John Rawls

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February 2026 Magazine

This month we explore art, creativity and resilience. These three themes are intertwined and made whole in our feature story about Korean American artist Samantha Yun Wall. Barbara Lloyd McMichael has written an excellent article about this astonishing artist whose first   major solo exhibition at the Seattle Art Museum explores cultural duality, memory, and societal stigma. In the third part of a three-part series, The Roots of Resentment (Revisiting John Rawls), Rosemary Curran examines how to equalize the playing field between the elite oligarchs and all the rest of us. Annie Searle’s article, What Does it Take to Effect Change, reminds us that it’s important to remember that DHS contains not only ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), but also the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and the Coast Guard.  In Belle’s Big Burden, women have been spurned and rejected since the beginning of time, but unlike Belle Burden, they don’t land a multi-million dollar book deal. The oil painting The Threatened Swan, created around 1650 by Dutch Artist Jan Asselijn, is our top pick for February. A great painting has many meanings. Each month we will feature a work of art that, on some level, speaks to all of us.  ––Patricia Vaccarino


REVISITING JOHN RAWLS

In Part Three  (Revisiting John Rawls) of the series THE ROOTS OF RESENTMENT, we contrast the ideological underpinnings of the social Darwinist and the communitarian viewpoints as they relate to the economic basis of society.  In responding to this crisis, John Rawls Theory of Justice provides the theoretical framework.  Considering this theory, we propose some of the practical implications for current politics.


EXTINCTION! A Mortality Tale

We have been warned – repeatedly.  We are headed toward the self-destruction of humankind as a species. Indeed, all the other aerobic (oxygen consuming) species on Earth may also be in jeopardy. The latest threat to our species is the rapidly melting permafrost in the Arctic, and the rise there in lethal methane producing sinkholes.  


SEPTEMBER 2025 MAGAZINE

Get out there and stick up for yourself and the people in your community! Our feature this month is a quick primer in Civil ResistanceBarbara Lloyd McMichael describes what happened this summer when she participated in her library’s annual reading program Book Bingo. Manny Frishberg writes about the Ngombor Community Development Alliance, a new organization with roots in the West Nile region of Uganda, that is helping to educate smallholder farmers and traders. While we’re on the topic of education, please see my book review on Brian Dillon’s Essayism On Form, Feeling, and Nonfiction. He is a writer’s writer who is a cut above all the rest of us. Even if you are not a writer, there is no harm in taking a glimpse at truly good writing. –Patricia Vaccarino


Educate Yourself: The American Resistance

Eons ago in my last year of college, John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice was the text book for my political science class. The class was assigned to write about the factors that led to Nazi Germany’s murderous rampage. What characteristics did the fascists (and their supporters) have in common? I decided to write about Nazi Germany from a different angle. I wrote about the people who had resisted the fascists. They shared characteristics in common. Those who had resisted fascism had integrity, compassion, and a conscience.