Writing
The outdoors and the natural world
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The Boston Globe · Ideas · Essay
Man or bear? Which would women rather encounter on a hiking trail?
I have contended with both. On why women keep choosing the bear, and why they belong in the woods anyway.
June 24, 2024 -
The Boston Globe · Ideas · Interview
Turning outdoor recreation into 're-creation'
Robert Macfarlane, author of Is a River Alive?, on getting outside as a spiritual practice rather than an achievement.
October 7, 2025
Books and ideas
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The Boston Globe · Ideas · Interview
How to stay hopeful in trying times
Rebecca Solnit, on her new essay collection, and why despair is a luxury the moment can't afford.
May 19, 2025 -
The Boston Globe · Ideas · Books
The housing crisis has inspired a delightfully absurd new fairy tale
Emily Hunt Kivel's Dwelling turns the search for somewhere to live into a modern fable.
October 19, 2025 -
The Boston Globe · Ideas
Does American democracy need more religion?
Jonathan Rauch's case that a weakened church has left liberalism without a moral ballast.
March 13, 2025 -
The Boston Globe · Ideas · Interview
Harvard-MIT chaplain says tech is our new religion
Greg Epstein on why our relationship with technology would be healthier if we approached it as agnostics.
October 29, 2024 -
The Boston Globe · Ideas · Interview
Why today's youths are 'The Anxious Generation'
Jonathan Haidt on phones, play, and the rewiring of childhood.
March 24, 2024
Free expression and democracy
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The Boston Globe · Ideas
Hateful. Vile. Obscene. Protected.
Mary Anne Franks on what the First Amendment actually defends, and whom it leaves out.
December 26, 2024 -
The Boston Globe · Ideas
Gutting USAID is an attack on groups that challenge dictators
The aid agency's quiet role in keeping independent media and civil society alive under authoritarian rule.
February 12, 2025 -
Foreign Affairs
Speak No Evil
India's sedition law, the arrest of student protesters, and the shrinking limits of dissent.
March 1, 2016 -
Current · with Ryan Howzell
Reviewing border coverage uncovers risks of 'both sides' reporting on right-wing extremists
From PEN America research: how public media framed militia activity at the southern border.
February 1, 2023 -
Global Voices
India: Internet companies bow to censorship demands
An early look at platform compliance with government takedown orders.
February 13, 2012
Human rights and foreign affairs
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The Boston Globe · Ideas
First, they came for the foreigners
The federal assault on noncitizen students is a violation of democratic norms, and a harbinger of what comes next.
March 31, 2025 -
The Boston Globe · Ideas
Dictators ignore borders in their pursuit of critics
Since 2014, autocrats have targeted at least 850 dissidents living abroad, from digital harassment to assassination.
March 13, 2024 -
The New York Times · Opinion
A Doctor's Trial in a Turkish Border Town
A physician prosecuted for treating patients, and what his case says about medicine under emergency rule.
May 29, 2017 -
Open Society Foundations · Voices
How Drug Courts Are Falling Short
Politicians on both sides love promoting drug courts, but beneath the hype they often deny people evidence-based treatment.
June 7, 2017 -
Open Society Foundations · Voices
Who Will Identify Ukraine's Dead?
With the government overwhelmed, a volunteer group called the Black Tulips recovers the fallen in eastern Ukraine so families learn what happened to them.
February 3, 2016 -
Foreign Affairs
Policing Kashmir
Pellet guns, impunity, and the case for police reform after the killing of Burhan Wani.
July 27, 2016 -
The Hindu · Op-Ed
How I was deported from India
A first-person account of being forced out of the country over a report on the Armed Forces Special Powers Act in Jammu and Kashmir.
July 2, 2015 -
Al Jazeera · Opinion
Military injustice: Both US and India 'left in the dark'
Two democracies, two systems of military justice, and the same habit of secrecy.
August 26, 2014
Public health
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The Boston Globe · Ideas
Public health's reckoning started with COVID. It was too late.
The field is being taken over by hostile forces. To fight back, it must dedicate itself to something larger than saving lives at all costs.
April 20, 2025 -
Harvard Public Health
Tap water's toxic secret
Manganese is unregulated, common, and linked to harm in children. Almost no one is testing for it.
August 31, 2023 -
Harvard Public Health · Q&A
How Costa Rica became a global health leader
A conversation with former president Carlos Alvarado Quesada.
May 16, 2023 -
Global Voices
India: New challenges to fight tuberculosis worldwide
Drug resistance, and the limits of a national program.
January 29, 2012