Tag: entire life
Two Jewish Writers, a Bottle of Whiskey, and a Post–October 7 Reality
Hamas’s attack on October 7 had the effect of stopping time. Many Israelis and concerned Jews I’ve spoken with describe a day that has not yet ended for them—a continuous nightmare from which they can’t wake, a reality compounded by the knowledge that so many of the kidnapped are still in captivity. The fiercist critics of Israel’s actions over the past three months don’t want to hear, let alone acknowledge, these feelings, because the weeks of ongoing death and destruction
Travis Kelce Is Another Puzzle for Taylor Swift Fans to Crack
This Thanksgiving, America is divided: One half knows why the word squirle is funny, and one half does not. Are you in the latter group? Then you should know that earlier this month, a series of tweets surfaced by Taylor Swift’s new boyfriend, the Kansas City Chiefs star Travis Kelce. In one of them, from 2011, he offered this observation: “I just gave a squirle a peice of bread and it straight smashed all of it!!!! I had no idea
There’s a New Drug for Eczema—Actually, a Ton of New Drugs
Up until a few years ago, Heather Sullivan’s 14-year-old son, Sawyer, had struggled with eczema his entire life. When he was just a baby, most of his body would be covered in intensely itchy rashes that bled and oozed when he couldn’t help but scratch. His family tried steroid creams, wet wraps, bleach baths, and all of the lotions. They tore up their carpet and replaced their sheetrock in hopes of eliminating triggers. At 15 months, he went on cyclosporine,
What Carl Sagan Understood About Human Cruelty
An infrequent astronomical event offers a new way of processing the unthinkable.
This is an edition of Up for Debate, a newsletter by Conor Friedersdorf. On Wednesdays, he rounds up timely conversations and solicits reader responses to one thought-provoking question. Later, he publishes some thoughtful replies. Sign up for the newsletter here.
Question of the Week
This week,
The Literary Legacy of C. Michael Curtis
A few years ago, the novelist and short-story writer Lauren Groff reflected on what had launched one of the more sparkling literary careers of recent years:
When C. Michael Curtis pulled my short story “L. DeBard and Aliette” from the slush pile in 2005, I was in my first semester in graduate school at Madison. In the years since I’d graduated from college, I’d been a bartender and administrative assistant and had worked my brain and fingers raw, trying and
When a Friendship Is a Faith Community
Each installment of “The Friendship Files” features a conversation between The Atlantic’s Julie Beck and two or more friends, exploring the history and significance of their relationship.
This week she talks with three people who met at a college-campus ministry. Although they don’t share superficial interests, such as movie tastes, they share a commitment to their faith and to one another. They discuss how they were struggling to make friends when they met, how the churches they’ve
Unearthing the Legacy of Native American Boarding Schools
Updated at 4:10 p.m. ET on November 24, 2021.
North America’s Indigenous peoples carry a painful past. This truth was laid bare when the mass graves of hundreds of Native children who died while attending residential schools were discovered in Canada this summer. Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, thousands of Native children in the United States and Canada were forced into assimilationist boarding schools that sought to strip them of their culture and heritage. Many died from disease,
Do We Have a Right to Know Our Biological Parents?
Damian Adams grew up knowing that his parents had used an anonymous sperm donor to conceive him, and as a teen, he was even proud of this identity. He considered donating to help other families have children. Becoming a father himself, however, changed everything. When his daughter was born 18 years ago, he cradled her in his arms, and he instantly saw himself in her and her in himself. He felt a biological connection so powerful that it made
Nora Ephron’s Rules for Middle-Age Happiness
May 2011
“The only thing a uterus is good for after a certain point is causing pain and killing you. Why are we even talking about this?” Nora jams a fork into her chopped chicken salad, the one she insisted I order as well. “If your doctor says it needs to come out, yank it out.” Nora speaks her mind the way others breathe: an involuntary reflex, not a choice. (Obviously, all dialogue here, including my own, is recorded from