E.J. Graff

Remember reading that there were some “security incidents” this past Sunday after authorities “erred on the side of caution” for fear of a 9/11 anniversary attack? James Fallows at The Atlantic has some dispiriting insights into one of them: A half-Arab, half-Jewish self-described suburban housewife and former journalism student was detained because, by chance, she […]

When I was babysitting back in 1975, I was afraid of a book enshrined on one family’s coffee table: Open Marriage, by Nena and George O’Neill. I can’t really tell you why it scared me; I never opened it, and I didn’t grasp the topic, but its prominent and seemingly fixed placement made it seem […]

What do Jane Lynch and I have in common? (I know this question has been haunting you since I started opining here a week ago.) Obviously Jane is funnier and far more talented, creative, well-off, and famous. But we do have this in common: We both became parents at an advanced age by marrying women […]

If you were either consumed by the 9/11 retrospectives or avoiding them with your own personal news blackout, you might have missed The New York Times‘ exposé on how thoroughly the video-game industry is subsidized by your tax dollars — courtesy, at least in part, of the government/industry revolving door. You know something is wrong […]

It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I’ve been feeling pretty lousy about it. Like Rick Perlstein, I have felt pretty Eeyore-ish about the United States for about a decade. Osama won, I wrote last spring, with a jujitsu move that had the U.S. overreacting and morally bankrupting ourselves. But, instead, […]

You may not have noticed, but if you ever use birth control you are a “battering ram” for a dangerously pagan society. The reproductive rights folks have long warned that the most profoundly committed “pro-life” advocates actually want to end legal contraception, rolling us back to the pre-Margaret Sanger days when selling condoms through the […]

Before I get cranky, let me be sentimental: I loved Obama’s speech last night. It was big. It was bold. It was inspiring. Here’s the part I loved most: Where would we be right now if the people who sat here before us decided not to build our highways and our bridges; our dams and […]

As you probably know by now, there was a high-profile female firing this week. Nicholas Thompson at The New Yorker says Carol Bartz lost her Yahoo leadership fair and square, but adds a a wickedly smart sentence about how women are faring in high tech: Carol Bartz of Yahoo was fired on Tuesday, which means […]

Between Labor Day, Perry v. Romney, and Obama’s speech tonight, this week we’re all about jobs, jobs, jobs. Kate Dailey at the BBC News Magazine is right there with us, taking note of Jill Abramson’s historic first day as executive editor of the New York Times. Dailey asks: What jobs still haven’t been filled by […]

What does climate change look like? These pictures give you a glimpse. Here’s the featured expert’s quote: “I was still completely unprepared for the gob-smacking scale of the breakup, which rendered me speechless.” Me too.