Drew Downs

Make a New Normal

free speech

  • A student at a Catholic school was forced to remove a sticker from her computer and the school is oblivious to the irony. Proof we’re totally insane over politics. A student at a Connecticut Catholic school was told to remove a sticker from her laptop. A Catholic student was told by her school to remove…

  • White nationalism wants you to treat it like an honest ideology. It wants you to debate it, honor it, privilege it. But it isn’t yet another source of water flowing into the well, it’s poison. A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a piece on white nationalism. Specifically, I wrote about the challenge in responding…

  • I listen to podcasts. If you don’t, then yes, you’re missing out. They are a brilliantly simple medium. A sound file pushed out into the world to be heard. I listen to fiction, news, religion, and creativity shows and each one makes a commute shorter and dishes easier to do. Each an opportunity to listen…

  • Free Speech. We all love it. None of us claim we want to restrict it. So what are we really fighting about when we fight about free speech? What isn’t there. I’ve started feeling like something’s missing. In our lives and conversations. Years ago, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert said it was civility. That we…

  • There’s a lot of exercising of free speech these days. And I love it. Well, I love the positive kind. And the kind which provokes us to better ourselves. Of course, I’m not into the kind which denigrates and destroys. The kind which labels and causes emotional harm. That kind I struggle to defend. I’m…