Essays
1097 results
Page 51
Gun control a year after Sandy Hook
Try to Remember the Kind of December
Despite the outrage after the Sandy Hook massacre, not a darned thing has changed about our gun laws.
Essays
1 minute read
The Year I Became a Philadelphia Eagles Fan
Across the street, neighbors fly a flag bearing the logos of both the Steelers and Eagles and the legend “A House Divided.” (Where did they get that?) I don’t think it applies to me anymore.
Essays
4 minute read
Worthless weather forecasts
When there’s a 30 percent chance of a Hail Mary
Weather forecasters are good at drawing on big boards and stormtrackers, but often miss on their predictions.
Essays
2 minute read
A Mummer memory, circa 1950
High heels, a blue sequined gown, and hair on his chest
When I was a blue-collar kid growing up in Kensington, a contingent of Mummers would parade up Kensington Avenue each year just a few weeks after their New Year’s march up Broad Street. That’s where I got my first look at a cross-dressing man, up very, very close.
Essays
4 minute read
The bitcoin craze
If you say it’s money and I say it’s money….
What do bitcoins and tulips have in common? As the tulip was the fetish object of the 17th-Century Netherlands, so the bitcoin is of our digital age. But tulips, at least, were pleasing to the eye.
Essays
4 minute read
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My person of the Year: Edward Snowden
The man who outed the dragon
Who changed the world in 2013? Time Magazine’s choice— Pope Francis— pales beside Edward Snowden, the man who blew the National Security Agency’s cover.
Essays
4 minute read
That miracle on the Hudson: Survivors' tales
I’m dying, and I didn’t make the bed!
How would you react if you knew your plane was about to crash? Thanks to the miraculous Hudson River landing of a disabled US Airways flight five years ago, we have some answers. As you might expect, they range from the ridiculous to the sublime.
Essays
2 minute read
Too many people? (a reply)
Population growth: Quality trumps quantity
A simple increase in the number of brains in the world doesn’t do you any good if the owners of those brains are all working in the rice fields growing rice. One educated brain is worth several dozen illiterate subsistence farmers.
Essays
4 minute read
Paul Walker’s ironic demise
Give me the simple death
Paul Walker, the star of movies about fiery car crashes, just died in a fiery car crash. Death, always, sucks. But an ironic death? Even worse.
Essays
2 minute read
Fear of spiders, real and projected
The cobwebs of your mind
The real danger posed by the tarantula on my floor lay not with the spider or even with my husband. It lay in my persistent fear of the social and financial consequences of divorce. In the same way, all of us project our fears onto others so that we see threats that don’t exist.
Essays
4 minute read