Credit where credit is due: Make America Great Again was a brilliant slogan, precisely because nobody knew what it meant. Was it about bringing back jobs in manufacturing? Was it about restoring straight, white, Christian men to what some of them thought was their natural position of social dominance? MAGA became an all-purpose code for reversing whatever was bugging you about 21st-century America.
And one important strain of MAGAism was and is the belief that wokeness is making America militarily weak. Back in 2021 Senator Ted Cruz famously shared a video comparing Russian military ads, which feature manly men doing manly things, with a U.S. ad telling the story of a female recruit raised by two mothers. “Perhaps a weak, emasculated military is not the best idea,” Cruz declared.
Remarkably, the idea that wokeness makes us weak has persisted despite the failures of the decidedly un-woke Russian military in Ukraine. Senator Tom Cotton, who has published a book titled “Only the Strong: Reversing the Left’s Plot to Sabotage American Power,” recently declared that “soldiers join the army to kill the bad guys — not to learn to speak like they’re in a faculty lounge.”
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Illustration by Sam Whitney/The New York Times; photographs by Ralf Geithe and Image Source, via Getty Images
Everyone has at least one habit they’d love to shed, and at least a dozen they dream of picking up. But what is it that makes nail-biting so irresistible—or daily exercise so elusive? While there’s an entire subsection of the internet devoted to figuring it out, it’s easy to find oneself surrounded by information and advice but unable to put anything into action.
Enter Nir Eyal. His site, NirandFar, explores some of the best ways to tackle habits (both good and bad), as well as the psychology behind our relationship with them. He also ties those very concepts in with personal development and business strategy in his books Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life and Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products.
My mom’s choir was halfway through its carol concert when I realized that her name was missing from the program. I knew she wouldn’t be too broken up about it — she’d say “No need to go into a swivet” — but I was incensed. The oversight instantly became a referendum on everything we’d lost that year.
This was my mom’s choir debut, and her long white hair glowed beatifically as she belted “We Three Kings” on a riser beneath the pulpit where, 10 months before, my sister and I had eulogized our 59-year-old dad. The concert was the first event she’d been excited about since then. She’d reminded me of the date and time on multiple occasions, assuring me and my husband that nobody would care if our toddlers made a ruckus.
Now, sitting in a pew my kids had decorated with stickers, I thought of my mom’s calls after Thursday night rehearsals — her excitement about difficult hymns and new friends. “They’re really kicking my butt,” she said as if she’d joined the Olympic gymnastics team. I pictured the piles of sheet music spread across her dining room table; the stream of choral classics pouring from her record player; and her first solo Christmas tree, waiting to be decorated after the concert. How proud she was that she’d put up the lights alone.
Three Years Later. How many January 6th Offenders are in jail? So far, three years later, roughly only 165 of the 800+ cases brought as a result of the January 6 attack have been fully adjudicated, with a total of 65 defendants receiving sentences to either jail or prison terms. Another 50 have been sentenced […]
Of all the different things you can try to improve your productivity, a morning routine is one of the most effective.
There are a few reasons why morning routines are so useful. The first is obvious to anyone who has ever procrastinated, just getting started is often the hardest part. If you can start out with the right momentum towards your goals, you’ll avoid wrestling with yourself in the morning to get started.
The second is that the morning, particularly before the workday officially begins, is a quiet time with fewer social obligations. For many of us, the rest of the day can present a chaotic, ever-changing blast of responsibilities, urgent errands and unexpected interruptions. The morning, in contrast, is often the most consistent part of your day.
A new test of how Apple gathers usage data from iPhones has found that the company collects personally identifiable information while explicitly promising not to.
The privacy policy governing Apple’s device analytics says the “none of the collected information identifies you personally.” But an analysis of the data sent to Apple shows it includes a permanent, unchangeable ID number called a Directory Services Identifier, or DSID, according to researchers from the software company Mysk. Apple collects that same ID number along with information for your Apple ID, which means the DSID is directly tied to your full name, phone number, birth date, email address, and more, according to Mysk’s tests.
