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Commuters on an Orange Line train at Sullivan Square Station in April 2022. (Jesse Costa/WBUR)

Mar 20, 2023

The T opened up the world to me. Now it's stuck

Miles Howard asks, what is the price of delayed trains and buses for service workers who can be fired from their jobs for being late to work? Or for students who rely on the MBTA to get to school daily?

A baby born prematurely rests while receiving supplemental oxygen in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Tufts Medical Center in Boston. (Jesse Costa/WBUR)

Struggle is an inherent part of becoming a parent. Suffering doesn't have to be.

Mar 19, 2023

An Ghaeltacht sign on Cape Clear Island, County Cork, Ireland, Irish Republic. (Geography Photos/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

We Irish are more than folks songs and whiskey

Mar 17, 2023

We are failing postpartum mothers — even though we know how to help them

Mar 16, 2023

Support the news

The T opened up the world to me. Now it's stuck

My mother's last lesson

We are failing postpartum mothers — even though we know how to help them

We Irish are more than folks songs and whiskey

When I was governor, I wanted people to look beyond my hair and hemlines. I still do

My daughter didn’t belong. I worried I’d failed her

In Case You Missed It

How do we fathom the Holocaust's devastation? One name at a time

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Firefighters work to contain a fire at the Economy Department building of Karazin Kharkiv National University, allegedly hit during recent shelling by Russia, on March 2, 2022. (Photo by Sergey Bobok/AFP via Getty Images)

What I want you to know about Ukraine

Mar 3, 2022

A woman with two children and carrying bags walk on a street to leave Ukraine after crossing the Slovak-Ukrainian border in Ubla, eastern Slovakia, close to the Ukrainian city of Welykyj Beresnyj, on February 25, 2022, following Russia's invasion of the Ukraine. (Peter Lazar/AFP via Getty Images)

500,000 Ukrainians have fled so far. What does it mean to lose your home, your life?

Mar 2, 2022

Since 2012, Cognoscenti has published 4,800 pieces by some 1,100 authors. From Hillary Clinton’s shimmy to the case for cohousing, these are our 15 most-read pieces of all time. (Getty Images)

Cognoscenti’s most-read stories of all time

Dec 23, 2022

On Air Commentaries

Salman Wasti and his daughter Noreen Wasti, pictured at Noreen's wedding in Bristol, Rhode Island, in Sept. 2013. (Courtesy)

Singing Bollywood In The Sunroom: A Daughter Remembers Her Dad As He Was Before COVID

08:51Feb 19, 2021

Prudential and John Hancock Buildings reflect sunset over Charles River, Boston, Massachusetts in 1976, the year after Anita Diamant started calling the city home. (Spencer Grant/Getty Images)

After 48 years, it’s official: Boston you’re my home

04:41Oct 4, 2022

The unbearable whiteness of being

05:39Nov 15, 2022

Joni Mitchell posed in Amsterdam, Netherlands in 1972 (Gijsbert Hanekroot/Redferns via Getty Images)

Why 'A Case Of You' Is The Best Love Song Of All Time

05:17Feb 12, 2021

Politics

That author and Sai "Cy" Hossain in 2018, the day she met his wife. (Courtesy Kate Peltz)

Mar 13, 2023

Students like mine will suffer if they must hide their race in college essays

Our nation’s highest court is on the cusp of telling millions of children that educators will no longer be able to fully consider their stories, writes Kate Peltz.

Ian Roders fastens the hands to a clock at Electric Time Company, Nov. 1, 2022, in Medfield (Charles Krupa/AP)

Changing the clocks twice a year is jarring. That’s why we should keep doing it

Mar 10, 2023

Former Massachusetts Governor Jane Swift in her barn with her hen, Ruth Bader Ginsbird.

Swift lives on a farm in Williamstown that she has converted into an education center. (Suzanne Kreiter/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)

When I was governor, I wanted people to look beyond my hair and hemlines. I still do

05:38Mar 9, 2023

Refugees disembark from a U.S. air force aircraft after an evacuation flight from Kabul at the Rota naval base in Rota, southern Spain, on August 31, 2021. (Cristina Quicler/AFP via Getty Images)

Thousands of Afghan women risked their lives to help the US. Congress should do right by them

Mar 8, 2023

Readers queuing outside a bookmobile, or mobile library, in Washington, D.C., circa 1955. (Photo by FPG/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Bookmobiles have a new mission: delivering banned books

Mar 7, 2023

More From Cog

"If my genes failed her, I resolved that my mothering would not," writes Caitlin O'Neil.

