Robert C. Koehler
Robert Koehler is an award-winning, Chicago-based journalist and nationally syndicated writer. His book, "Courage Grows Strong at the Wound" (2016). Contact him or visit his website at commonwonders.com.
Articles by this author
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Views Thursday, October 15, 2020 Columbus Day in Pretend America Before the fake holiday known as Columbus Day completely disappears for another year, I want to grab hold of it for a moment and look at what it really has to offer us: a dizzying dose of historical realism. The scariest part about the legacy of Columbus, and Europe’s "Age of Discovery"—ah, the... Read more |
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Views Thursday, October 08, 2020 What Comes Next Is Up to Us What if we stopped separating the looming national chaos into separate categories —racism, climate change, war, vote suppression, election theft, pandemic, science denial, white supremacy, police brutality, etc.—and tried looking at it all at once? This may be the legacy of Donald Trump, our first... Read more |
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Views Thursday, October 01, 2020 Trump and the Lost Country Where, oh where, is the United States of America—global leader, creator of democracy, hope of humankind? It certainly wasn't up there on the debate stage last night. When 9-year-olds start slinging insults at each other—"Is not!" "Is too!"—it's hard for platitudes to step in and re-establish a... Read more |
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Views Thursday, September 24, 2020 Election 2020: The Coming Chaos Is this the future, leaking into the present moment? “You have good genes, you know that, right? You have good genes. A lot of it is about the genes, isn’t it, don’t you believe? The racehorse theory. You think we’re so different? You have good genes in Minnesota.” The speaker, of course, is Donald... Read more |
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Views Thursday, September 17, 2020 Life in Cancer Alley Shut up and let corporate America—and also, for that matter, corporate Taiwan—get on with its business. We have ethane to crack and plastic to produce. We dare not let America run out of shopping bags! Environmental racism? Don’t be ridiculous. This is the message the activists of Louisiana’s “... Read more |
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Views Thursday, September 10, 2020 Standing up To Trump . . . and Biden When I ponder the likelihood of looming electoral chaos—uncounted votes, a defeated president who won’t leave office, the possible termination of American democracy (coming soon!)—I can’t avoid putting it into a larger context: We’ve always been, at best, a partial democracy, skewed in favor of the... Read more |
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Views Friday, September 04, 2020 Is There Life Beyond Plastic? “Plastics!” Yeah, it’s everywhere...not just in grocery store aisles and department stores and every other commercial outlet you can think of, not to mention your own cupboards and closets and trashcans, but on the grass and on the sidewalks, in the landfills, in the lakes and rivers, in the oceans... Read more |
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Views Thursday, August 27, 2020 This Looks Like the Beginning of a Civil War This looks like the beginning of a civil war. The chaos and violence in Kenosha, Wisconsin are unfolding as I write. I feel as though I’m watching some natural disaster develop, suddenly overpowering any hope for social change “before it’s too late.” Is it already too late—that is to say, too late... Read more |
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Views Thursday, August 20, 2020 War, Peace and the Democrats “There’s something happening here/What it is ain’t exactly clear . . .” Or is it? Day one of the Democratic National (virtual) Convention. Bernie Sanders had just told his supporters: “Together we have moved this country in a bold new direction,” pointing out that “all of us . . .yearn for a nation... Read more |
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Views Thursday, August 13, 2020 Learning From the Hibakushas “They were covered with blood and burned and blackened and swollen, and the flesh was hanging from the bones. Parts of their bodies were missing, and some were carrying their own eyeballs in their hands. And as they collapsed, their stomach burst open.” But war is necessary, right? The speaker,... Read more |