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I don�t want to reduce this book to only my musings on the similarity between Christian mystical experience and psychedelic experience. However, that is the piece that is most fascinating to me, and that I most want to get out before I go wandering in the wilderness for 7 days. Perhaps I will write a more thorough review later. Archimandrite Sophrony is a Christian mystic. Through contemplative practice in the Orthodox Christian tradition, he seeks direct experience and knowledge of God. This book is partly the Orthodox mystic doctrine, and part diary. It�s a very personal account, describing the first-person experience of emotional swings between agony and ecstasy as Sophrony pursues his inquiry into the divine. I was hesitant to read the book, worrying that the account of a man of faith would not speak to such a heterodox person as myself and that I would be overwhelmed with boredom or skepticism. When people ask me about my religion, I admit to being strongly influenced by Buddhism,...

JA Moore is running to represent parts of Hanahan, North Charleston, and Goose Creek in the State House this year against incumbent Representative Samuel Rivers Jr., an NRA endorsed Republican. This district has come under a lot of focus because it has the greatest chance to turn blue in November, more so than any other competitive race statewide. The reason that it is so likely to flip is due to two things: changing demographics and the campaign that JA Moore is running.             Moore has been working hard over the past few months, holding fundraisers back-to-back, canvassing in his district, and speaking at a lot of events. I always see something of his whenever I scroll through Facebook or Twitter. His campaign is defined by its energy. Because of this, I wanted him to be a part of this series. Without further ado, here is the interview: You are running in a district that a lot of people have told me is going to flip in Novem...

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez If you haven�t witnessed the destruction that Sacha Baron Cohen has been sowing over the past few weeks then I encourage you to take a seat, grab some popcorn, and  watch all of the action unfold. Cohen has been rampaging the Republican party and their lawmakers with his show Who is America? on Showtime. The show has duped people like former Vice President Dick Cheney and South Carolina Congressman Joe Wilson into  supporting the arming of toddlers, among other wacky things. Most recently, he  forced a lawmaker from Georgia to resign after tricking him into yelling racial slurs and exposing himself on the show. Jason Spencer (the lawmaker) resigned on Wednesday following enormous bipartisan pressure to get out. He had already lost his reelection primary but was planning to finish out the last few months of his term. That won�t be happening anymore.   Georgia state representative Jason Spencer making a mistake. I would feel sorry for ...

Brady Quirk-Garvan is the chair of the Charleston County Democratic Party. He has been in politics since he was 18, serving on President Obama�s campaign staff in Ohio. In more recent years he has been a delegate from South Carolina to the National Democratic Convention and has been on major networks like CNN and has been quoted in publications like the Wall Street Journal. I chose to interview him for this series because he is one of the people that got me into the political scene in the Lowcountry. He greeted me at the first political event I went to last year and has been a mentor and friend to me ever since. He is a progressive that supports other progressives and he fights the good fight.             Without further ado, here is the interview:              Let�s go back in time to just after the primaries last month and the Quintin Washington interview you were in with Larr...

I can�t start this week�s blog without addressing what I announced on Tuesday night. I owe it to you guys to explain why this is happening. The thought of ending this blog has been in my mind for a while; since March. This was due to me joining the local March For Our Lives team and dedicating myself to organizing that march and other events. As I became more heavily involved in the local political scene, I found myself having less and less time to craft my articles while keeping up with school, my job, and my newborn political career. Since then, I became increasingly entrenched in local politics and I found myself being pulled in multiple directions and spread too thin. By the middle of June, I knew that I would be ending the blog the week before I went to college. I determined that I would reach a breaking point if I were to keep doing everything that I am doing right now in addition to being a college student. I felt that it would be better to exit before college and do it properly...

The blog will come to a grinding halt on August 17th, 2018 as the next phase in my life begins: college. However, before I go, I will be making the most of the time that I have left on this platform. This is not the end of my writing career or my pursuit of journalism, it is only the beginning. This is just the end of an era, a project that I have been working on for a year and a half now. No matter where I go in life and what I do, I will always take the most pride in this blog and the purpose it gave me. This has been my passion for a long time, but it is time to move on.  Before I head out, I am going to be doing a lot of things on here. I will continue my weekly articles but I will also be publishing an interview series with progressives in the Charleston area that have had an impact on me and our community. Everybody that I will interview has had an effect on me and represent the best parts of our country. If you follow me on social media, I will be reposting old articles and ...

I am currently out of town this week. This article was written on Friday, July 6 th . If anything major happened between that date and when this got published, I apologize for missing it. Let�s jump into this week�s blog. I�ve been pretty heavily involved with the anti-family separation movement and I have spoken at protests concerning what is happening at the border. At these protests, a lot of things are said; some things I agree with and some things I do not. In the early stages of these events and demonstrations after the �zero tolerance policy� was introduced, I remember mentions of the phrase, �Abolish ICE.� It was not something that I heard from any announced speaker and was something more commonly said in conversation rather than out loud. As the days and weeks passed by, the phrase became more common and widespread and on the �Families Belong Together� day of action in Charleston, it was a staple line that would ensure clapping and yells of approval from the crowd.   ...

When I was younger, I didn�t know what I wanted in relationship. To be honest, I was driven by FOMO. There was this fantasy world in my mind full of perfect sex, perfect relationships, and perfect women. It was impossible to commit to the merely good when the perfect might pop up at any moment. My fear of missing out became manifest in dabbling with open relationships. But I discovered that FOMO was the cause of missing out on some of the very best features of relationship: intimacy, closeness, and stability. You only get to have those qualities if you can go all-in on loving someone, without keeping one eye on the lookout for better opportunities At 35 years of age, I know what I want in relationship. I know that I want emotional intimacy and a partner in life. I want to play long-term games with long-term people. And I know I want to be a father. My father is one of the people I love most in the world, despite his flaws. I want to live up to his example and surpass it where I can. I...

Justice Anthony Kennedy Somebody needs to explain the difference between Democratic Socialism and Communism to Fox News. They seem to think that the Democratic voters of New York�s 14 th Congressional District nominated a Communist for Congress last Tuesday. Just because you see the word �socialism� in a phrase does not automatically mean it has everything to do with Communism. There are many aspects of Democratic Socialism already existent in our country: Social Security, law enforcement, public schools, and highways are some just to name a few. The word �socialism� is like a trigger for the commentators of Fox News. They hear the word and immediately have violent flashbacks to images of the Soviet Union and Josef Stalin. Then they turn around and defend Russia and Russia�s president, who is an ex-KGB spy. If you are a Democrat, last week was pretty bad for you. This was mainly due to what  happened in the Supreme Court. I am not only referring to Justice Kennedy announcing his ...