Texas’s Energy Crisis Is America’s Future
“The electricity would come on and then turn off immediately. Every 30 minutes or hour you would get this moment of hope,” said Paris Moran, of San Antonio, Texas. “I think that was the worst part,...
View ArticleI’m Tired of Living Through Extraordinary Times in Texas
A real estate agent might call our apartment in the Montrose neighborhood of Houston cozy with a sun-drenched bedroom. The reality is that it’s a small, cheap, window-heavy garage conversion. But it’s...
View ArticleThe Tech Bros Take Miami
A new billboard looms over the I-80 freeway in San Francisco, near Twitter’s headquarters. A blown-up screenshot of a tweet, it reads, “Thinking of moving to Miami? DM me.” While the billboard itself...
View ArticleThe GOP Is Imploding in Spectacular Fashion
Cartoonist Al Capp, famous for the twentieth-century comic strip Li’l Abner, created a visually memorable character named Joe Btfsplk who walked around under his own rain cloud. That mood of persistent...
View ArticleThe Desperate Need for a Covid-19 Commission
Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial is over, and Washington is now congealing around some sort of august body to investigate the January 6 insurrection. Earlier this week, Speaker Nancy Pelosi...
View ArticlePankaj Mishra’s Reckoning With Liberalism’s Bloody Past
In July 2017, Donald Trump gave a speech in Warsaw that seemed, at the time, to herald a new age. In remarks dredged from the imagination of adviser Steve Bannon, the president drew a rhetorical line...
View ArticleDeb Haaland’s Ascent and the Complicated Legacy of Native Representation
Deb Haaland could be the next secretary of the interior. Her hearing is scheduled for Tuesday and, if seated, the congresswoman from New Mexico and citizen of the Laguna Pueblo will make history. Her...
View ArticleNo One’s Buying the Republicans’ Deficit Fearmongering Anymore
Although Donald Trump’s status as a bestower of brilliant nicknames was always overrated, the GOP is clearly lost without his marketing savvy. On Friday, House GOP Whip Steve Scalise released a...
View ArticleThe Grand American Tradition of Price-Gouging in an Emergency
In the wake of the winter storm that decimated Texas’s energy infrastructure and left millions without power or water, the predictable storylines have come and gone one by one: There was the early...
View ArticleThe 150-Year Prosecution of White Supremacy
If Merrick Garland is confirmed by the Senate and becomes the next attorney general, his first priority, according to the testimony he offered on Monday, would be supervising “the prosecution of white...
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The Sordid Story of the Most Successful Political Party in the World
On December 13, 2019, Britain’s newly elected Prime Minister Boris Johnson welcomed “a new dawn.” The Conservative Party had secured its largest parliamentary majority since 1987. Almost 50 new seats...
View ArticleThe Sadism of Eating Real Meat Over Lab Meat
Consider a steak. When it hits the hot oil in the pan, your mouth can’t help but water at the aroma. That familiar crackle of fat beginning to fry and render is the sound of the maillard reaction: that...
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How the Barbizon Hotel Defined Women’s Ambition
On May 31, 1953, 20-year-old Sylvia Plath arrived in New York City. She was a rising senior at Smith College and already a published author, with three poems sold to Harper’s; she was also just a few...
View ArticleThe Sunday Shows Are Hopelessly Broken
Jonathan Karl, the guest host of ABC’s This Week, knew exactly what he was doing on Sunday when he asked Republican Representative Steve Scalise if the 2020 election was stolen. This was, on its face,...
View ArticleWhy Are Literature and Philosophy Such an Awkward Match?
Blending fiction and philosophy is more akin to chemistry than art: It involves creating a synthetic element that rarely occurs in nature in stable form. Samuel Beckett, Albert Camus, and Ursula Le...
View ArticleFacebook Just Successfully Bullied the Sovereign Nation of Australia
Last week, Facebook went nuclear. As Australia considered legislation to force tech giants to compensate media outlets, the social media company cut off access to news for Australian users and...
View ArticleThe Depressing Whiplash of the Senate’s Capitol Riot Hearing
Law enforcement ably played the role of both problem and solution at Tuesday’s Senate oversight hearing on the January 6 riot at the Capitol. “Was this an intelligence break down,” asked Senator Jacky...
View ArticleDominion Voting Systems’ Legal Rampage Against Trump’s Grifters
Every year, my colleagues and I get to go through “libel training.” Every year, I also make the insufferable joke to my co-workers that we’re going to be trained to commit libel. Unfortunately, it’s...
View ArticleThe Unholy Alliance That Fuels American Nativism
In early December, conservative commentators tried to drum up social media controversy over a sweatshirt. The shirt, merchandise for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s congressional campaign, read simply “Tax...
View ArticleThe Andrew Cuomo Show Has Lost the Plot
Halfway through a recent New York Times story about Governor Andrew Cuomo’s long (but perhaps not widely known) history of governance-by-bullying, an ally tried to defend his signature political style....
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