Matching Style for Style in Politics
What I have been wondering—as I have for years—is why Dems cannot seem to counter crude schoolyard putdowns and the verbose, word-cloud attack called the Gish Gallop.
Society & Culture
Invent a New Kind of Femininity
“Thinking about what aging means for the trans child,” Miranda July jotted in a writing notebook. “…. And how the physical changes of middle age/old age out anyone who is living as more feminine than they were born.”
The Biggest Push Yet to Make the U.S. a Theocracy
U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) opened by asking the audience the most rhetorical question possible: “Do you believe that God has a plan for America?”
I Do Not Believe in the Tarot, But—
In ten seconds at Etsy, you can find decks that are Gothic, Art Nouveau, or Impressionist; Aleister Crowley’s sexy, mystical Thoth deck; Botanica Oculta cards that look like vintage seed packets; the gorgeous black and gold Azazoth deck inspired by H.P. Lovecraft; the Abusua Pa The Tazama African Tarot; the Punjabi-influenced Marigold Tarot; a Luna Somnia deck that layers in astrology; and a deck that uses haunted cats.
Diogenes Can Teach You How to Say No
To the Cynics, the goal of life was, in literal translation, freedom from smoke—meaning false beliefs, pretense, and shallow lures.
Bob Woodward and the Stories We Tell
For Bob Woodward, one answer to story is: “There is reality. As a reporter you can come up with the best obtainable version of the truth.”
The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence Teach a Lesson
Here is what made the difference for me: they take vows, and secretly, they take their work seriously, offering the same combination of ministry, nurture, and social justice activism to the queer and trans communities that traditional nuns offer to the rest of us.
Are You Flourishing?
The modern definition of “flourish” is “to grow or develop in a healthy or vigorous way, especially as the result of a particularly favorable environment.” In “The Nicomachean Ethics,” Aristotle plays just as fair, acknowledging the difference made by a silver-spoon birth and the finest tutors.
Why Women Are Drawn to “Bad Boys”
Imagine the catharsis, for the gender that has been schooled for centuries to be good and sweet and nice. But girls are no longer forced to be demure—and no longer need bad boys to act out their unlived urges. So why does the appeal persist?
Class, Race, and the Formation of Urban Black Communities
Three rich histories give us the lived experiences of persons negotiating a racialized class system. These new narratives are instructive because Black Americans, despite class being violently raced in the United States, have had robust internal conversations within their own walls about what life as men and women, entrepreneurs, professionals, and essential workers mean in democratic conversation one to another.