Meghan Daum

Novelist/essayist Jonathan Franzen at The New Yorker Festival on October 5, 2013 in New York City.

Franzen’s flippant adoption comment masks deep issues of parenthood

August 18, 2019 at 6:23 p.m.

The Guardian slapped a headline on its website recently that read, "Jonathan Franzen considered adopting Iraqi orphan to figure out young people." Even though Franzen, the prize-winning and often polarizing...

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos walks onstage for the launch of the new Amazon Fire Phone in Seattle last June. A New York Times article portrayed Amazon's work culture as "bruising" and "Darwinian" in part because of the way it uses data to manage its staff.

In a way, we all work for Amazon now

May 11, 2019 at 7:32 a.m.

Maybe it all started with the drone tease. Remember back in 2013, when Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos announced plans to someday make deliveries via "Octocopters," which would pick up packages...

Enough with the rainbowifying of Facebook

May 11, 2019 at 7:26 a.m.

Is it possible to support marriage equality without opting for the rainbow filter on your Facebook profile photo? Technically, yes. But within three days of the Supreme Court's ruling in...

Republican presidential candidate and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry speaks to the media during a campaign stop at the South Carolina Military Museum on June 8 in Columbia, S.C.

Will smart-looking glasses do the trick for Rick Perry?

May 11, 2019 at 7:23 a.m.

There's a moment in Season 8 of the HBO comedy "Curb Your Enthusiasm" when the character Larry David (played in duly neurotic and cantankerous fashion by the real Larry David)...

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton finishes speaking on stage during a ceremony to induct her into the Irish America Hall of Fame on March 16, 2015 in New York City.

Why we are sorting through the Clintons’ dirty laundry

May 11, 2019 at 7:15 a.m.

Like a suitcase on the world's longest luggage carousel, Hillary Clinton's all-but-assured presidential candidacy is now drifting back toward us, begging to be claimed whether or not we still want...

"Transparent" creator Jill Soloway and actor Jeffrey Tambor, who plays the show's lead role, celebrate their Golden Globe win Jan. 11. Soloway dedicated her award to "the memory of Leelah Alcorn and too many trans people who die too young."

Shaming Leelah Alcorn’s parents is rooted in bigotry

May 11, 2019 at 7:04 a.m.

It's a tale of two completely different worlds. In one, the television series "Transparent," about a middle-age father who transitions from male to female, won two Golden Globes on Sunday...

Students walk through the University of Virginia campus in Charlottesville, Va., on Dec. 6.

What’s epidemic on college campuses? Shallow thinking

May 11, 2019 at 7:01 a.m.

Remember in 1986, when Newsweek supposedly showed that a 40-year-old single woman was "more likely to be killed by a terrorist" than to ever get married? It turned out to...

Call me maybe — or better yet text

May 11, 2019 at 6:59 a.m.

In the second season of the BBC soap-drama "Downton Abbey," telephone service arrives at the house. The year is 1914, and not everyone is enthusiastic about the new technology. Struggling...

A comment is shown onscreen as actress Shoshana Roberts is recorded walking through various neighborhoods in New York City, remaining straight-faced as male strangers greet her, comment on her personal appearance and at times follow her.

What’s missing from that catcalling video

May 11, 2019 at 6:54 a.m.

If for some unfathomable reason you're not among the more than 30 million people who've already seen the "catcalling video" that started ricocheting through the zeitgeist last week, I'll give...

USC Fertility laboratory director Mary Francis inspects human eggs frozen with liquid nitrogen.

Should women freeze their eggs?

August 19, 2019 at 7:53 a.m.

Here are three things you can always count on: death, taxes and that anything related to motherhood or women's reproductive choices will stir up enough cultural debate to make everyone...

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