Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
“You can’t say anything anymore! You can’t even make jokes!” There’s a constant complaint from people in positions of power, mostly men, who keep making the ridiculous assertion that they’re not able to speak in public. What they actually mean is they no longer understand the basis of the criticisms they face. And it’s a…
Woman with Red Zinnia 1891, by Mary Cassatt (Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington) When the Jian Ghomeshi story first broke back in 2014, I knew with unwavering certainty exactly how the story would play out. “Just wait,” I would tell friends. “He’ll disappear for a few years, and then he’ll come back with some…
Yesterday, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, a research psychologist in Northern California, came forward to say that she was the woman accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. She came forward, although she never intended to, because she wanted to make sure everyone got the story straight. The story is this — that when she was 15…
Marvel just canceled its new Vision comic months before its release date, provoking outcry from fans. This may also mark the end of Marvel‘s relationship with writer Chelsea Cain, after she tweeted that the publisher told her to stay “clean and quiet” about her book’s untimely cancellation. Why comics get canceled before release Pre-release cancellations…
For many middle– and high-school students, giving an in-class presentation was a rite of passage. Teachers would call up students, one by one, to present their work in front of the class and, though it was often nerve-racking, many people claim it helped turn them into more confident public speakers. “Coming from somebody with severe anxiety,…
On Thursday, Senate Democrats disclosed that they had referred a complaint regarding President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, to the F.B.I. for investigation. The complaint came from a woman who accused Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct when they were both in high school, more than thirty years ago. The woman, who has asked not…
In late June, one of the more surreal moments of any Donald Trump rally happened onstage in South Carolina. And it was all because the president was handed a printout of an article on the conservative website Breitbart. “Veteran filmmaker David Lynch believes President Donald Trump could be remembered as one of the greatest presidents…
Larry Page was a no-show. The co-founder and de facto leader of Google is famous for his wild bets on airborne taxis and space elevators, but he apparently couldn’t make the flight to Washington, D.C. Page had been called to testify on Capitol Hill, alongside Twitter Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey and Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg,…
When Mangesh Gururaj’s wife left home to pick up their child from math lessons one Sunday earlier this month, she turned on her Tesla Model S and hit “Summon,” a self-parking feature that the electric automaker has promoted as a central step toward driverless cars. But as the family’s $65,000 sedan reversed itself out of…
Mercedes-Benz unveiled its dream of a fully autonomous multipurpose vehicle this week. The announcement was full of buzzwords—the modular Vision Urbanetic “enables on-demand, sustainable and efficient movement of people and goods” and “reduces traffic flows, relieves inner-city infrastructures and contributes to an improved quality of urban life.” Hardly a week goes by without fresh signposts that…