A veteran cancer physician, Dr Fazlur Rahman's story is astonishing. He was born and raised in a Mullah family, an old-line Muslim clan, in a remote village in what is now Bangladesh, with its hardships and heartaches, its myths and superstitions. The people, places and cultures that he was a part of have almost entirely disappeared. The temples, ......
Founded in 1876, Prairie View A&M University is the second-oldest public institution of higher learning in Texas, one of two Texas land-grant universities, and an "institution of the first class" within the Texas A&M University System. It is also the first public historically Black college or university (HBCU) in Texas. Prairie View A&M has played ......
When sixteen-year-old Ignatius "Egg" Girard is told he'll be spending the next three months on his estranged grandfather's failing farm in Hale Creek, Kentucky, getting the place ready to sell, he foresees chores, isolation, and the erosion of everything he'd planned for his summer vacation. At first, Egg is resolved simply to endure: the ......
Anyone who has ever driven into Huntsville, Texas, from the west on US Highway 190 has glimpsed the now-famous "Cowboy Boot House": a fully functional 700-square-foot, two-bedroom home that features a spiral staircase up to the top of the "boot," offering a panoramic view of the community. It's hard to forget, as is its builder, Dan Phillips. ......
Death is an uncomfortable but inevitable topic often layered with euphemisms to cushion the reality of loss. Many people will outlive their beloved pets and must make the difficult decision to euthanize an animal. Killing Your Best Friend: A Veterinarian's Journal and Manual of Euthanasia is an unconventional look at issues surrounding end-of-life ......
Jason Isbell describes Will Johnson's songs as a poetic manipulation of language that employs "multi-syllable words used almost as musical instruments [and] detailed images flying at the listener with no time to fully decipher meaning before the next image appears." Similar sentiments are echoed in many engaging essays shared here by John Krajicek ......
Project X and the American Aerial Defense of Java, 1941-1942
In the dark days of World War II, just after Pearl Harbor, Japanese forces were moving almost at will across Southeast Asia and the Pacific. With his troops besieged in the Philippines and his bomber and fighter squadrons nearly reduced to impotence, General MacArthur pressured the US War Department to provide urgent help, particularly for ......
A History of Activism at Prairie View a&M University
Prairie View A&M University is more than Texas's oldest public historically Black university-it is a crucible of political struggle and social transformation. Since its founding in 1876 on the grounds of a former slave plantation, Prairie View has stood at the forefront of the Black freedom struggle, producing generations of students, faculty, and ......
Clement M. Keys and the Formation of the American Aviation Industry
Entrepreneurship in aviation took flight during the 1920s, though at the beginning of the decade it was struggling for survival. After World War I, the market was oversaturated with war surplus airplanes, commercial transport a mere dream, and, with no laws or regulations on air travel, aviation lacked investors. Clement M. Keys, a Canadian-born ......