Everyone on TV was just going through the motions. It felt like watching the death spiral of civilization.

Lab-Leak Theory and the “Asiatic” Form
What is missing is a motive
I could not direct you to the key evidence that exonerates the Wuhan Institute, and it might not exist. But this is also the crucial point. There are too many lacunae in the lab-leak explanation for the theory to stand on its own: proponents must fill the gaps with their own projections and beliefs.
Wasn’t the real lesson of this case that strip searches are so violent that they are unjustifiable?
The State vs. Ms. X
The American military effort in Afghanistan has been a waste from start to finish.
Notes on Losing
Before going there myself, I had heard this phrase, open-air prison, and figured it was not literally a prison.
Why Did You Throw Stones?
Black struggle struck the match.
Magic Actions

Eye to Eye with the Beast
The fight to decriminalize abortion in Brazil
For these activists, the issue of abortion is one of paramount importance to nothing less than the future of Brazilian democracy. It’s an institution that is besieged and deeply flawed but also somehow still imbued with the hope and creativity that animated the social movements that more than thirty years ago brought an end to the dictatorship and helped draft an inclusive new constitution. Motherhood, in their eyes, must be elective rather than obligatory, if democracy is to be upheld. As Rosado, the Catholic advocate, told me, “There can be no such thing as dignified motherhood if a woman cannot choose to not be a mother.”
The thin blue line belts the globe.
Defund the Global Policeman
Bush’s decisions to invade Iraq and Afghanistan were obviously the most consequential of his presidency, but the decision to…
We Used to Run This Country
Asked how she defined sexual deviance, the therapist in Dallas replied, “Deviance is anything that’s against the law.”
Uncivil Commitment

Coronavirus and Chronopolitics
The young are trying to save the old
It is important to understand that chronopolitics is nothing more than the political and cultural modality in which class conflict in recent decades has appeared: the conflict between generations is not fundamental but is rather the outcome of specific historical developments, which have turned age into the medium of conflicts flowing from the relations of property. But this does not make generational conflict superficial, any more than the mediation of class through race makes race superficial. There is a genuine divergence in life chances and social power along the lines of age.
Uncertainty is not ignorance.