Robert C. Koehler
Robert Koehler is an award-winning, Chicago-based journalist and nationally syndicated writer. His new book, Courage Grows Strong at the Wound is now available. Contact him at koehlercw@gmail.com or visit his website at commonwonders.com.
Articles by this author
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Views Thursday, March 26, 2020 The Virus Is Our Teacher Last Sunday at 11 a.m. I went for a walk. Even if it’s nothing special, a walk isn’t a normal thing to do these days. But this brief walk — around the block, consuming maybe ten minutes of my time — had a transcendent dimension to it that continues to awe me, and I’m going to do it again. It was a... Read more |
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Views Thursday, March 19, 2020 Creative Empathy in a Pandemic One thing about a pandemic: It’s inclusive. We cannot survive it, move beyond it, by protecting merely some people. We have to protect everyone. Of all the disruption, paradox and chaos that have been unleashed by the coronavirus, this is the most stunning: It has something to teach us that we... Read more |
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Views Thursday, March 12, 2020 War, Profit and the Coronavirus If you want expertise, don’t bother reading any further here. I know as much about coronavirus as any stunned disbeliever with a sudden, irresistible urge to touch his face. This is a news story that’s spookily personal — far more personal, somehow, than all those other ongoing horror stories out... Read more |
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Views Thursday, March 05, 2020 The True Meaning of Super Tuesday A gush of corporate relief fills the airwaves as Super Tuesday becomes history. A progressive wave was not electorally visible as the Democratic status quo consolidated itself behind Joe Biden and won nine or maybe ten states. I was feeling a lot more hope when Super Tuesday began than I’m feeling... Read more |
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Views Thursday, February 27, 2020 Bernie's Very Welcome Assault on Our Cliché of Greatness “Excuse me, occasionally it might be a good idea to be honest about American foreign policy.” I don’t think I’ve heard that much honesty from a mainstream-party presidential candidate in virtually half a century. And suddenly this race begins to matter in a way that seems like . . . oh my God, a... Read more |
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Views Thursday, February 13, 2020 The Wall: Separating Democracy From Voters The mainstream media imposes some serious certainties on the 2020 presidential election that drive me into a furious despair, e.g.: Even though Bernie Sanders, winner of the first two Democratic primaries, is now leading in the national polls, he “can’t and won’t” be the party’s nominee “because in... Read more |
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Views Thursday, February 06, 2020 Voting With Food and Water A bad app in Iowa throws everything into a tizzy. Who won? Come on, the horse race has begun. Let’s get some numbers up on the board. Spectator Nation stomps its feet. Voting is the activity at the core of democracy, right? It’s a citizen’s sacred duty. While I have always believed this, questions... Read more |
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Views Thursday, January 30, 2020 Maneuvering Hell for Our Advantage When the mainstream media writes about war, even critically, the image that often comes to mind for me is an infant wrapped in plastic. That infant is naked reality, a.k.a., the present moment, suffocating and screaming for its life; the plastic smothering it are the journalistic euphemisms by... Read more |
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Views Thursday, January 23, 2020 FBI, King and the Tremors of History Nothing like trying to rewrite history. Remember way back when, when America was one nation under God and everyone got along so nicely? That was the sentiment of an FBI tweet on Martin Luther King Day, which — oh, the horror! — blew up in the agency’s face and brought a real fragment of the Old... Read more |
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Views Thursday, January 16, 2020 Nuclear Hubris One thing that becomes clear to me when I wander into the world, and the minds, of geopolitical professionals—government people—is how limited and linear their thinking seems to be. When I do so, an internal distress signal starts beeping and won’t stop, especially when the issue under discussion... Read more |