The Wide, Wide World

So obviously, we want to hear our smartest friends’ perspectives on the political scene. Write here to: weigh in on public discourse or matters of policy that are making the world around us.

The Cobbler

By
6
May 21, 2013
The Cobbler

I begged my mother over the Christmas break to get me a pair of Timberlands. She said no. More depressing than her no, was what “no” meant: we did not have money to spend on a $135 pair of construction boots, especially when “any other boot would keep your feet warm just fine.” That,...
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Steiner Crushes Derrida: Or, Veganism for Boys

By
1
May 2, 2013
Steiner Crushes Derrida: Or, Veganism for Boys

I gave up vegetarianism after seven years for a boy named Sam, who wasn’t even gay. But he was tall and slender and had white hair and a baby face and he wore boots and never cleaned his bathroom. We went to dinner, and I ordered shrimp. ***** Now I have returned to the...
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“Clueless” and the Father of Little Women

By
6
April 30, 2013
“Clueless” and the Father of Little Women

Does Clueless make an argument about the ideals of American education? As if! Amy Heckerling’s 1995 Clueless tells the story of 15-year-old Cher Horowitz and her misadventures. Loosely based on Jane Austen’s Emma, the film substitutes Beverly Hills for Yorkshire, high school classes for the class-based vitriol of high society, and the presumptuous naiveté of an indulged American teen...
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To the NRA, and to Legislatures that Submit to the NRA’s Will

By
0
April 23, 2013
To the NRA, and to Legislatures that Submit to the NRA’s Will

I get the pleasure of guns; I really do. For a few summers in the 1970s and early 1980s I taught riflery at a summer camp. I was a pretty good shot myself, and I quite enjoyed target shooting. So much of the rest of summer camp involves running, yelling, team sports, kicking a...
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Back Bay Intersections

By
5
April 19, 2013
Back Bay Intersections

One of the few regular parts of Boston topography are the alphabetized streets of the Back Bay. The Back Bay is on made land, made by trucking in fill to turn the marshy and festering banks of the River Charles into buildable land. I wrote a paper on this project for history class in...
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The Princess Phase

By
0
April 11, 2013
princess group

Somehow, at the restaurant, my daughter pitches face-first off the toilet with her tights down around her ankles. She scrapes her chin and busts open her little lip. In her Cinderella dress, she is a shocked and wailing ball of glittering blue tulle and silver sparkles. I gather her up and try to dab...
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When Columbus Freed the Slaves and Other Tales of Caribbean Colonialism

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0
April 4, 2013
When Columbus Freed the Slaves and Other Tales of Caribbean Colonialism

I’ve been shadowing Columbus. Lying awake, listening to the bachata coming from the disco next door, I think of Virginia Woolf’s line—“Music had become visible. That was a discovery.” The electric arpeggios and percussion appear as if inscribed in the settled air of 3:30 in the morning, full of an exhilarated yearning that has...
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The Gay Politics of Cute

By
1
April 2, 2013
The Gay Politics of Cute

  Have you seen this video yet? It’s gone viral, and it’s incredibly adorable. Two gay dads and their sons take the stage to advocate equal marriage, and their son Emmett can’t contain his impatience. Apparently wearied by his dad’s earnest appeal for marriage equality, Emmett repeatedly pushes the microphone away, saying that he...
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March Madness. Even Grumpy Cat BELIEVES.

By
1
March 21, 2013
March Madness. Even Grumpy Cat BELIEVES.

NO. The great thing about March Madness, the term that refers to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament that takes place during, yep, March, is NOT that it replicates or stages or allegorizes life. Sportscasters will sound off again and again about the virtues of The Game’s ability to teach hard work and good character...
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Losing It

By
0
March 14, 2013
Losing It

Within minutes of the first workout of the first episode of this, the fourteenth season of The Biggest Loser, the camera fades to red and cuts to a commercial as Jackson, a gay bespectacled boy from Layton, Utah, collapses and lies gurgling at the foot of a treadmill. The scene is the first of...
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