To the point
On June 20th, 2021, Amazon founder and pathological wealth hoarder Jeff Bezos ascended into inner space in a rocket made in his own image. The news coverage of this event went to sometimes elaborate lengths to frame a billionaire’s joyride as proof that a Great Man’s achievements are the fundamental metric of a successful society.…
At the close of her June 19 broadcast, Rachel Maddow broke down in tears. She’d just been handed a report from the Associated Press revealing details of the “tender age” facilities in South Texas housing a rapidly growing number of babies and toddlers ripped from their parents’ arms as they sought to enter the United…
The year 2018 can be best described by the opening voiceover to Mad Max: Fury Road: “As the world fell, each of us in our own way was broken. It was hard to know who was more crazy: me, or everyone else.” The panic of 2017 has given way to a far more insidious exhaustion,…
The first time I ever encountered the word “misandry” I was well out of college and I had to look up what it meant. I read it on The Toast, the dearly-loved and much-missed bookish girl hangout site, and in its original context, I adored it. I don’t remember the specific article where the word…
Here in the seventh month of the tenth year of the third millenium of the Trump presidency, folks are feeling a bit worn out. Everyone is either desperately seeking to unplug from the endless onslaught of terrible news, or else has worn the prints from their thumbs by checking it every eight seconds. There is…
The following is a transcript of remarks made at a luncheon during the annual Villain and Antihero Planning and Energizing Retreat (VAPER), held at a Cici’s Pizza in Cleveland. These remarks have been edited for length and clarity (chiefly to omit several extended arguments on the appropriateness of pineapple as a pizza topping). Moderator: So…
The Fourth of July is my favorite holiday. This is a position I’ve gotten used to defending over the years, and every time I voice it, I can feel my friends searching my face for traces of irony (having one’s sincerity always suspected of sarcasm is one of the great trials of being a writer).…
First of all, it feels important to say that I don’t normally do the thing I’m about to describe. There are people who do; people whose whole social media raison d’etre is going head-to-head every day with Trump supporters. I’m not one of them. That’s not to say I don’t argue about politics on Twitter,…
Watch it or honestly I will think less of you. Watch it because it’s the bare minimum, and lucky for you, the bare minimum comes in the form of a gorgeously photographed piece of entertainment starring Peggy from Mad Men. (Elisabeth Moss has become the mountaineer of portraying the female condition, and if you thought watching…
Recently National Geographic made a video for its “gender issue,” in which their reporters interviewed children all over the world and asked them about their favorite parts of being boys and girls (nonbinary kids were not included in this segment). The answers range from the comical to the heartbreaking. After watching it, I found myself wondering…