In a piece about the concept of “relatability,” inspired in part by Ira Glass’s dopey complaints about Shakespeare, Rebecca Mead writes: to demand that a work be “relatable” expresses a different expectation: that the work itself be somehow accommodating to, or reflective of, the experience of the reader or viewer. The reader or viewer remains […]
Continue reading →So in our recent Bloggingheads, Conor Friedersdorf and I talked about my claim that journalists and pundits, once they reach a particular career rung, seem to enjoy life-long tenure that makes them totally unaccountable for mistakes. Conor was singularly unimpressed with this line of reasoning. Well, look at his colleague at the Atlantic, David Frum, and […]
Continue reading →I’ve made this point before, but it bears repeating. 9/11 was a crime and a tragedy. It was one crime and tragedy in a long history of humanity’s capacity for evil. I don’t diminish the loss of life; nothing could. But I insist that people acknowledge that similar or worse has been meted out again […]
Continue reading →I’ve been thinking about pointing this out, off and on, for awhile now, but then David Brooks goes and lays it out so directly I can’t help myself. I’ve argued in the past that journalists and pundits, in general, don’t respect academics and teachers. Some people disagree. What’s much more clear, however, is that whether […]
Continue reading →I have seen now some dozen people share this ProPublica map, about the use of restraining holds on school children, on various social networks and websites. It makes me sad, because this issue is sad. But the kind of reactions that are being provoked also make me sad, because they demonstrate the ways in which […]
Continue reading →It’s hard for me to think of a piece that I’ve agreed with more vigorously, this year, than this piece by Andrew Sharp on how annoying both Lebron James haters and Lebron James defenders are. And for more than just his take on the Heat and Lebron, but for how this dynamic plays out in […]
Continue reading →That post title might sound snotty, but I assure you that I mean it in just the opposite sense. I’m inspired by Corey Robin’s piece about riding the subway in order to find the time and space to read books, inspired by this essay by Tim Parks about how hard it is to read books […]
Continue reading →Deadspin is, by my lights, the most important and successful blog in the history of the medium. What blog has been more influential within its sector of the media? What other blog has had a larger impact on the subjects it covers? Even the traditional media types who hate Deadspin the most read it religiously. […]
Continue reading →In 2011, after Laura Logan was brutally attacked in Tahrir Square, the journalist Nir Rosen said some deeply ugly things on his public Twitter feed. He suggested that the attack was somehow a way for Logan to compete with Anderson Cooper, and said that it would be funny if a similar thing happened to Cooper. […]
Continue reading →Jacobin published an excellent piece by Amber A’Lee Frost. I would love to discuss the piece, because it has a ton to say about empiricism and the left-wing and how we talk about research. But I can’t, because it’s been swallowed by yet another bullshit controversy. In her piece, originally, the line “And I just […]
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