BoJack Horseman’s Brilliant Crack-Up
It’s hard to think of a show currently on air that could make me want to watch a single character speak in one long, despairing stream for nearly a whole episode. Prolonged expressions of angst can...
View ArticleShould Cops Be Immune From Lawsuits?
In October 2013, two investigators from the Texas Medical Board arrived at Dr. Joseph Zadeh’s medical practice in suburban Dallas with an administrative subpoena for the medical records of more than a...
View ArticleCan an Organic Farmer Win in Appalachia Virginia?
Virginia’s 9th congressional district, in the largely mountainous southwestern corner of the state, is one of the most conservative districts in the state—even the country. Cook Political Report says...
View ArticleThe French Plan to Fix Inequality—by Ignoring It
In Paris, a highway called “the periphery” separates the privileged in the city from the marginalized “banlieues” or suburbs. Some residents of the banlieues even joke that they may as well need a...
View ArticlePenguin Random House Is Building the Perfect Publishing House
When Penguin and Random House announced in the fall of 2012 that they intended to merge, Hurricane Sandy was barreling toward New York City, America’s publishing capital. It was an instant metaphor for...
View ArticleHow to Win in Trump Country
At an August rally in West Virginia for Patrick Morrisey, the crowd at the Charleston Civic Center was largely there to see Donald Trump. The president had flown in to give Morrisey, the state’s...
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Greek Economic Recovery Has Nothing to Do With Odysseus
In 2010, at a picturesque port on the island of Kastelorizo, then Prime Minister George Papandreou announced the start of “a new Odyssey for Greeks”: entry into an austerity-focused International...
View ArticleHurricane Florence Is a Public Health Emergency, Too
Florence, the hurricane charging toward the Carolina coast, has been called a “monster,” a “Mike Tyson punch,” and the “storm of a lifetime.” On Wednesday, it was generating waves up to 83-feet high....
View ArticleNew York Elects Its Next Anti-Trump Warrior
By winning the Democratic primary to be New York’s next attorney general, Tish James is now virtually guaranteed to become the state’s top legal officer this November. That position will almost...
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Britain’s Boarding School Problem
When socially privileged children are separated from their families at a tender age, some develop what psychotherapists have called “Boarding School Syndrome”: “a defensive and protective encapsulation...
View ArticleWhy the Gubernatorial Glass Ceiling Is So Hard to Shatter
For the first time in American history, white men comprise a minority of Democratic candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives: The party has nominated 180 women and 133 people of color for the...
View ArticleRobert Mueller Is Winning
Robert Mueller first dropped Paul Manafort into the criminal-justice system last October, and he’s been tightening the vise ever since. The special counsel has flipped Manafort’s close associates and...
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Behind Hurricane Florence’s Poop Lagoon Crisis, a Nation of Pork Lovers
Even before Hurricane Florence made landfall in North Carolina on Friday morning, it had an impact: introducing the phrase “poop lagoon” to the nation. As forecasters cemented the storm’s track,...
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The Origins of America’s Enduring Divisions
“To write history is to make an argument by telling a story,” Jill Lepore once explained. And the argument a historian makes about America’s long, turbulent, and demographically complex past—from the...
View ArticleThe Devastating Slowness of Hurricane Florence
If Hurricane Florence were an animal, she’d be a sloth—albeit an unusually dangerous one. The storm became a major hurricane on September 9, prompting potentially apocalyptic but uncertain forecasts....
View ArticleWhat Digging Up Franco Has to Do With Democracy
“Exclusive: Photograph of the remains of Franco,” a Twitter user posted in late August. It was a joke: The accompanying picture showed not the dusty bones of Spain’s former dictator, but a portrait of...
View ArticleThe ‘Me Too’ Movement Hits McDonald’s
On September 18, McDonald’s workers in 10 cities will make history, striking to protest what they say is a persistent failure to enforce company rules against sexual harassment at work. The Time’s Up...
View ArticleWhy This Time Is Different
It’s impossible to think about the sexual-assault allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh without thinking about Anita Hill. In October 1991, the law professor quietly gave the Senate...
View ArticleDemocrats: Don’t Get Your Hopes Up On Brett Kavanaugh
For Republicans, getting a second Supreme Court vacancy before the end of Donald Trump’s second year in office has been like winning the lottery twice. The decision to discard democratic and...
View ArticleThe Unequal Burden of Climate Change
Two massive tropical cyclones made landfall on separate ends of the globe on Friday. But they were, as the Associated Press put it, “as different as water and wind.” The wind storm was Super Typhoon...
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