Monday at the Center of the Universe
This past Monday, I peered into the humming center of the universe. I’m talking about Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, California.
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cultural commentary
Preparedness is Key
With everything going on in the news this week, we might as well come right out and discuss what we’re all thinking about anyway: the apocalypse.
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climate change, cultural commentary, pop culture, silly
Bonne Bell Takes Me Back
The first issue arrived in November. I remember being so excited, I brought it along to catechism class on a Wednesday afternoon. How I gazed at the beautiful older girl on the cover—perfect teeth, clear skin, gorgeous late-70s hair. I opened to the first page and… behold, the mystery.
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cultural commentary, memoir, pop culture
Dark Vocation
Watson basically teaches Sherlock how to be in a human relationship, and unlike previous Sherlocks, this one slowly concedes that following a life philosophy other than “everyone must serve my genius” might actually be a wiser way to live.
Lectures: A Triptych
There’s something irresistible and mesmerizing about Coates’s voice. I found Between the World and Me deeply compelling, partly because of Coates’s muscular, precise prose. He’s one of our finest essayists today, in the tradition of James Baldwin and others.
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Calvin events, cultural commentary
Quid Est Potentia?
“There are two elements of the constitution, wrote Walter Bagehot in 1867, the efficient and the dignified. … The efficient has the power to make and execute policy, and is answerable to the electorate. … The dignified gives significance and legitimacy to the efficient, and is answerable only… to God.”
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cultural commentary, politics, pop culture
Speak What We Feel
I’m grieving. Not because I have policy disagreements with the winner. Not because the lady didn’t win. Those things matter, but it’s so much bigger than that. I’m grieving because a person who rode to power on a calculated surge of hatred and bigotry, who dishonors women and brown people and any kind of Other in myriad ways—I’m grieving because only half the country rejected that. The other half rewarded it, or at the very least, thought the bullying and vulgarity and incitement to violence was unimportant enough to ignore.
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cultural commentary, politics
Too Late
Last Friday, when the Trump video hit the news like a meteorite, my spouse spent the day watching the reaction in the news media and Twitterverse and reporting back to me every hour. By evening, we were floating on waves of Schadenfreude, wickedly enjoying the pile-on. Eventually, standing there in my kitchen placing pepperoni on a pizza, I felt the ground under me shift a little, and I grew thoughtful. Was this… A Moment?
I’ll Take Less Choice Please
Blue Apron is a relatively new service (started in 2012) that supplies meal kits—pre-portioned ingredients and recipes—shipped in a box right to your door. Yesterday I came home to a box waiting for me on the front stoop. I opened it up to find, packed on ice packs and wrapped in an insulating bag, two meals for four: late summer beef Bolognese and roasted chicken with teriyaki vegetables. Every little thing we need to make these meals is provided, including spices and a dab of flour in the “knick knacks” bag. Now all we have to do is follow the instructions on the beautifully laminated, lavishly photo-illustrated recipe sheets, and voila: excellent cooking.
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cultural commentary, memoir
Would You Say Yes?
So your patient can either go to the big hospital, two hours from home, and slowly die there. Or he can die at home, with your help. Many of your colleagues are deeply opposed to PAD. But all you have to do is fill out the paperwork and order the prescription. Your patient—at least for now—can do the rest.
Would you say yes?
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cultural commentary