My daughter didn’t belong. I worried I’d failed her

No one left my daughter out on purpose. But when your kid is different, she is always at the edge of the group, writes Caitlin O'Neil.

Mar 14, 2023

Electrical lines in Dracut. (Jesse Costa/WBUR)

The color of death is blue

In essays for Cognoscenti: former Gov. Jane Swift on class, shame and what so many of us are still getting wrong, and novelist Katherine A. Sherbrooke says goodbye to her...

Mar 12, 2023

The author (middle) as a child, holding her mother's hand. Her sister, Lynn, walks beside her. (Courtesy Katherine A. Sherbrooke)

My mother's last lesson

In the name of ending her suffering, we'd been more interested in moving on with our own grieving than soaking up every drop left of her living, writes Katherine A....

Mar 6, 2023

The author and his trusty Subaru Impreza, manual transmission. 2023 (Courtesy Jonathan Fitzgerald)

Shifting gears: One man's ode to manual transmission

Driving a stick shift speaks to the hearts of many. Jonathan D. Fitzgerald is one of those people.

Mar 5, 2023

Students register for classes on the final day of registration at Bunker Hill Community College. (Jesse Costa/WBUR)

Community college started me toward my PhD

Only when I finally attended community college did I feel that maybe I could be a successful college student, writes Brandi Perri. Other students shouldn't have to struggle so hard...

Mar 3, 2023

Protesters gather during a rally against the fatal police assault of Tyre Nichols, in Atlanta, Georgia, on January 28, 2023. (CHENEY ORR/AFP via Getty Images)

The quick arrests of the police officers who beat Tyre Nichols may be a 'blueprint.' But there are no easy answers

While the arrests in the Tyre Nichols case do suggest a change in the national approach to police violence, writes Jon Carter, we still need to brace ourselves for a...

Mar 2, 2023

The profundity of driving a stick shift

There’s a feeling — if you’ve ever driven stick, you know it — that the machine isn’t made for you; rather, you are made for the machine, writes Jonathan Fitzgerald....

Mar 1, 2023

U.S. Rep. George Santos (R-NY) (top right) watches as Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) (bottom left) enters the House chamber for President Joe Biden's State of the Union address during a joint meeting of Congress in the House Chamber of the U.S. Capitol on February 07, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Rep. George Santos covered ‘Hallelujah.’ I listened so you don’t have to

All of us have been guilty of torturing a good song, writes Julie Wittes Schlack. But Rep. George Santos -- who can't tell truth from fiction -- covering Leonard Cohen’s...

Feb 27, 2023

Refugees from Ukraine are standing in a line at the aid point which was opened at Henryk Reymans Municipal Stadium. Krakow, Poland on March 9th, 2022. (Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

I’m a Russian in the diaspora. None of us can be complacent

I am a Russian-born person “turbulently infuriated” with my birth country, writes Anastasya Partan. A recent experience at a local Russian food store only exacerbated her sense of shame for...

Feb 24, 2023

Actress Raquel Welch attends the NALIP 16th annual Latino Media Awards at The W Hollywood on June 27, 2015 in Hollywood, California. (Paul Archuleta/FilmMagic via Getty Images)

Raquel Welch and me

Raquel Welch didn't fully embrace her Bolivian heritage until the early 2000s, some 40 years into her career. But in the end, Raquel and I found our roots, and would...

Feb 23, 2023

High Angle View Of Text On Wall (Getty Images)

Words matter. Choose carefully

Words carry a lot of power, writes Layla Schlack. We should treat them with nuance and critical thought.

Feb 22, 2023

Dr. Paul Farmer pictured in Haiti. (Courtesy Partners In Health, "Bending the Arc" produced by Impact Partners)

‘We all have to do this work’: Paul Farmer’s greatest legacy is the people he left behind

Dr. Paul Farmer, a co-founder of Partners In Health and a medical anthropologist affiliated with Harvard University, died, unexpectedly, on February 21, 2022. A year after his death, 10 of...

07:31Feb 21, 2023

March on Washington Outside Lincoln Memorial (Getty Images)

Lincoln struggled with depression. What we can learn from it today

This Presidents Day arrives amid a pandemic of deteriorating mental health among young people, writes Rich Barlow. Lincoln’s coping strategies offer a light in the dark of fear and sorrow.

Feb 20, 2023

A woman keeps out of the hot sun in the shade of a tree while she reads a book in the Boston Common. (Jesse Costa/WBUR)

What’s a book you love with all your heart?

Here's which books get prime shelf space in our living rooms.

