2035

It’s a cliché in art to have a sudden burst of inspiration. I was just looking at the bird, and boom, the poem just…came to me! Or, I was scuba-diving off the coast of Fiji and I couldn’t believe it — the song just wrote itself! I think of that quote from Anne Lamott’s Bird […]

#YouHaveToYell

Tim Ryan–a mostly forgettable startled-looking white man candidate for the Democratic nomination for president–just debuted a new hashtag and some accompanying merch: #YouDontHaveToYell

The Youth Bulge

Being married to an economist means many things. For one, it means losing a lot of arguments. Economists are like the physicists of the social scientists. They insist that, when you boil off everything else, their discipline is the one the perfectly describes how everything works. It also means that you get to hear a […]

Parks without people? A response to Jason Mark

A few days ago, environmental writer Jason Mark published an essay in Sierra, the national magazine of the Sierra Club, in which he advocates for “a provocative idea”: establishing nature reserves that would be “off-limits to most people” except “working scientists.” These preserves would be managed exclusively “for wild nature alone.” Mark invokes conservationist icon […]

The End of Anonymity

I’m currently working on a story about a homicide. In my case, there’s no doubt about the identity of the victim or the person who killed him. But I’ve used online court records, social media pages, real estate listings, and other digital data to fill in their biographies. It is a commonplace now to observe […]

Redux: Weapons-Grade Private Enterprise

A little while ago, I was talking casually to an old arms-controller.  “What have you been up to?” I said.  “Talking to the Russians,” he said.  The Russians he would have been talking to were probably nuclear policy experts or nuclear weapons scientists and they probably would have been talking about ways of controlling international […]

Redux: Goodbye to the Friend I Never Met

I wrote this piece a year ago at the end of an exhausting story about the end of a species. I was angry and despondent. I wish I could say that a year has changed my perspective. Scientists have spotted a surprising six individuals more during their expedition to the Upper Gulf this year. But […]