It was a bittersweet moment on HBO last Sunday when, after 24 years and 12 seasons, the curtain was finally drawn on Larry David’s sitcom Curb Your Enthusiasm. Initially envisioned as a one-time project in 1999, the series started as an HBO mockumentary, documenting David’s return to stand-up following the end of Seinfeld. What ensued was among […]
From April 11-14, the American Educational Research Association will be gathering in Philadelphia for their annual meeting. Given massive learning loss and plunging faith in higher education, the challenges confronting the “world’s largest education research organization” are real. The list of topics calling for rigorous inquiry is staggering: exploding absenteeism, artificial intelligence, the effects of […]
Although it hardly looks like it, President Joe Biden may already be peaking in his race to keep the White House. His biggest internal threat remains: his inability to campaign effectively. And his biggest external threat looms: Though the country seems to expect a soft landing from inflation’s heights, this week’s economic data prove Biden’s […]
On Tuesday, Arizona became a new hot spot in the battle over abortion. The state’s Supreme Court voted 4-2 to lift a stay placed by a lower court on a law that prohibits abortions except to save the mother’s life. Discussion of the ruling has mostly focused on its political implications, especially for the 2024 […]
President Joe Biden has spent three and a half years buying votes with your money. Your taxes may not have gone up, because Biden hasn’t financed his spending with federal revenues so much as with money created out of thin air — which is to say, the cost of Biden’s spending spree has been rampant inflation which is still too […]
Over the past decade or so, a notable trend among American historians, particularly those prioritizing social justice in their research, has been to frame the unsavory facets of United States history as the defining features of the society. One useful way to think of this is as a version of the American exceptionalism the same […]
I owe you nothing. Not a penny. Not for the sins of slavery or white supremacy or “structural racism” or Jim Crow or redlining or police brutality. Certainly not for the existence of racism, real or imagined. The idea of reimbursing contemporary black citizens for the sin of slavery is one of the most corrosive, […]
In his new book, The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact, and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook, bestselling narrative historian Hampton Sides tells the story of one of the greatest explorers ever to live, James Cook. Tales of Cook’s exploits have fallen out of favor. The once-celebrated explorer has become the […]
More than six decades after Norgestrel was patented, the progestin-only birth control pill has debuted on drug store shelves and online as Opill. It’s the first oral contraceptive in the country granted nationwide over-the-counter status by the Food and Drug Administration. Already, retailers such as Amazon, Target, CVS, and Walmart have listed a three-month supply […]
It is difficult, 20 years on, to say which is more unlikely: that flip-flopping, wind-surfing, “Jinjis” Khan-pronouncing John Kerry came within an Ohio whisper of the White House or that Kerry’s rebuke proceeded in large part from a bevy of cheesed-off veterans. Politics change in two decades, of course, and my guess is that the […]
There are few occasions in popular entertainment that are more promising, or more perilous, than the finale of a great television series. When done well, it provides resolution and closure. We understand that the characters have accomplished worthwhile things and built solid relationships but still have fresh opportunities before them — a new romance, a […]
In the immediate aftermath of the Oct. 7 Hamas assault on Israeli civilians, President Joe Biden showed sympathy and support for Israel. Even as news of that day’s horrors, including the death of 30 Americans, continued to come out, Biden’s sympathy and support was not shared across his administration. As the war reaches its six-month […]
Alex Garland’s Civil War isn’t the movie you might expect from its trailers, which portray the film as an action blockbuster set amid an apocalyptic near-future conflict between a loose confederation of Western states and the federal government in Washington, D.C. Don’t expect massive battles over American cities. The violence is brutal but mostly brief. […]
