Journalism fails miserably at explaining what is really happening to America by Will Bunch

Until the mainstream news media comes to its collective senses and starts reporting with proper alarm on the Republican party’s cult-like adherence to despotic tendencies, writers like Will Bunch will keep crafting essays that call out the systemic failure of those media outlets. And I’ll keep sharing them in this weekly space with my own reflections that are scalded by anger and despair. And so it goes. And goes and goes. This piece is published by The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Unnatural Gifts by Becca Rothfeld

This fascinating piece, published by The Point, starts with Becca Rothfeld reminiscing about a college classmate who was revered as a great beauty, though perhaps that attractiveness was based less on physical attributes and more on her confidence and bearing. From there, Rothfeld considers all the different ways physical appeal, or lack thereof, shapes how all of our social structures operate.

My Generation by Justin E.H. Smith

Writing for Harper’s Magazine, Justin E.H. Smith ruminates of the preemptively discarded legacy of Generation X using the most logical framework: the music — and attitudes towards that music — that ran through the experience of growing up across the nineteen-seventies, nineteen-eighties, and nineteen-nineties. His experiences don’t parallel my own exactly, but i recognize the resonant truth in every detail he provides. (A hat tip to the proprietor of The Starfire Lounge for bringing this article to my attention.)