The Intolerable Fragility of American Hospitals
The coronavirus pandemic is permanently closing beloved businesses across the country, as they struggle to survive this necessary period of social separation without a reliable means of generating...
View ArticleJoe Biden’s Tired Feminist Shield
Tara Reade, an aide to Joe Biden in 1993, says that while working for him, Biden sexually assaulted her. Joe Biden himself has said nothing; his campaign’s position is that this never happened. It’s a...
View ArticleTurns Out Andrew Cuomo Isn’t America’s Governor After All
Andrew Cuomo has been cast as the anti-Trump in the coronavirus crisis. The governor of New York was widely praised in the national media for doing all the things that the president could or would not...
View ArticleThe Slippery Definition of an “Essential” Worker
When the Department of Homeland Security released its criteria for “Essential Critical Infrastructure Workers” in March, it included a dizzying array of jobs across a host of industries: the flight...
View ArticleHollywood Keeps Trying to Rewrite Its History
On August 6, 1969, the actress Sharon Tate was found dead in her home on Cielo Drive, Los Angeles, eight months pregnant and so bloodied that her patterned underwear appeared red to the investigating...
View ArticleThe Post-Pandemic Future of Work
The empty refrain around “heroes” in “essential” jobs—the people expected to continue to show up to work, from health care to grocery retail and sanitation, while everyone else shelters in place—has by...
View ArticleDemocrats Aren’t Stuck With Joe Biden
It is the very beginning of May. The Democratic National Convention is scheduled for August. The general election is in November. Dozens of states and territories have not yet held their primary...
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How Vivian Gornick Reinvigorated Political Writing
Vivian Gornick specializes in personal narrative. Sometimes this means artful memoir: Her most admired book is 1987’s Fierce Attachments, about her relationship with her mother, and she sat for The...
View ArticleImagining a Real “Right to Work”
The best way to fix an economy devastated by a pandemic, the president and other conservatives insisted from the start, was simply to send workers back into the fray. And now, a little more than a...
View ArticleThe Cancer in the Camera Lens
In close up, on television, at a glance, with the volume down, Donald Trump can from time to time look like a president. That effect becomes less convincing the more you pay attention, though. Even...
View ArticleThe Federal Reserve Is Accelerating the Climate Crisis
“Climate change,” Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell told the Joint Economic Committee last November, “is an important issue but not principally for the Fed. We’re not going to be the ones to...
View ArticleTwo Weeks of Democrats’ Pathetic Attempts at Opposition
On Monday, the Democratic contingent of the New York State Board of Elections decided to scuttle its own presidential primary out of concern, it insisted, for voters who might otherwise be exposed to...
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The Agony and the Ecstasy of Vintage Snooker
Sports usually inject cathartic experiences into their supporters at regular intervals, and the current shortage can’t be good for fans’ health. As an interim measure, I recommend digging into the...
View ArticleDemocrats are Losing at Political Rhetoric
On Thursday, The New York Times Magazine’s Jason Zengerle offered the latest lengthy look at the state of Joe Biden’s housebound campaign. Although the technical challenges of getting a camera setup in...
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Death of a Survivor
In the free world, Darlene “Lulu” Benson-Seay would get dressed up just to sit on a porch: matching hat, outfit, shoes, all immaculate. During her nearly seven years at Bedford Hills Correctional...
View ArticleHow Zoom Colonized Our Lives
On March 27, David “Doc” Searls, a technology writer and veteran of the ad industry, posted an entry on his blog about the newly ubiquitous videoconferencing program Zoom, calling it “creepily chummy”...
View ArticleThe Dark Search for a “Silver Lining” to the Coronavirus
Goats have taken over a tiny Welsh town. Los Angeles is free of smog. And the Taj Mahal is sparkling again. The environmental consequences of the coronavirus have been swift and, at least on their...
View ArticleWhen Blackness Is a Preexisting Condition
Ethel Freeman became famous in death, even though no one knew her name. For months, she was one of the many nameless people who lost their lives in the wake of Hurricane Katrina’s deadly intersection...
View ArticleDonald Trump’s Death March
After a beautiful weekend in the nation’s capital, where hundreds flocked to the National Mall to watch big planes go zoom, it is hard not to wonder if too many people in power have concluded that it’s...
View ArticleWhy Conservatives Dismiss the Dangers of the Coronavirus
The conservative media’s coverage of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic has mutated faster than the virus itself. One day, Covid-19 is an insidious Chinese weapon, the next a hoax ginned up by the...
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