A Brave and Startling Truth: Astrophysicist Janna Levin Reads Maya Angelou’s Stunning Humanist Poem That Flew to Space, Inspired by Carl Sagan – Brain Pickings

https://www.brainpickings.org/2018/05/09/a-brave-and-startling-truth-maya-angelou/

writingcooperative.com/how-i-lost-my-will-to-write-19135ca77090

Early autumn in the 70s in Stockholm, Sweden Berry the Caribbean and Gun and Kerstin two Swedes are having a friendly chat in an outdoor café near a lake. Sam the Afro-American encroaches on the company, and an acrimonious conversation erupts between the men that alights on personal and social issues that evoke emotions in the quartet. Berry speaks of Sam as if he knows him well and Sam does the same. But Sam has something up his sleeve.

John Steinbeck on Good and Evil, the Necessary Contradictions of the Human Nature, and Our Grounds for Lucid Hope

www.brainpickings.org/2016/12/30/john-steinbeck-new-year/