First poem, published in Outlaw Poetry on October 13th.

Russell Edwards is an entrepreneur, author, and historian from London. Between 2007-2014, Russell dedicated a considerable amount of his time and financial resources to solving the infamous Jack the Ripper case, and out of that experience came his book Naming Jack The Ripper. I recently had the opportunity to talk with Russell about his journey, both in revealing the identity of a notorious serial killer and then writing about it.

This is not a coherent movement which offers a careful scrutinization of wealth and class in America. These are not groups which seek to expose corporate influence and infiltration of government. Instead, this is a rabble which appears to be a product of biology denialism, ill-disguised misandry, and—oddly—an inversion rather than a repudiation of “race science”. In the place of Marx or Keynes, Judith Butler. In the place of Douglass or Orwell, Ta Nehisi Coates and Roxane Gay. In the place of “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité”, “Safety, Identity, Allyhood”. In the place of dissent born out of a love for country and liberal democracy, rioting and intimidation born out of loathing toward both. Not only is this change on the so-called “left” alarming, it is petulant, it is embarrassing, it is ridiculous.

To read Jefferson is not to read the archaic and irrelevant ramblings of a pile of bones. To read Jefferson, instead, is to read the warm correspondence of a curious old friend. I admit that to have such deep affinity for a man who died 165 years before I was born is, to put it mildly, strange. Normally when one thinks of heroes, role models, and intellectual father-figures or mentors, the mind travels only to the living and normally to the near. Nevertheless I do have a deep affinity for Jefferson and consider myself a disciple of the Enlightenment he held so close to his heart. Yet to speak of Thomas Jefferson in such glowing terms is to find that even he is not immune from the wrath of the Holy Order of Perpetual Offense.

I found myself in Istanbul late March on a 17-hour layover. My ultimate destination was Curaçao—a small island located beside Aruba just 35 miles off the coast of Venezuela—for a much needed vacation with my girlfriend after doing some long and intense work in Afghanistan. With time to kill then, in what was metonymically called the “Gate of Felicity”, I figured I had some obligation to my steadily-growing audience not only to explore the city of Istanbul, but to give a brief snapshot of how it is now in 2017.

My interview with ex-Muslim Yasmine Mohammed.