Mark Leviton
Mark Leviton lives in Roseville, California, where he listens to Bob Dylan, reads George Orwell, and consumes bagels, cream cheese, and smoked salmon like there’s no tomorrow.
The Whole Truth
Richard A. Leo On Why Innocent People Confess To Crimes
Once the police come to the conclusion that someone committed the crime, they are trained to interrogate. At that point their goal isn’t to gather information; it’s to build a case against the person they’ve already decided is guilty. They want to get a confession.
July 2017Misdiagnosed And Misunderstood
Steve Silberman On The Mysteries Of Autism
People often ask if I believe autism is overdiagnosed, if we’re just slapping a label on geeky kids who in previous generations would have been considered merely eccentric. I reply that I believe autism is still underdiagnosed in two groups: women and people of color. The cultural and class bias built into the diagnostic process was so pervasive in the 1980s that psychologist Victor Sanua claimed that autism is rare among families of color. The reality was that people of color often didn’t get decent healthcare.
March 2017To Have And To Hold
Stephanie Coontz On The Past, Present, And Future Of Marriage
One quality that helps a marriage work is when partners respect each other and are each grateful for what the other brings to the relationship. Relationships run on an economy of gratitude. And if your partner needs to change his or her behavior, it’s important to ask for that change without attributing bad motives to the behavior. When you do argue, or when your partner gets angry, look for the soft emotion under the hard one and talk to that. A belief in the goodwill of the other person is critical.
September 2016Righteous Babe
Ani DiFranco On Music, Politics, And Staying Independent
You have to practice tuning out the noise of the culture to hear the messages transmitted from your gut and your heart. You have to become like a bird-watcher and be vigilant and develop the skills to spot and name the quick flash of awareness in yourself.
May 2016The Kids Are All Right
David Lancy Questions Our Assumptions About Parenting
Parenting trends are less about what’s good for the child and more about parents’ need for affirmation. The message of my work is that parents have far less impact than they think they do.
February 2016Great Expectations
Jennifer Senior On Modern Parenthood And Its Discontents
I was amazed to read about the New York City newsboys’ strike in 1899, which ultimately improved conditions and raised wages. You had these armies of seven-, eight-, and nine-year-olds bringing the entire newspaper business to its knees. They organized and won. Today we don’t even let our nine-year-olds go on the subway by themselves.
November 2015Beyond Their Years
Linda Kreger Silverman On Understanding Gifted Children
We say children are gifted when their intellectual ability is advanced beyond their age. A four-year-old girl who can pass all the items on an IQ test that an eight-year-old is expected to be able to do would obtain an IQ score in the 200 range. Children who are developmentally advanced are out of sync with their peers, and also out of sync with the expectations of teachers and parents, which leads to vulnerability. They need individualized education and counselors who understand how to work with these children.
May 2015Dangerous Love
Reverend Lynice Pinkard On The Revolutionary Act Of Living The Gospels
For me, churches exist only to serve people and planet. The church is not an empire, a way for leaders to build monuments to themselves, for congregants to take pride in the curb appeal that a lovely edifice affords. The church is not a building. The church is an extension of Christ — literally Christ’s body — and an alternative to the militaristic, consumerist, alienated way of life that has become the norm.
October 2014A More Perfect Union
Esther Perel on Intimacy, Infidelity, and Desire in Long Term Relationships
People come to me because their spouse isn’t making them happy. I don’t think any of our grandparents would have considered that a reason to seek therapy. A passionate relationship in which we ask for novelty and mystery from the same person we look to for security and stability — that is a grand new invention in the history of humankind.
December 2013Wrong Turn
Biologist Rupert Sheldrake On How Science Lost Its Way
I suggest that morphogenetic fields work by imposing patterns on otherwise random or indeterminate activity. Morphogenetic fields are not fixed forever, but evolve. The fields of Afghan hounds and poodles have become different from those of their common ancestors, wolves. How are these fields inherited? I propose that they are transmitted from past members of the species through a kind of nonlocal resonance, which I call “morphic resonance.”
February 2013
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