Since August, the same sports-journalism scandal has occurred twice. First, an Internet firestorm arose when The Chicago Tribune tweeted the following: “Wife of a Bears’ lineman wins a bronze medal today in Rio Olympics.” Feminists, already exasperated by numerous previous instances of sexist Olympic coverage, took the newspaper to task for identifying an accomplished woman…

On Aug. 31, at the American Legion’s national convention in Cincinnati, Hillary Clinton gave a 35-minute speech that I wish I could quote in its entirety. Its subject was the strictly magical doctrine of “American exceptionalism”—a concept that, rather than merely celebrating our nation’s uniqueness, attributes to the United States an inherent righteousness upon which…

In August, the musician Frank Ocean self-distributed a 366-page zine called “Boys Don’t Cry.” Alongside photography and poetry, the zine (an album release tie-in) made room for an unannotated list of Frank Ocean’s 100 favorite movies—although it wasn’t numbered, so the only way you would know that he’d aimed for a round sum was if…

People in their late 20s and early 30s are able to determine which of their peers are attempting to become “real adults” by checking for an array of telltale signs: a marriage, a mortgage, a Costco membership, a firm support for the pragmatic politics of Hillary Clinton. For the past decade, there has perhaps been…

By implicitly encouraging “the Second Amendment people” to assassinate presidential rival Hillary Clinton—lest she appoint Supreme Court justices who would take away their right to bear arms—Donald Trump has produced one more opportunity for Democrats to condemn him on purely moral grounds. This has been one of the Democrats’ primary messages during the election season—that,…

It was reported last week that George Zimmerman, the infamous neighborhood watch coordinator who was acquitted of second-degree murder in 2013, was punched in the face inside a bar in Sanford, Fla, after bragging about the 2012 incident in which he shot and killed the unarmed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. Zimmerman was not badly hurt in…

Because the bloated incoherent March blockbuster “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” was the worst Batman movie in history, and because DC Films has saddled us with Zack Snyder’s increasingly braindead direction through at least 2019, and because for the first time since 1993 an animated Batman movie—“Batman: The Killing Joke”—was just released theatrically (albeit…

By Brett Yates On July 21, from the stage at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, the libertarian billionaire Peter Thiel proclaimed before a crowd of fellow Donald Trump supporters that he is “proud to be gay”—an unprecedented event at a Republican National Convention. Later that night, Trump himself vowed to protect “our LGBTQ community,” a…

When Tim Duncan announced his retirement from basketball in characteristically low-key fashion on July 11, sportswriters launched into the appropriate rhapsodies about the five-time NBA champion’s mastery in the post, the perfection of his bank shot, his defense, his longevity, his consistency, his modesty, and the winning culture of steady, unflappable efficiency that his selfless,…

Ever since I found out that 2016 would include an extra second—as announced on July 6 by the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service—I’ve been planning what to do with all the extra time I’ve now got on my hands. Since 1972, “ leap seconds ” have been added to certain years so that…

I write this column on my younger brother’s 20th birthday—happy birthday, Zach! For me, naturally, this occasion of my younger brother’s aging out of adolescence has led, with predictably anxious self-centeredness, to reflections on my own increasingly ancient status within a youth culture with which I still sort of identify: I’m old enough now to…

Most of the young couples I know who have recently gotten married lived together for a couple years before becoming engaged. For two people who have cohabitated romantically for an extended period of time, their daily routine no different from that of a traditional married couple, does marriage make their lives together significantly different in…

A serious question: is it possible in modern society to attend a social gathering without having to listen to a conversation about the latest episode of “Game of Thrones?” Am I the only person whose heart sinks at the inevitable moment in the evening when the conversation turns away from celebrity gossip, sports, politics, or…

By Brett Yates At the end of primary season, politicians who initially opposed their party’s nominee are forced either by fear of the other party’s nominee or by a need to preserve their own standing within their party to fall in line and endorse a candidate whose views they may find at least partly abhorrent.…

Recently, a Facebook friend posted some clickbait from The Atlantic called “A Dialogue With a 22-Year-Old Donald Trump Supporter.” In my prone-to-distraction feebleness, I actually read the whole piece, in which the reporter Conor Friedersdorf exchanged messages with a white yuppie who, though a college-educated resident of the San Francisco Bay Area and engaged to…