Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Poetry while at war

Poetry while at war

Who amongst us is not moved by the courage of the Ukrainian people as they defend their nation from the ruthless Russian onslaught?

My deep empathy and respect was heightened a few days ago when I received a moving email from Vyacheslav Konoval, a Ukrainian poet. Slava (short for Vyacheslav) told me his work “is devoted to the most pressing social problems of our time, such as poverty, ecology, relations between the people and the government.......... and now war.”


In the United States of the 19th century, poetry too played a unique role in our history. It was the American Walt Whitman who believed that the power of poetry and democracy came from an ability to make a unified whole out of dissipated parts.

And so when Slava wrote to me and asked for The Fulcrum to publish a few of his poems I agreed without hesitation, for it is my hope that the imagery of Slava’s words will intimately connect us to the plight of his fellow Ukrainians in a way that other mediums simply cannot do.

Painful condition

Once on Thursday, I woke up weak,
having been covered with a warm quilt,
with a merciless temperature,
I am dying, and I am bleak.
Like a pendulum,
hearing the run of strikes in the clock’s click.
Laying in bed, I had exhausted from the undead,
I am similar to a sickly chick.
Contemplate on the white pills,
that had become the color of capitulation.
Please, God, stop all human ills,
overcome the pains, and be a healthy nation.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

Fear of tankers

Sluggish frost on the grass
a crawling caterpillar in the dewdrops,
Serhiy's crew is preparing the papers, a military pass.
Leaving the fore post,
steel power hums on the battlefield,
in the funnels of mortars disappears like a ghost.
A projectile flies, blind,
sows the earth, bang sound, raises the ground,
be careful, defenders, don't lose your mind.
The battery beats
stench and embers crept into the forest,
thank God that the tank has 4 seats.
Enemy tanks hung their noses,
the wind spies on the sounds of the shafts,
our tank is hunt,
we will see, there will be iron roses.
One of our tanks to ten of them,
Is that justice?
The trunks of tanks, the oak stems.

Nightmare of Russians

A green bush crunches,
a rut winding in the field,
the cabin compartment opens,
the machine will fry enemies like delicious lunches.
HIMARS, power even in words,
a storm of night fires,
countries in queues behind the car, buyers.
Six shells fly in a line,
the rocket buzzes sharply,
the night turned into day
in the sky, with tongues of fire, shines.
The occupiers moan and cry,
HIMARS beat equipment and supplies,
nothing more to attack
but You, a Russian soldier, live in a lie.

Bohdana, she is a woman, a defender!

Holy Mother of God,
that gave knowledge with mother’s milk,
to create a wonderful fighting machine,
with a cabin and a crew, their number is odd.
The car has an affectionate name, Bohdana,
as a tribute to the designer’s bride
Bohdana is preparing rockets, is in a hurry,
she confidently leads the gunners as a guide.
Six shots up
kilometers of volleys count in the distance,
the captain looks calmly,
his black coffee is not yet ripe
coffee in a cup.
Bohdana throws shells from a cannon,
like a naughty girl
ready-made artillery stories for the grandson.
Bohdana, the reactive system,
spotted by an enemy howitzer,
the soldiers praise you as the goddess Aphrodite,
I am glad that I became a co-author.

Ukrainian Coolon

Iron needles are falling to the right and to the left,
the master holds the welding machine menacingly,
near his sledgehammer instrument lies, own, without theft,
sad, the equipment of the soldiers is bad, depressing.
Had a business, the master before the war,
boasts an electric car,
grief opened him a new purpose like a front door,
a cut is visible on his hands, and then there is a scar.
A tireless worker gathered a cohort of inventors,
turned workshops and garages into industrial centers,
construction jeeps leave the assembly line,
soldiers say that jeeps are fine.The guys assemble 20 cars in 10 days quickly,
knots, aggregates in machines are prickly,
16 hours per day, garage jeeps assemble,
the thought of volunteering makes my soul tremble.

Read More

Person dropping off a ballot

An Arizona voter drops off a ballot at the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center on Election Day 2022.

Eric Thayer for The Washington Post via Getty Images

Are there hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants on Arizona’s voter rolls?