According to Apple’s analytics policy, “Personal data is either not logged at all, is subject to privacy-preserving techniques such as differential privacy, or is removed from any reports before they’re sent to Apple.” But Mysk’s tests show that show that the DSID, which is directly tied to your name, is sent to Apple in the same packet as all the other analytics information.
These are the best personal finance books for 2022:
“I Will Teach You To Be Rich,” by Ramit Sethi
“Finance for the People,” by Paco de Leon
“The Automatic Millionaire,” by David Bach
“The Simple Path to Wealth,” by JL Collins
“Get Good With Money,” by Tiffany “The Budgetnista” Aliche
“Cashing Out: Win the Wealth Game by Walking Away,” by Julien and Kiersten Saunders
“Retire Before Mom and Dad,” by Rob Berger
“When She Makes More,” by Farnoosh Torabi
“You Are a Badass at Making Money,” by Jen Sincero
“The Millionaire Next Door,” by Thomas J. Stanley
“Spend Well, Live Rich,” by Michelle Singletary
“Your Money or Your Life,” by Vicki Robin
“Broke Millennial Takes On Investing,” by Erin Lowry
“Get a Financial Life,” by Beth Kobliner
“The Financial Diet,” by Chelsea Fagan and Lauren Ver Hage
“The Money Manual,” by Tonya B. Rapley
“Clever Girl Finance,” by Bola Sokunbi
“How I Invest My Money,” by Joshua Brown and Brian Portnoy
We’ve put together a list of 18 books for every stage of life and for every money goal, whether you want to retire early, invest in the stock market, start conversations about money with your family, or just see money from a different point of view.
Every day, we’re inundated with new trends and the next “it” clothing items to add to our shopping carts. So much so that it feels nearly impossible to keep up. That’s the prime issue with the fashion industry in today’s world: Its endless cycle of overproduction and overconsumption causes harm to both people and the planet.
“The rate and volume with which we wear and discard our clothing has resulted in an unsustainable system that relies on the exploitation of planetary and human resources,” says Alyssa Beltempo, a slow fashion expert and sustainable stylist. “Two-thirds of our clothes are made from synthetics derived from fossil fuels, and 20 percent of industrial water pollution is due to garment manufacture and dyeing. Millions of garment professionals work in unfair and unsafe conditions, simply so that we can wear a garment an average of five times before discarding it.”
Every year, 21 billion pounds of textile waste is sent to landfills. That’s 85 percent of all textiles produced, and to put it into perspective, it’s the equivalent of one garbage truck filled with clothing being dumped in a landfill every second. Much of this waste can be attributed to fast fashion brands.
Underground Railroad ‘conductor’ Harriet Tubman was born in Dorchester County around 1822. At this small museum in downtown Cambridge – just a few miles from where she grew up – learn of the strength, courage, and determination of this remarkable woman.
The Harriet Tubman Museum & Education Center was started in the 1980s – and is still run by – dedicated local volunteers who want to share Harriet Tubman’s story and preserve her legacy. The museum building features a powerful and moving mural of Harriet Tubman that has attracted attention from around the country. The mural was commissioned by the Dorchester Center for the Arts and completed in May 2019 by artist Michael Rosato.
NOTE: This museum is different from the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Visitor Center, which opened in 2017 in Church Creek, Maryland, about a 20-minute drive from downtown Cambridge. Find out more about the Tubman Visitor Center.
The Harriet Tubman Museum offers exhibits and a short film about Tubman’s life, as well as a resource area. Groups are welcome; please call ahead. The museum can also organize tours of the area where Tubman lived and toiled. The museum is usually open Tuesday through Friday, 12-3pm, and Saturday, 12-4pm. There is no admission fee but donations are welcome.
Film and Writing Festival for Comedy. Showcasing best of comedy short films at the FEEDBACK Film Festival. Plus, showcasing best of comedy novels, short stories, poems, screenplays (TV, short, feature) at the festival performed by professional actors.
Illustration by Sam Whitney/The New York Times; photographs by Ralf Geithe and Image Source, via Getty Images
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Image by Mykyta Dolmatov/Getty Images
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Up and at them
Photo: Sukrita Rungroj (Shutterstock)
Photo: W+G Creative
