How We Could Keep Holy

The tech bros must have stumbled onto Abraham Heschel’s book about the Sabbath.

Ritalin Works–But Not the Way We Thought

ADHD, sleep deprivation, amphetamines and the truth of why they work.

How Tough Should Journalists (or Any of Us) Be?

Can truth be found gently? What about hope, and grit?

Moltbook: Social for a Different Species

There was still a note of excitement when OpenAI founding member Andrej Karpathy remarked that having more than 150,000 AI agents wired in and making their own posts on Moltbook was unprecedented. The next time I checked, there were more than 1.5 million.

A Healthy Home Should Not Be a Luxury

Another fluffy news release about home interiors. I move to delete it—but the backstory catches me. An interior designer who had to tear apart her own home because her toddler was struggling to breathe? She wound up a certified expert in home wellness because…

Our Gamified Lives

Duolingo. The best way to learn Spanish, right? Gamified so thoroughly that even I—who loathe competition in any form—got hooked. The characters were fun, and the constant invisible pressure had me coming home tired and rushing to do my Duolingo, worried that I would finish past midnight and lose my…

What the Pets of the Presidency Reveal

There are big political questions that prompt citizens to decide whether we agree with our president. But then there is the human question: what sort of person is this president? And what sort of person do the times allow him to be? One way to begin answering the human question…

Why Music Sounds Better in Old Churches

Years ago, thrilled to be wandering through Oxford, I heard strains of classical guitar and peeked into a gorgeous old stone church. The music lifted me; we soared together, joining the apostles on the vaulted ceiling. No wonder Sir Neville Marriner conducted in St. Martin-in-the-Fields church rather than a concert…

The Coat You Wear to Fight, Spy, or Seduce

I have always wanted to be naked under a tightly cinched trench coat. Maybe the appeal is the contrast: soft, ready flesh, buttoned in and belted with military precision. I had never thought about this coat’s history until I read Trench Coat by Jane Tynan, part of Bloomsbury’s Object…

My Secret Crime, Aired at Last

In my teens, I made, on delighted impulse, a mistake that has haunted me ever since. My grandmother’s name had been bestowed upon me as a middle name, and I loathed the woman. She was a cool and inventive schemer, clever but not gentle, disappointed with her life and taking…

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