Julie Wittes Schlack

Feb 21, 2025 | wbur.org | Julie Wittes Schlack

As a child I loved Tom Thumb, the perfectly formed human who was only a couple of inches tall; he roamed the countryside while sitting on the back of a mouse or hitched a ride in the ear of a horse. It grieved me to eventually learn that he was a fiction, not an actual human being.

Nov 18, 2024 | wbur.org | Julie Wittes Schlack

One night when I was about 15, I dreamt that I’d come home from school to find my older brother sitting in the big, green leather chair in our living room. My mother had purchased this chair — imposing and vaguely British with its winged back and brass nailheads — at Treasure Mart, the consignment store from which she furnished our house during those years.

Nov 3, 2024 | wbur.org | Julie Wittes Schlack

“What happens when a woman takes power?” ask the high school girls sitting on the stairs in a recent TikTok video. They look like my daughters and their friends did years ago. In fact, they look pretty similar to me and my pals in the halls of Pioneer High in the 1970s. As they sing, they snap and clap in a cadence familiar to any schoolgirl. Unlike the young women of my generation, they do not tap or shuffle their feet. They stomp them.

Oct 23, 2024 | wbur.org | Julie Wittes Schlack

As Donald Trump and J.D. Vance’s anti-immigrant rhetoric reaches ever-new lows, I want to tell you about some of the families I’ve gotten to know in the past two years as a volunteer helping newly arrived refugees. (I’ve changed their names to protect their identities, but have not altered their stories.)Abdul, a recent immigrant from Syria by way of a refugee camp in Lebanon, works at a food co-op washing dishes. He rides a donated bike there.

Jun 27, 2024 | wbur.org | Steve Almond |Robert C. Bordone |Joe Caiazzo |Frederick Hewett |Lara Jirmanus |Jesse Mermell | +3 more

Editors’ note: It seems the universal sentiment leading up to this first presidential debate can be summarized in one word: dread. “No matter how it plays out, I expect a horror show,” one Cog newsletter subscriber told us. “Like many Americans I am tired of all this. Our campaigning functionally starts a few minutes after the swearing-in ceremony; in other words it’s continuous. It shouldn’t be that way but I have no idea how to change it,” she continued.