So you all know I love awards shows, right? That’s pretty well established by now? As much as I’ve bloviated about the Oscars, however, it’s the Tony Awards to which I have an actual, real-life personal connection. When I first moved to New York City, I got to be friends with a nurse at one of the hospitals where I was working. This woman loved Broadway. I mean looooooooved Broadway. She saw everything and got autographs from everyone. Her apartment ...
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For some reason, it was the grocery store that did it. In 2009, Maine passed a marriage equality bill through the legislature, and the governor signed it shortly thereafter. That November, the bill was overturned in a “people’s veto” referendum. Those of you who follow the issue closely and/or read this blog with any regularity know that already. If you’re in that latter camp, you know that I worked hard on both the legislative piece and the follow-up “No on ...
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Can someone please explain the point of the following to me? (Via TPM.) Two days after President Obama’s commanding reelection victory, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) solemnly declared Obamacare the “law of the land” — apparently signaling that it was time to move beyond the GOP’s now-hopeless quest for repeal. The conservative pushback was swift and brutal. Immediately, Boehner’s office was forced to clarify that he remained committed to repealing the law. And so House Republicans will vote on Thursday ...
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All I could remember was an illustration. It featured an old man transforming into a dragon. I couldn’t remember the plot very well, other than it involved an old man turning into a dragon. I couldn’t remember any of the characters, and I didn’t recall any of the other pictures. What memory I had of the book was limited to one picture, and a sense that I had loved it as a small child. When the memory emerged during my ...
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Kermit Gosnell, butcher, was found guilty today on three of four counts of murder, and of involuntary manslaughter of a woman whose abortion he botched. Good. Since it would serve no purpose to try expressing the depths of my contempt for the man, let it suffice to say I am glad to read of this verdict. But there is something more I want, and I’ve said it already. [O]ne reason I hope this story gets lots and lots of attention, ...
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One of the pitfalls of trying to keep a blog going with new material is that, sadly, the irritations and frustrations of its author may persist unchanged with time. The worry that one has griped about something already and the related temptation to gripe about it again regardless are probably best kept under a vigilant blogger’s gaze, lest his loyal readers (all dozen or so of you!) mutter discontentedly and grow bored. And yet, sometimes life pushes the temptation button ...
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As I drove home after running an errand last night, I was listening to the awesome Boston-area music station I love when I heard the DJ make brief mention of something called “mangagement rings.” For those of you unable to parse that appalling portmanteau, these are apparently the new thing in jewelry — engagement rings for men. The name is, of course, ridiculous. If we’re stretching the concept of “engagement ring” to include men, I’m not sure why we cannot ...
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Oh, Adam Gopnik. Are you aware of how ironic this is? When I was a child, two piles of magazines, pillars of this misplaced faith in a leisurely reading future, rose in adjacent basements. In our house, Scientific American, dense with Feynman diagrams and unplayed mathematical games, accumulated, month after month; in my grandparents’, it was National Geographic, yellow-bordered, and with a bright, unpredictable photograph—as likely an Afghan child as a space shuttle—on its cover. Though occasionally the Scientific American ...
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“Because I want to help people.” When you’re going through medical school interviews, you can expect to answer many variations on the theme of “Why do you want to be a doctor?” (I know I’ve written about this before, but whatever I said and whenever I said it are lost in the misty ethers of the Internet.) And there are all manner of things one could say that would make an acceptable answer. An affinity for life sciences, for example. ...
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I like to tell myself that, if I put my mind to it, I can make sense of the world. Or maybe not The World, but most aspects of it when viewed discretely without too many confounding variables. Perhaps it is a happy lie, but it is one I tell myself with enough frequency to give it the patina of truth. So it was deeply unsettling to my sense of balance when I could find no even vaguely plausible explanation ...
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Russell Saunders is a pediatrician in New England. He has a husband, son, cat and dog, though not in that order. He enjoys reading, running and cooking. He would have warned the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences that James Franco was a bad idea, if only someone had asked.
Rose Woodhouse is ABD in philosophy. She will totally get that dissertation done soon, really. She teaches and is mom to a few very young 'uns, one of whom is disabled. She loves TV as more than a friend.
