My Guilty Adoration of Veronica Mars
"Veronica Mars" is teenage in a way that takes you right back to all the angst, idealism, feverish passion, and blithe fun. But the show is also a noir crime drama that in many ways feels quite grown up.
By Jeannette Cooperman
Free the Nipple
When a woman’s nipple has been injured, scarred, or rebuilt after a mastectomy, it can be shown. When a woman’s nipple is hard at work feeding an infant, it can be shown. And no one will object if a woman’s nipple has been distanced by history and glammed up by a gold leaf frame. An artist from the Renaissance may reveal a woman’s nipple with impunity.
Haiti’s Curse
Painting by Jean Walgens Pierre, age 12. Dried veggies, small scoop. Red beans, big scoop. Vitamin powder, medium scoop. Rice, big scoop. Dried veggies. . . . People poured into Chaminade’s gym this morning, squinting as they tried to find friends camouflaged by hairnets and masks. Now we…
First They Stole Love Letters, Now Email
Young people despise email, even at work. I picked up on this subtle fact when every source under thirty provided only a cell number—or demanded mine. Email is seen as too formal, too anxiety-producing, and one’s phone as more casual and friendly than one’s keyboard.
Why James Cameron’s Skynet Is Even More Disturbing as Reality
Extreme and eccentric though they be, transhumanists represent a movement to take control of human evolution. Artificial intelligence will, they predict, accelerate itself into a superintelligence far more powerful than anything our human brains are capable of. The consequences? Nothing less than immortality, some say. Certainly an end to much of our disease and suffering. Maybe an end to us.
Uprooted by Modernity
Simone Weil might not have cherished a strong sense of place or family or chummy associations herself, but she understood solidarity—and she knew it was already eroding.
Magic Mushrooms
We already knew to call psilocybin the magic mushroom, because it brings visions of serenity and oneness. If other fungi help us rinse away the toxins and find our balance again, we will have to acknowledge their magic, too.
On the Other Side of the Glass
Chimpanzees have been bred for lab research, infected with HIV, sent into outer space. They are vulnerable to many of the same illnesses we are, including Alzheimer’s. They also experience many of the same emotions
House of Miles (Davis)
You see it the minute you walk into the House of Miles: his eyes, glowing light, stare back at you from a huge black-and-white photo, the one where he wears a sleeveless shirt and has his arms raised, maybe after one of the boxing workouts that helped his breath control. He learned to box right here.
Why So Many Robots Are White
Have you ever noticed how often robots themselves are white? Or how often AI researchers and venture capitalists are White males? Their power is slipping away. They need a new planet, fresh genius, a way to be invulnerable.And we are all their guinea pigs.
Why Sports Journalism Is Boring and Cruel
Sports writing can be brilliant; it is one of the most exciting forms, full of suspense and rich with lore. Yet most sports reporting winds up formulaic and pedestrian.
Proof of the Soul?
It is in marveling at transcendent wonders, experiences that lift us out of time and space, that our bodies relax into both physical and spiritual health.