| It’s Fine for Kids to Play With Pretend Guns |
[02 Jul 2015|06:36am] |
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http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_kids/2015/07/should_you_let_your_kids_play_with_toy_guns_yes_but_keep_them_away_from.html My 4-year-old can turn almost anything into an imaginary gun. A piece of wooden toy railroad track? Sure, it’ll take care of the bad guys. Although my son isn’t always acting out battle scenarios, he does it enough to make me wonder: Is this kind of play normal? Given this country’s devastating record of gun violence, should I be stopping him? Does allowing gun play somehow increase the risk that he will one day become a victim or an instigator of gun violence?
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| The Best Fourth of July Speech in American History |
[02 Jul 2015|02:00pm] |
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http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/history/2015/07/fourth_of_july_revisiting_frederick_douglass_s_fiery_speech.html The most remarkable Independence Day oration in American history was not given on the Fourth of July. And it is little remembered today. But it deserves to be, especially given the searing events in Charleston, South Carolina, last month. Independence Day is rightly a time to celebrate the nation's history and even kick back for a little R&R. But the best orators who have marked the day have understood that our nation’s laurels are not meant to be rested on.
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| I Said Go, Go, Go |
[02 Jul 2015|02:48pm] |
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http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/movies/2015/07/amy_a_documentary_about_amy_winehouse_reviewed.html Listening to Amy Winehouse’s 2006 hit single “Rehab” while she was alive and publicly struggling with addiction was difficult enough. The surface delights of that song—its retro-style girl-group melody, its tight horn arrangement, Winehouse’s trademark bluesy growl—contrasted so starkly with the harrowing lyrics: “I ain’t got the time/ And my daddy thinks I’m fine/ He’s tried to make me go to rehab, but I won’t go, go, go.” A completely unfictionalized account of her then-recent experience with her bullying manager-father and a half-hearted and short-lived visit to an addiction and recovery facility, "Rehab" was a cry for help with a toe-tapping rhythm, a suicide note you could dance to.
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| The Digital Demagogue |
[02 Jul 2015|05:05pm] |
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http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/bitwise/2015/07/greece_referendum_the_standoff_couldn_t_have_happened_without_the_internet.html Once again, negotiations between Greece and its creditors have stalled, and now a hastily called referendum set for Sunday raises the shocking possibility of Greece leaving the European Union. The EU has been an unruly beast for a long time, yet most of its leaders, including Greece’s previous establishment governments, have never seriously raised the specter of leaving. Years of recession and sky-high unemployment in Greece resulted in the election earlier this year of Syriza, a defiantly radical left-wing party that was polling in the single digits a decade ago. But what’s occurring right now, as Greece does battle with the EU over economic policy, its fate suddenly in the hands of voters, feels new for another reason: It is a bold, imperfect, and high-velocity form of mass democracy made possible only through the Internet.
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