The most powerful tool against authoritarianism is a dictionary It begins, as it always does, with language. Before the uniforms, before the marches, before the disappearances, there is a subtle reshaping of words. Totalitarianism, in every form it has taken, begins by narrowing the range of what can be said — therefore, what can be thought.  Complexity becomes suspicious, vocabulary becomes a casualty of ideology, complexity is replaced by slogan, and precision yields to repetition. In the...

Sometimes the line between Platonic and Romantic isn't clear There’s this moment — usually somewhere between splitting fries and sharing a secret — when I catch myself staring at someone I adore and think: Do I want to kiss you … or just talk to you until the world ends? Attraction, for me, will never be a straight line. Desire is an abstract painting — messy, layered, full of colours that shouldn’t go together but somehow do. The boundary between platonic and romantic isn’t clean. It’s...

From People Magazine to 'We the People...' I grew up in the era of the listicle — that glittering, clickable art form that promised wisdom, chaos, and self-discovery in neat, numbered packages. My early education in media didn’t come from The New York Times  or PBS  NewsHour . It came from People  magazine headlines like ‘ 7 Signs Harry Styles Is Ready to Settle Down’ or ‘10 Celebs Who Rocked the Same Dress — Who Wore It Better?’   It was intoxicating, horrifying, and formative. Growing up in...