norm.
Kindness linked us on the Mongolian steppeMy host family and I had little language or social experience in common. So instead, kindness linked us.
Oscar hopeful ‘The Truffle Hunters’ is a dog-lover’s delight“The Truffle Hunters,” an Oscar-shortlisted documentary, is as much about the dogs and their owners as it is about the tradition they perpetuate.
In a WordWhat does the ‘filibuster’ have to do with pirates?Etymologically, filibuster has more to do with conflict than with consensus. Fittingly, conflict is what filibusters tend to create in legislatures.
First Look'A blessed gift': How one Mississippi man keeps the blues aliveJimmy “Duck” Holmes is the last Bentonia bluesman to carry on the town's unique musical and oral storytelling tradition. Despite newfound fame after being nominated for a Grammy, he has never considered leaving his small Mississippi community.
Art balm: A reporter’s delight after a year without museumsMuseum closures mean seeing paintings in person has not been possible. One LA-based reporter leaped at the chance to view art up close again.
First LookGolden Globes best director award: a first for Asian women“Nomadland" took best picture drama and the China-born filmmaker, Chloé Zhao, became the first woman of Asian descent to win best director.
‘Masterpiece’ at 50: How has the PBS staple influenced US culture?As PBS’s “Masterpiece” celebrates its golden anniversary, we ask an author and aficionado about its appeal and influence.
Think you’ve got winter woes? I've got a slumpy frog.Her boxwood salamander is 12 feet long, but few notice it. Still, she fusses over it when it snows.
In a WordWhat to call the locals in New Zealand and IndianaSometimes there are rough rules for forming demonyms, terms that denote the inhabitants of a particular place. But in irregular cases, there are none.
‘We ring in the spring together’: Sharing the secrets of maple sugaringHere, at the sugarhouse, a rite of spring has built a diverse community of common purpose and celebration.
In a WordWhat to call people from Wisconsin or DubaiSome demonyms – or words “used to denote a person who inhabits or is native to a particular place” – are obvious, but others are impossible to guess.
‘Nomadland’: A wispy, affecting vision of life on the roadSet in the wake of the Great Recession, “Nomadland,” with its focus on the choices people make when faced with economic hardship, resonates now.
In Maine’s winter woods, I’m never aloneWhile I’m the only human on a snowy trail at times, I’m companioned by the tracks and signs of wild creatures.
In ‘The Mauritanian,’ Hollywood takes on Guantánamo. Can it do it justice?With the release of “The Mauritanian,” the Monitor’s film critic wonders how well equipped Hollywood is to dramatize incendiary political subjects.
In a WordLearning to live with ‘learnings’Learnings is often seen as pretentious and useless business jargon, but its cousin teachings is pretty unobjectionable. What’s the difference?
Winter can’t stop these Brits from wading inSea swimming during the cold winter months attracts sturdy bands of bathers in Britain’s coastal towns.
First LookColumn: Window sill gardens offer warmth amid winter's chillTiny seedlings on a ledge in the pale afternoon light offer a metaphor for the coming days, this columnist writes. As bulbs sleep beneath the snow outside, inside gardeners are finding purpose in preparing for spring.
“A giving spirit”: Getting children in foster care through the pandemicThe pandemic makes it harder to serve youth in the foster care system, but it has also sparked creative workarounds within programs and communities.
