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Grounded [01 Jun 2015|12:40pm]

Remember the space shuttle, that lemon?

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Amicus: The Calm Before the Storm [01 Jun 2015|12:41pm]

Listen to Episode 19 of Slate’s Amicus:

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Guess the Mystery Word! [01 Jun 2015|01:59pm]

Listen to Lexicon Valley Episode No. 61: LinguaFile XII

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How The Hunting Ground Blurs the Truth [01 Jun 2015|03:07pm]

The recent documentary The Hunting Ground asserts that young women are in grave danger of sexual assault as soon as they arrive on college campuses. The film has been screened at the White House for staff and legislators. Senate Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand, who makes a cameo appearance in the film, cites it as confirmation of the need for the punitive campus sexual assault legislation she has introduced. Gillibrand’s colleague Barbara Boxer, after the film’s premier said, “Believe me, there will be fallout.” The film has received nearly universal acclaim from critics—the Washington Post called it “lucid,” “infuriating,” and “galvanizing”—and, months after its initial release, its influence continues to grow, as schools across the country host screenings. “If you have a daughter going to any college in America, you need to see The Hunting Ground,” the MSNBC host Joe Scarborough told his viewers in May. This fall, it will get a further boost when CNN, a co-producer, plans to broadcast the film, broadening its audience. The Hunting Ground is helping define the problem of campus sexual assault for policymakers, college administrators, students, and their parents.

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How The Hunting Ground Blurs the Truth [01 Jun 2015|03:07pm]

The recent documentary The Hunting Ground asserts that young women are in grave danger of sexual assault as soon as they arrive on college campuses. The film has been screened at the White House for staff and legislators. Senate Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand, who makes a cameo appearance in the film, cites it as confirmation of the need for the punitive campus sexual assault legislation she has introduced. Gillibrand’s colleague Barbara Boxer, after the film’s premiere said, “Believe me, there will be fallout.” The film has received nearly universal acclaim from critics—the Washington Post called it “lucid,” “infuriating,” and “galvanizing”—and, months after its initial release, its influence continues to grow, as schools across the country host screenings. “If you have a daughter going to any college in America, you need to see The Hunting Ground,” the MSNBC host Joe Scarborough told his viewers in May. This fall, it will get a further boost when CNN, a co-producer, plans to broadcast the film, broadening its audience. The Hunting Ground is helping define the problem of campus sexual assault for policymakers, college administrators, students, and their parents.

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Dear Prudence Live Chat [01 Jun 2015|03:30pm]

Update: This week's chat has been postponed until Tuesday June 2. Please come back at noon on Tuesday when Emily Yoffe will be online to answer your questions.

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What Fury Road’s Furiosa Really Owes to Alien’s Ellen Ripley [01 Jun 2015|03:41pm]

As soon as Mad Max: Fury Road premiered, critics leapt to paint Charlize Theron’s Furiosa as a throwback to another, legendary action heroine: Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley from the Alien franchise. Even Mad Max co-writer and director George Miller has acknowledged the looming shadow of Ripley, though his thoughts on the comparison are somewhat half-baked: “Ripley … is probably close, but that’s so different,” he told Entertainment Weekly ahead of the film’s premiere. “All I know is, I cannot think of another female character in cinema who’s like her.”

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Waimanalo Blues [01 Jun 2015|03:41pm]

Late last week, on the precipice of an inevitably calamitous opening weekend, Sony Pictures posted the first eight minutes of the new Cameron Crowe film, Aloha, to the Web. The gesture rang of weary resignation: In the preceding days, the studio had come under fire for the movie’s title (crass cultural appropriation!), for its primary cast (nary a nonwhite face!), and for its jumbled incoherence (we’ll get to that!). Given that the earliest pan had come from Sony Pictures’ then-co-chairman, Amy Pascal (“I’m never starting a movie again when the script is ridiculous,” she vowed in an email leaked in last year’s hack), the studio should have been well primed for damage control.

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Genius Move [01 Jun 2015|03:43pm]

We live in an age—perhaps the age—of confirmation bias. And given a turbulent sea of information, who can blame us for latching onto the familiar while looking away from anything jarring or mismatched? We yearn for the comforts of our main tribe, be that tribe political, religious, scientific, or economic. If that’s a failing, it is probably a hominid design flaw, far beyond evolutionary recall at this point.

