The Weathering Body in a Burning World
At Life's Edge Lesley When I sit beside people as they take their final breaths and hold their hands, I feel their body softening, their pulses fading. When they recede from the world, I can... Read More
The Illusion of a Good Conversation with AI
“Sometimes I think I have felt everything I am ever going to feel. And from here on out, I am not going to feel anything new — just lesser versions of what I have already... Read More
Seinfeld and the 9.9 Percent
I’ve always harbored a nagging suspicion that “Seinfeld” was never really about nothing — that beneath its deadpan humor and insistence on moral vacancy, it was, in fact, a deeply moral act of parody –... Read More
Without Thinking Twice: (Some Kinds of) Ignorance as Moral Signal
It is typical to treat ignorance as a moral liability in that one can either be culpable for their ignorance, or their ignorance can mitigate blame. In either case, ignorance is to be excused, managed... Read More
Why Evil Fascinates Us: Murderers Monsters don’t exist. There are only people who stopped believing in humanity.
I’ve been watching stories about serial killers for years. Not because I’m fascinated by blood, but because I’ve always wondered what could awaken such darkness inside a person. I even have an encyclopedia of serial... Read More
The Moving Line Between Legal and Right
The Threshold of Crime There is a line between what is legal and what is right, and history tells us that line moves. There was a time when tossing tea into the harbor was an... Read More
The New McCarthyism: How the Culture Wars Replaced the Function of Our Government
The United States is in a new era of hysteria — one not driven by the lingering spectre of Soviet-era communism, as in the 1950s, but by the targeting of sex, gender and so-called “radical... Read More