This fact brief was originally published by the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting. Read the original here. Fact briefs are published by newsrooms in the Gigafact network, and republished by The Fulcrum. Visit Gigafact to learn more.

Are there hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants on Arizona’s voter rolls?

No.

There is no evidence to suggest that thousands of undocumented immigrants are registered on Arizona’s voter rolls. Non-citizen voting has been found to be exceedingly rare.

Keep ReadingShow less
Why toddlers are motivating an early school educator to vote

Maira Gonzalez works with students in the preschool and after-school program associated with First United Methodist Church in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

Mark Macias

Why toddlers are motivating an early school educator to vote

Macias, a former journalist with NBC and CBS, owns the public relations agency Macias PR. He lives in South Florida with his wife and two children, ages 4 and 1.

The Fulcrum presents We the People, a series elevating the voices and visibility of the persons most affected by the decisions of elected officials. In this first installment, we explore the motivations of over 36 million eligible Latino voters as they prepare to make their voices heard in November.

Florida is home to the third largest population of Hispanics, Latinos. In a recent survey of Florida Latino voters by UnidosUS 2024, Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris(47%) leads Republican Donald Trump (42%).

__________

Maira Gonzalez vividly remembers the 2000 presidential election in Florida, and today, she sees many similarities.

“I see a pattern between Bush and Trump,” Gonzalez said. “It’s not fair what they were doing years ago and now. I understand there is a lot of crime with immigrants, but they’re blaming it all on Latins. They’re all being lumped together. Just like we have good Americans and bad Americans, it’s the same with Latins. I’m bilingual, so I see both sides, but you can’t blame Latin immigrants for everything.”

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

Keep ReadingShow less
Federal Reserve building
Hisham Ibrahim/Getty Images

Project 2025: The Federal Reserve

Hill was policy director for the Center for Humane Technology, co-founder of FairVote and political reform director at New America. You can reach him on X @StevenHill1776.

This is part of a series offering a nonpartisan counter to Project 2025, a conservative guideline to reforming government and policymaking during the first 180 days of a second Trump administration. The Fulcrum's cross partisan analysis of Project 2025 relies on unbiased critical thinking, reexamines outdated assumptions, and uses reason, scientific evidence, and data in analyzing and critiquing Project 2025.

Few federal agencies are as misunderstood by the general public as the little known Federal Reserve Board. The Fed, as it is known, oversees the central banking system of the United States. That means it superintends many of the most crucial levers for making the economy run, including maintaining the stability of the financial system, supervising and regulating banks, moderating interest rates and prices, maximizing employment and more. Often when Congress is too politically polarized and paralyzed to fiscally stimulate the economy, many look to the Fed for faster executive action.

Keep ReadingShow less
Hulk Hogan tearing off his shirt

Hulk Hogan was part of a testosterone-fueled script for the Republican National Committee.

Jason Almond/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

Manhood is on the ballot, as if politics isn't crazy enough

Page is an American journalist, syndicated columnist and senior member of the Chicago Tribune editorial board.

In case you somehow haven’t noticed, manhood is on the ballot.

Even before President Joe Biden stepped aside to let Vice President Kamala Harris step up to be the Democrats’ presidential nominee, insiders from both parties were calling this the “boys vs. girls election.”

And even before the Republican National Convention opened in Milwaukee in July, spokesmen for Team Trump were telling reporters they hoped to contrast “weak vs. strong” as their social media message — and present a stage show as testosterone-fueled as a Super Bowl.

Keep ReadingShow less
Blue donkey and red elephant facing off
kbeis/Getty Images

Why Democrats hate Texas and Republicans detest California

Klug served in the House of Representatives from 1991 to 1999. He hosts the political podcast “Lost in the Middle: America’s Political Orphans.”

A few years ago, a class of senior honors students at the University of Louisville learned firsthand the harsh reality of political stereotypes. They developed an ad for a hypothetical candidate running for Congress to get the reaction of 1,500 randomly selected people across the country. Two versions were created from the same script, using two different actors. One with a Southern accent, the other with the flat Midwestern delivery.

The students asked a couple of questions: Do you think this person is trustworthy, intelligent? Would you vote for this person? What political viewpoint would you ascribe to this person?

The students were taken aback when the Southern speaker got trashed.

Keep ReadingShow less