“The banana smells so good, can you please buy me one, I want to taste it,” I asked my father at the market when I was in the third grade in the 1990s, and when Iraq was under economic sanctions. “Oh, my dear, those are fake, look, it even has stickers on them,” my Baba […]
A swirling, buzzing, screaming hive — a deadly collective, men without faces or histories absorbed into…
Is It Big Enough? — Niels Bohr Not the smallest part of the life we came to lead, Miss Warner, was you.…
I’ve always been told I’m too sensitive — I feel too deeply, cry too easily, and lead with my heart…
“My mom is 84 years old and she’s at home watching. Mom I just won an Oscar!!! My journey started on…
It was the Republic Day in Tunisia, just a usual boring Sunday. A Tunisian swimmer won the gold medal in the Olympic games, and we all felt joyful and proud of his achievement. I was like most Tunisians, scrolling over Instagram, switching to Twitter a bit, and watching the Tokyo games when I received this […]
When I took up my duties as the new US Ambassador in Vientiane, Laos, on Sept. 13, 2001, two days after…
Twenty years ago this month, the majority of Americans cheered as the US-led invasion of Iraq was…
During a Veterans Day celebration in my small Maryland community, a teacher clicked through a slideshow…
It’s the two little girls that I keep thinking about. One night in Mariupol I was eating dinner in…
“Brilliance at a young age is not always accepted by the elders.” -Shuri, Black Panther: Wakanda…
I remember walking into the Chicago meeting room last November, feeling sobered by the day’s…
Every year, the wind blows from the west bringing rain clouds to break the dry heat. When I close my…
“What begins as wonder ends in perplexity and thence leads back to wonder: How marvelous that men can…