Essays
The Ghost in my Netflix Account
“I explain that our Netflix login info should not be given out willy-nilly to young actors with excellent cheekbones, but I will nonetheless accept Trevor into our Netflix family.”
The Real Purpose of Secret Hillary Facebook Groups
“Over 200 years later, while women now have the right to participate in the public sphere through voting and running for office and serving on juries, the act of speaking freely in the public sphere continues to be the one that gets us into the most trouble.”
Can the ERA Pass in Our Lifetime?
“It has always required a big passionate full-hearted push from dedicated advocates with awakened souls. At the same time, the work of getting it into the Constitution has been a tedious series of committee hearings and court dates and small meetings of like-minded women making signs while they drank coffee.”
Fearing Fox News, Democratic-leaning Companies Delayed Negative Announcements
"Fox News Channel had spread rapidly by the 2000 presidential election, its expansion fueled by the wealth accrued by Murdoch and his wildly successful media empire. The speed and breadth of this growth provided economic researchers with a natural experiment to explore the impact of a specific media source on the business landscape."
Trump and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad First 100 Days
Interview with Amy Siskind
"The rising swamp of blatant kleptocracy belches up shady pay-offs and Trump informercials delivered at the presidential podium. Government agencies are handed over to hangmen, Nazis stalk the Oval Office, and the president rattles his little saber, all while the GOP whistles Dixie."
Pressure
"I’d leave the house at 10PM, arrive around 11, then dance until I couldn’t anymore. Frequently, I’d walk out into the gray light of dawn, and would join people on the subway who were heading to work. I’d wear silk pajamas to the club, so I could crawl right into bed when I got home."
Would Our Lives Be Different If the ERA Hadn't Been Defeated?
"We still need the ERA, as a guarantee of the rights we’ve gained, and as a tool to further expand rights, but significant progress was achieved without it. The ratification of the ERA would not be merely a symbolic gesture, but Schlafly’s defeat of it was."
Yes, Hillary's Nomination For President Really Is a Big Effin' Deal
"Women engage in war planning and violent engagements. They now serve (openly) as soldiers. They are police officers, and doctors, and heads of state. They make the hard choices that only men used to get the opportunity to make. We lose the option to be innocent and unsullied if we choose to engage in the world. That is the trade-off."
Katy Perry, Showing My Daughter That Breasts Can Be Fun
"Katy seems surprised and delighted by the body she has, and the things she can make it do. 'Look at these breasts I have! Aren’t they fun and kind of crazy? I’m going to shoot fireworks out of them now.'”
Consent of the Governed
Speech from the Massachusetts Rally Against the War on Women
"When we talk about the American Revolution, we tend to focus on the battles, and the whites of their eyes. We're less keen to discuss all the meetings the people building our country had to attend. Tedious meetings that went on for hours and hours over the course of YEARS while people bickered over the wording of every document produced."
A Wonderful Surprise
Huffington Post -Guest Post on Rebecca Walker's blog
"We had been thinking of getting married for a while, but in a theoretical, 'wouldn't it be nice' way. The cells rapidly dividing in my abdomen made the plans urgent and tangible."
Matineer
Movie reviews for Neal Pollack's Offsprung
NBER Digest
I occasionally write digests of National Bureau of Economic Research papers for their monthly digest newsletter.
Managers' Bias and Workers' Job Performance
The NBER Digest — National Bureau of Economic Research
"Using the store-tracked performance metrics, the researchers found that minority cashiers performed worse under biased than under unbiased managers, while the performance of non-minority cashiers was not affected by manager bias."
Does 'Gift Exchange' Increase Charitable Giving?
The NBER Digest — National Bureau of Economic Research
"The most surprising finding was that nearly two-thirds of those who donated to the appeal and were offered a gift opted to accept it. 'This provides evidence that donors are not motivated by the desire to maximize the impact of their donation, which could be thought of as a more altruistic motivation,' the researchers conclude."
1776 Was More About Representation than Taxation
The NBER Digest — National Bureau of Economic Research
"The political underpinnings of the American Revolution have been discussed and debated for more than two hundred years, and there are multiple explanations of the causes and multiple analyses of the revolutionary dynamic. One question about the revolution that has remained difficult to answer is why, if a little representation in Parliament could have prevented a war for independence, did King George III not grant it?"
Sermons
Every once in a while, I deliver a sermon.
All Men Would Be Tyrants
Delivered August 21, 2016, at the First Church of Belmont, Unitarian-Universalist
"There is still forbidden fruit to be plucked from the trees."
A Room to Swear In
Adapted from my 2001 sermon, Weaving. Delivered at the First Parish in Belmont, Massachusetts, Unitarian Universalist on August 9, 2015
"In this country, some of us get to be White. Which has been primarily defined as being 'not Black.' There were rules we’ve had to follow since the Jazz Age: we don’t have rhythm, we don’t dance 'dirty', we clap on the 1 and 3 instead of the 2 and 4. But the White clothes get itchy and they don’t always fit right. Little Richard sold more records than Pat Boone, Elvis’ pelvis was still moving beneath the edge of the TV screen, white girls were carried out of Beatles concerts on stretchers, weak from syncopation and sex appeal."