michelleweber

“If the show goes well, maybe the audience sleeps a bit better. And maybe that’s all the show should be. I have said this before, but I know that when you’re laughing, you’re not afraid.”

Journalist Lyra McKee submitted the first draft of this story, on the disappearance of a Honduran biologist named Meli Flores, just before McKee was killed in April while covering protests in Northern Ireland. “In some ways, she is a lost woman of troubled times, much like Lyra McKee. The SLR staff has edited and published […]

“So, like the wicked stepsisters (smart) in the Grimms’ story of Cinderella (beautiful and good), I lopped toes and heels off characters to make them fit where I wanted. I jammed them into place and ignored the blood.”

“[W]hile strangers on the internet accused Valérie of being irresponsible for bringing her baby into bear country, every parent in Whitehorse knows that a bear could wander across their driveway or through their yard someday. Our whole lives are lived in bear country.”

When we think about climate change and communities threatened by water, we think about coastal cities. But inland flooding happens daily in the U.S., as Ellicott City, Maryland — trying to recover after devastating flooding in 2016 and 2018 — knows all too well.

Anatomical models for medical education are based on “average” bodies, which means they actually represent no one at all — and therefore produce less-skilled physicians.

“Do I understand what he was up against? Mark asks me. Did I see that the disease had every single advantage? When you’re facing that kind of enemy, in that kind of battle, you’re allowed to cheat, aren’t you?”

Sabika Sheikh came from Karachi to experience the best of being an American high school student and instead got our very worst, leaving two crushed families behind — one Pakistani, one Texan.

“I can also tell you that it can be unpleasant to be the freakshow guy whose brain spontaneously detonated. You don’t want doctors looking at your CAT scans incredulously and being like, ‘Hoo boy! You really did a number on your noggin there!’”

Hey, woke American tourist in Thailand: the same organization running that cruelty-free elephant viewing experience at the eco-lodge also owns the cruelty-infused elephant show down the road, and the elephants are the same.