I got to read and review Ross Douthat's memoir of Lyme disease, The Deep Places for National Review. The book is thought-provoking and unsettling. It is as much about how …
Lyme and Literacy in Suffering
I got to read and review Ross Douthat's memoir of Lyme disease, The Deep Places for National Review. The book is thought-provoking and unsettling. It is as much about how to endure suffering as how to address medical mysteries. In some ways, Douthat’s striving for a cure is a transposition of the same meritocratic story… Read More
Black Widow, Gymnasts, and How We Use Girls
I saw Black Widow just before the beginning of the Tokyo Olympics, and, as I wrote at The Bulwark, the juxtaposition was an uncomfortable one. The story of the girls reshaped and thrown away by the Red Room trainers isn’t so different from the story of USA Gymnastics over the last decade. With the Summer… Read More
Penance and Public Shaming
I was glad to get the chance to make my Bulwark debut with an essay on a question I've been wrestling with for some time: "What do we do with people who have committed a wrong that they themselves cannot put right?" Cycles of public shaming ebb and flow through our public discourse. Some implicate… Read More
Government Should Fail More
At The Week, I have a reflection on watching SpaceX crash rockets with my daughter and the price we pay for expecting perfection in public policy. Musk's riches allow him to comfortably risk his money. But these more adventurous investments should be made by the government, too. I want to see more failures of government… Read More
Paid Family Leave Should Cover Miscarriage
New Zealand unanimously passed a law requiring three days of bereavement leave for parents who lose a child through miscarriage. I wrote a piece for the Institute for Family Studies on why I think this kind of leave is sorely needed. Parents who lose a child through miscarriage can have their grief dismissed. When my… Read More
Making Mothers Count in Medicine
At Capita, I've written an appreciation of doulas. My daughter was born with the help and support of a close friend who was training as a doula. That experience left me grateful for Bria... and furious her work was considered "extra" to medicine. A medical system that ignores the value of doulas leaves a lot… Read More
Why Pro-Life Catholics Should Get Vaccinated
In The New York Times, I made the case for pro-life Catholics to get covid vaccines, despite their dependence on cell lines derived from aborted children. Even people who are comfortable with the vaccines need to grapple with the question of how we make amends for our material cooperation with evil. I’ve gotten both my… Read More
The Cautionary Tale of WandaVision
WandaVision is an ambitious offering from the Marvel Industrial Complex, but it falls short of its potential. I reviewed the show for Mere Orthodoxy (in a way I hope was comprehensible even to non-watchers!). The show is ultimately about the consequences of the stories we tell about our lives. The show uses the heightened style… Read More
Game Design with Questing Beast
My husband Alexi and I were guests on Questing Beast for a discussion of game design and storytelling. I really enjoyed the conversation, particularly when we talked about how social conflict in incorporated into a game's mechanics. A more freeform game can turn on the player's quick-thinking, rather than the character's. We talked a bit… Read More
How The Government Wasted Our Pandemic Sacrifices
In my first piece for The Week, I'm discussing why the lack of high-quality masks is our pandemic failures in miniature. Throughout the pandemic, Americans have made extraordinary sacrifices to slow the spread of the virus. We haven't been unequal to the disaster, but our leaders' lapses have left people filling in the gaps of… Read More