This whitewashing of Jewishness out of pop culture is an old, old story, and it isn’t specific to camp movies; it’s true of plenty of other Hollywood representations of American teens, too. The Czech Jew who wrote the novel that was the basis for Gidget (1959) was inspired by his own surfing daughter, Kathy Kohner, who went on […]
Quotes
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
‘Who Cares about Your Jetpack?’ On the Lack of Women Futurists
When we think about futurism, more often than not it’s robots and hoverboards that spring into our minds.
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The World’s Most Lethal Border Crossing
Europe is “experiencing a maritime refugee crisis of historic proportions,” the United Nations warns. Thousands of refugees escaping conflict in Africa and the Middle East are trying to reach Europe via the Mediterranean Sea.
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Bad Brains Mixed Punk with a Positive Mental Attitude
“When we first came out, [punk] was kind of on some vulgar shit,” recalls Jenifer. “We started kicking PMA in our music, and the message was different than the regular punk rock. You know, a punk rocker can write a song about hate─I hate my mom or some shit, you know? We wasn’t on no […]
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Sailing Across the Atlantic in 30 Days—With Two Toddlers
When her youngest son was just a few months old, experienced sailor Janis Couvreux and her family determined to sail across the Atlantic Ocean–from a port city in Senegal to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
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‘Every Means of Confession Creates a Kind of Person Who Confesses’
Every means of confession creates a kind of person who confesses. You become who you are by saying what you did. The details make a difference. That pronoun, “I,” feels one way when you say it as part of a formula, in the dusk of a confessional, to a priest you cannot see behind the […]
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The ‘Quasi-Celebrity’ Gene Editing Pioneer
The controversial genome editing technique Crispr-Cas9 has sparked some fascinating recent deep-dives, including Backchannel’s “Editing the Software of Life, for Fame and Fortune” in June, and Wired’s July cover story “The Genesis Engine,” which inspired the Twitter hashtag #crisprfacts. Jennifer Doudna, the biochemist who helped invent the breakthrough tool, often helps anchor the coverage. Andrew […]
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At Guernica, an Excerpt of Annie Liontas’s Debut Novel
That night, the whole village watching, Stavros Stavros finally proved his manhood: on the dance floor. With the pomp of the traditional syrtos that suggested respite before battle, the resting of the soul, he rejected the pappas’s interference, his mother’s control, his father’s weakness. When he felt like showing off, he showed off. During one […]
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Say Her Name: Roxane Gay on Sandra Bland
At the New York Times, Roxane Gay indicts a society built on systemic racism for the death of 28-year-old Sandra Bland and dozens of other innocent, murdered Black people.
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Why Warren Buffett Funds Birth Control Research
Quietly, steadily, the Buffett family is funding the biggest shift in birth control in a generation. “For Warren, it’s economic. He thinks that unless women can control their fertility—and that it’s basically their right to control their fertility—that you are sort of wasting more than half of the brainpower in the United States,” DeSarno said […]