The Fight to Save Chaco Canyon
On Wednesday, the House voted to pass the Chaco Cultural Heritage Area Protection Act, which would permanently ban any drilling or mining within a ten-mile radius of Chaco Canyon. The canyon is a...
View ArticleTrump’s Defenders Think We’re Idiots
For the past four weeks, I’ve been monitoring the evolving defenses put forth by President Trump’s allies. They began with flat-out denials of wrongdoing that didn’t survive casual brushes with...
View ArticleThe Politics of Impeachment Have Reached the Point of No Return
The House vote to approve rules for the impeachment inquiry has not only taken us into a new stage of the House’s formal proceedings, but into a new realm of impeachment politics as well. Having...
View ArticleL’Simcha: Tree of Life
Eleven elders were executed in a Pittsburgh synagoguein the deadliest attack on jewish americans in history— & there’s no way to make sense of this sentence in language.to diagram or scan it. The...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Moving Beyond Misogyny
Before the smoke had cleared after the terrorist attacks of September 11, Americans were already asking, “Why do they hate us?” The question felt useless, even whiny. It was also unanswerable, since...
View ArticleGlobal Warming Is Already Destroying New England’s Fisheries
To wake up in the Northeastern United States—as California blazes and Japan digs itself out of typhoon damage—is to experience an uneasy gratitude for all that is not burning, battered or underwater....
View ArticleKeep American Skies Open to Russia
If you’re a nuclear superpower and you’re trying to convince the only other nuclear superpower that you’re not about to attack them, what can you do to build that trust? This was one key problem of the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Bernardine Evaristo’s Girl, Woman, Other Deserves All the Prizes
Bless the artist whose work is so sui generis that there’s no noun to accurately describe it. I’m thinking of Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, often called a “nonfiction novel” for taking liberties with...
View ArticleThe Political Corruption Legalized by the Supreme Court
When discussing corruption in the Trump era, it’s easy to focus on the most flagrant examples. The Trump Organization announced last week that it plans to sell its infamous D.C. hotel, which gave...
View ArticleStates Are More Worried About Pipeline Protesters Than Spills
Last week, the Keystone pipeline sprang a leak. Again. This time, it released 383,040 gallons of oil into the northeastern wetlands of North Dakota. Two years ago, the same pipeline, which spans some...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Ady Barkan Is Running Out of Time to Speak
It’s a typically perfect day in Santa Barbara, endless blue sky above the mountains and warm sun on the skin. Ady Barkan’s house, set off one of those quaint California streets where the power lines...
View ArticleHow Booing Trump Corrects Media Bias
When Donald Trump entered Madison Square Garden on Saturday evening, he may very well have been looking for a safe space. Six days earlier, he attended Game Five of the 2019 World Series. Perhaps...
View ArticleThe Tragic Irony of “America First” Climate Denial
On Monday, President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo formally notified the international community of the United States’ planned withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement in 2020. To...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Vigilante President
President Donald Trump has often flaunted the brawn of his supporters, adding a baseline of menace to his increasingly embattled presidency. “Law enforcement, military, construction workers, Bikers for...
View ArticlePhilip Pullman’s Defense of Free Thought
In his essays and speeches over the years, Philip Pullman has argued that fantasy stories have the power to change their audience and remake the world. His own stories are certainly getting a chance to...
View ArticleFixating on “Cancel Culture” in an Age of Transphobia
Last weekend, The New York Times published a rogue’s gallery of the allegedly “canceled”: that is, a group largely composed of writers who have faced profound public criticism, mostly online. In one...
View ArticleCelebrating 150 Years of Simulated Warfare
On November 6, 1869, Rutgers and Princeton—which, just two weeks earlier, had changed its name from the College of New Jersey—played America’s first official college football game. They followed London...
View ArticleSingle-Payer Advocates Are Being Drawn Into the Wrong Debate
A premature baby costs almost a million dollars. A mental health crisis costs $30,000. A few months of dialysis costs half a million. These are the absurd charges billed to American patients for the...
View ArticleTrump’s Impeachment Allies Are Staring Into The Void
Imagine, if you will, that you’re unlucky enough to be President Donald Trump’s lawyer. Sometime in the next few months, you’ll have to stand in front of the U.S. Senate—not just the chamber itself,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Dream of Homeownership, Undermined
In 1971, Annie Jeminson had good reason to believe that the house she was buying in Detroit was nicer than her small, moldy apartment in public housing. It had been approved for mortgage insurance by...
View Article