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cultural commentarypop culturereview

Dark Vocation

Watson basically teaches Sherlock how to be in a human relationship, and unlike previous Sherlocks, this one slowly concedes that following a life philosophy other than “everyone must serve my genius” might actually be a wiser way to live.
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April 21, 2017
Calvin eventscultural commentary

Lectures: A Triptych

There’s something irresistible and mesmerizing about Coates’s voice. I found Between the World and Me deeply compelling, partly because of Coates’s muscular, precise prose. He’s one of our finest essayists today, in the tradition of James Baldwin and others.
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April 7, 2017
cultural commentarypoliticspop culture

Quid Est Potentia?

“There are two elements of the constitution, wrote Walter Bagehot in 1867, the efficient and the dignified. … The efficient has the power to make and execute policy, and is answerable to the electorate. … The dignified gives significance and legitimacy to the efficient, and…
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December 17, 2016
cultural commentarypolitics

Speak What We Feel

I’m grieving. Not because I have policy disagreements with the winner. Not because the lady didn’t win. Those things matter, but it’s so much bigger than that. I’m grieving because a person who rode to power on a calculated surge of hatred and bigotry, who…
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November 12, 2016
cultural commentarypolitics

Too Late

Last Friday, when the Trump video hit the news like a meteorite, my spouse spent the day watching the reaction in the news media and Twitterverse and reporting back to me every hour. By evening, we were floating on waves of Schadenfreude, wickedly enjoying the…
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October 14, 2016
cultural commentary

Would You Say Yes?

So your patient can either go to the big hospital, two hours from home, and slowly die there. Or he can die at home, with your help. Many of your colleagues are deeply opposed to PAD. But all you have to do is fill out…
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August 20, 2016
cultural commentaryspirituality

Ritual Studies

It would be easy to scoff. Her website says she’s a “Life-Cycle Celebrant®.” Note the registered trademark. She is ready to help you mark the significant passages of your life—wedding, funeral, coming of age, pet adoption—with a ritual that she will design specifically for you…
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August 5, 2016