Yuri Gagarin, First Kosmonaut

Fifty years ago today, Yuri Gagarin became the first man to travel into space, preceded only by dogs and rockets. Twenty years ago, in a profoundly less celebrated event, I started learning Russian in a public high school classroom in San Francisco. The first essay I ever translated from our Russian textbooks was a short …

A Week on the Wagon: Quality Over Quantity Edition

It’s hard to know how closely the people who read this blog pay attention to what we’re up to. It’s easy to imagine extremes: either everyone notices everything (as we do) or no one notices anything (I haven’t read any of Matt’s posts in six months). I know it’s likely more toward the latter, but …

DadWagon Q&A: War Photographer Robert King

As I wrote about earlier this week, I’ve been a little obsessed with the question of how to balance my responsibilities as a father whose kids (presumably) need him and as a journalist who sometimes needs to go into (presumably, somewhat) dangerous situations. Who better to talk with, then, than Robert King, subject of the …