Feb 19, 2023

The author's dog, Toby. (Courtesy Anita Diamant)

I've outlived four dogs. But I can't imagine life without them

Dogs show us what it means to be fully present, writes Anita Diamant. Walking with Toby, I noticed birdsong, and took deeper breaths.

Feb 17, 2023

There is life unseen in the winter, writes Liz Vago. In the woods and the woodpile, in the soft dirt where toads burrow down to hibernate — animals survive by going deep. (Getty Images)

I hated winter, until I learned its secrets

I hated the inky afternoons, the drive home from work in the dark, writes Liz Vago. Is there life in the darker months?

Feb 15, 2023

Post-it notes answering the question, “What’s a book you love with all your heart,” in the window of the author’s bookstore. Beverly, MA. 2023 (Courtesy Hannah Harlow)

How we fall in love with books

Maybe once a day in the bookstore I own, someone exclaims, “Oh my god, I loved that book!” writes Hannah Harlow. So I put the question to our community: What’s...

03:47Feb 14, 2023

Gov. Maura Healey -- then a gubernatorial candidate -- speaks at the Annual Greater Boston Labor Council Breakfast on Labor Day in Boston on Sept. 5, 2022. (Joseph Prezioso/AFP via Getty Images)

What Gov. Maura Healey should do about crime

The new governor should look to one of her predecessors, former Gov. Michael Dukakis, as a role model, writes Nancy Gertner.

Feb 13, 2023

A photo feature from Ebony Magazine in 1949, featuring Dr. Garland and his granddaughter, Joan. (Courtesy Lisa Gordon via Alison Barnet)

Boston’s only Black hospital was founded in 1908 — in the South End apartment building where I lived

Lisa Gordon didn’t notice the plaque on her South End apartment building at first. It marked her new home as the historic site of Plymouth Hospital, “the first and only...

Feb 9, 2023

“As my grandmother lay at home during her final days, we felt so grateful for the paid caregivers that became family,” writes Sarah Romanelli. “But at the end of it all, I couldn’t help thinking, what will be the final bill?”

My grandmother died at home, just as she wanted. It cost $145,000

Many of us envision our final days like my grandmother did, being comfortable at home surrounded by friends and family, writes Sarah Romanelli. What a lot of people don’t know...

Feb 8, 2023

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The T opened up the world to me. Now it's stuck

Struggle is an inherent part of becoming a parent. Suffering doesn't have to be.

We Irish are more than folks songs and whiskey

We are failing postpartum mothers — even though we know how to help them

The T opened up the world to me. Now it's stuck

My mother's last lesson

We are failing postpartum mothers — even though we know how to help them

We Irish are more than folks songs and whiskey

When I was governor, I wanted people to look beyond my hair and hemlines. I still do

My daughter didn’t belong. I worried I’d failed her

How do we fathom the Holocaust's devastation? One name at a time

What I want you to know about Ukraine

500,000 Ukrainians have fled so far. What does it mean to lose your home, your life?

Cognoscenti’s most-read stories of all time

Singing Bollywood In The Sunroom: A Daughter Remembers Her Dad As He Was Before COVID

After 48 years, it’s official: Boston you’re my home

The unbearable whiteness of being

Why 'A Case Of You' Is The Best Love Song Of All Time

Students like mine will suffer if they must hide their race in college essays

Changing the clocks twice a year is jarring. That’s why we should keep doing it

When I was governor, I wanted people to look beyond my hair and hemlines. I still do

Thousands of Afghan women risked their lives to help the US. Congress should do right by them

Bookmobiles have a new mission: delivering banned books

My daughter didn’t belong. I worried I’d failed her

The color of death is blue

My mother's last lesson

Shifting gears: One man's ode to manual transmission

Community college started me toward my PhD

The quick arrests of the police officers who beat Tyre Nichols may be a 'blueprint.' But there are no easy answers

The profundity of driving a stick shift

Rep. George Santos covered ‘Hallelujah.’ I listened so you don’t have to

I’m a Russian in the diaspora. None of us can be complacent

Raquel Welch and me

Words matter. Choose carefully

‘We all have to do this work’: Paul Farmer’s greatest legacy is the people he left behind

Lincoln struggled with depression. What we can learn from it today

What’s a book you love with all your heart?

I've outlived four dogs. But I can't imagine life without them

I hated winter, until I learned its secrets

How we fall in love with books

What Gov. Maura Healey should do about crime

Boston’s only Black hospital was founded in 1908 — in the South End apartment building where I lived

My grandmother died at home, just as she wanted. It cost $145,000