The Fraught Realities of Financial Relief During a Pandemic
Just before the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act passed into law, Republican Senators Tim Scott, Lindsey Graham, and Ben Sasse issued a press release demanding an “immediate fix” to...
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The Pandemic Is a Family Emergency
No one anticipated that when the fabric of society finally unraveled, in March 2020, everyone would turn into June Cleaver. People made all their meals from scratch, gloated over their sourdough...
View ArticleDid the Military Really Just Ban Coronavirus Survivors?
Last month, the military turned itself inside out over an aircraft carrier captain who pleaded for better care for his coronavirus-stricken crew. This month, the military has made coronavirus a...
View ArticleTrump’s Coronavirus Task Farce
It has been about three weeks since Donald Trump announced that his official task force on reopening the economy had been upgraded to—or perhaps superseded by—an advisory committee of America’s Top 200...
View ArticleThe Oil Crash Could Be Geothermal’s Big Break
As oil and gas companies falter under the weight of Covid-19 shutdowns, price wars, and their own massive debt burden, an unlikely beneficiary seems to be emerging: geothermal power. Ordinarily,...
View ArticleIs 5G Going to Kill Us All?
On a hot day last summer, Debbie Persampire, a 47-year-old homemaker who believes that cell phones are poisoning her children, took me on a tour of her irradiated house on Long Island. Her kids were at...
View ArticleThe Coronavirus Is Tearing Apart the American City
In early March, as Covid-19 became a national concern, the wealthy began fleeing the cities. They lit out for their luxury cottages in the Scottish Highlands and to survivalist camps in rural South...
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We’re All Preppers Now
A few weeks ago, I became convinced I ought to buy a compass. Also a tent, a LifeStraw, and solar chargers. Was I embarrassed about this 48-hour panic? Yes. But reading an op-ed at two in the morning...
View ArticleThe Pandemic Surveillance State
In late March, while many Florida beaches remained dangerously packed, Governor Ron DeSantis called for checkpoints along the state’s border for law enforcement to meet incoming travelers. He refused...
View ArticleA Presumption of Flynnocence
If you’re charged with a serious crime in the United States, you have the right to legal counsel at every stage of the process. If you’re a close political ally of President Donald Trump, you also get...
View ArticleMichelle Obama Won’t Save Us
When the teenage Michelle Obama told her guidance counselor that she intended to apply to an Ivy League school, the counselor replied that she wasn’t sure Michelle was “Princeton material.” In her...
View ArticleThe Depressing Future of the #MeToo Movement
Unless some other major allegation or piece of confirming evidence comes out—which it could well do—it feels as if Joe Biden has successfully weathered the sexual harassment and assault accusations...
View ArticleSomething’s Got to Give for the Work-From-Home Parent
During every conference call or video meeting, my anxiety goes up. What if my son starts crying? What if he wants to be fed? What if he needs a diaper change? Am I being a bad mother if I’m not giving...
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The Art of Staying Home
Writers make for remarkably talented shut-ins and isolates. They’re famous for it—Proust sealed in his cork-lined room, Dickinson in her attic, Thoreau in his DIY cabin, relying, or so he wrote, only...
View ArticleYour Climate Anxiety Is Another Person’s Existential Crisis
I don’t experience climate grief—and I’ve always worried that means there’s something wrong with me.Studies show that I’m in the minority: More than two-thirds of American adults say they experience...
View ArticleA Leftist Future for Asian American Politics
About 10 years ago, I worked for a small arts nonprofit for Asian American writers that embraced a delightfully expansive definition of its target demographic. There, “Asian American” included not just...
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No Vaccine in Sight
At a press briefing in early April, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo held up a hospital-green N95 respiratory mask. He had just delivered the day’s updated Covid-19 fatality figures, a number exacerbated...
View ArticleThe Bittersweet Return of Sports
Over the last couple of weeks, I have struggled to remember the last game I watched live. Was it Atletico Madrid’s dastardly, heartbreaking victory over Liverpool in the Champions League on March 11? I...
View ArticleIs Biden Going to Repeat Obama’s Immigration Mistakes?
Last month, President Donald Trump, who has spent an uneasy year botching the U.S. response to the coronavirus, took another page out of his favorite playbook. In a late-night tweet, the leader of the...
View ArticleWork Requirements Have Always Been About Punishment
The Labor Department’s jobs report last Friday was about as bleak as predicted: The official unemployment rate is now 14.7 percent—the highest in the nation’s history since the Great Depression—with...
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