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The Fame Monster [01 Jun 2015|04:28pm]

If you’ve ever ridden public transportation in a major city, you’ve seen hip young women with their headphones and their lace-up boots, their black jeans and faux fur, their deep V’s and slightly tortured vibes. Young women are always the locus of attention, both subtle and unsubtle, in any given space, but these beautiful tousled birds arouse particular interest; men crane their necks to look at their tattoos, less stylish women wonder if they too should attempt a bold red lip or, god forbid, a backless T. I see a young woman like this and wonder where she is going, what work she does. I wonder what she is listening to and the source of her intent expression.

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Slate Gets Results [01 Jun 2015|04:28pm]

Here at Slate, we are not just human beings. We are also writers. Which means that, while you spend your leisure time hanging out with friends or taking a nice jog, we are at home googling our own names. Most of what comes up on the first few pages of a self-googler’s search results these days are your garden variety social media pages—you got your Facebooks and your Twitters and your LinkedIns. We went beyond those to explore the results we are most proud of, or embarrassed of, or confused by. When you’re done reading ours, go ahead and Google your own name and, in the comments, tell us what comes up. Then, if your ego hasn’t been irreparably shattered or excessively inflated, resume your more productive life.  

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“We Don’t Like to Be at War With Our Neighbors” [01 Jun 2015|04:37pm]

After the failure of the Palestinian-Israeli talks led by Secretary of State John Kerry, the Palestinian Authority has focused on the United Nations and international organizations to achieve its goals. Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah sat down in his Ramallah office with the Washington Post’s Lally Weymouth to discuss the authority’s strategy. An edited version of their conversation appears below:

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Hastert’s Hypocrisy [01 Jun 2015|05:32pm]

Is Dennis Hastert being unfairly prosecuted?

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Make the Most of Glass Jar Candles [01 Jun 2015|07:28pm]

Scented candles are an easy way to give your home an aromatic ambiance makeover, but when wicks fail or wax melts unevenly, they are also an easy way to drain your bank account. The above video demonstrates an easy way to continue enjoying the scent while reusing the wax and the glass container. This simple trick requires no additional tools, but you'll feel like a DIY champion.

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The State of the Surveillance State [01 Jun 2015|07:50pm]

After the Senate’s rare Sunday night session, Congress is on track to end the National Security Agency’s practice of sweeping millions of Americans’ phone records—the most controversial program revealed by former NSA consultant Edward Snowden two years ago. The move will reduce the potential for NSA abuse in the future, but—contrary to the dire warnings of some and the dizzy celebrations of others—it will not diminish the agency’s ability to spy on terrorists, either abroad or inside the United States.

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The Best Police Blotter in America—Revisited [01 Jun 2015|08:06pm]

Last week, I wrote a story about what I called, somewhat brazenly, “the best police blotter in America”: a weekly column published by a small newspaper in Marin County, California, called the Point Reyes Light. The column, written by the paper’s editor, Tess Elliott, details the sometimes mysterious, often very funny complaints that residents of west Marin make to their local sheriff’s office. Here are a few representative entries from this week’s edition:

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Are You Threatening Me? [01 Jun 2015|09:10pm]

Instinct tells most of us that when Anthony Elonis posted lyrics like these on his Facebook page, he genuinely wanted to frighten some people: “That’s it, I’ve had about enough/ I’m checking out and making a name for myself/ Enough elementary schools in a ten mile radius/ to initiate the most heinous school shooting ever imagined/ and hell hath no fury like a crazy man in a kindergarten class/ the only question is … which one?” Elonis’ words, which echo with memories of Columbine and Sandy Hook, are now part of a landmark Supreme Court opinion.

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Hang Up and Listen: The Good Nat, Bad Nat Edition [01 Jun 2015|09:19pm]

Listen to Hang Up and Listen with Stefan Fatsis, Josh Levin, and Mike Pesca by clicking the arrow on the audio player below:

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Hot Dam [01 Jun 2015|10:00pm]

In the rush to decarbonize the world’s economy, there’s one simple, surprising technology that’s more important than any other: water falling down a hill.

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Tenure Under Attack [01 Jun 2015|11:03pm]

This article originally appeared in Inside Higher Ed.

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Clinton’s Resilient Popularity [01 Jun 2015|11:57pm]

No one, not even her strongest opponents, thinks Hillary Clinton is a weak candidate for president. The question is whether she’s especially strong, or a decent option with huge risk. In the past three months there’s been substantial evidence for the second possibility: There’s the questions about her private email use as secretary of state; the questions over her paid speeches and financial disclosures; and the questions about her husband and the Clinton Foundation, which took foreign donations during her time in the administration. No, there’s no proof of influence peddling or illegal behavior. But Clinton skeptics feel vindicated, and even Clinton allies are wary.

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