Simone Biles’ Gravity-Defying Moves Almost Didn’t Happen
Simone Biles competes in the floor exercise at the 2019 US Gymnastics Championships.Charlie Riedel/AP Welcome to Recharge, a weekly newsletter full of stories that will energize your inner hellraiser. See more editions and sign up here. She had taken time off. She finished fourth on Dancing With the Stars. Her coach since age 7 had…
Lana Del Rey’s “Looking for America” Is a Dream for an America Without Mass Shootings
Panoramic/ZUMA “I’m still looking for my own version of America, one without the gun, where the flag can freely fly. No bombs in the sky, only fireworks when you and I collide, it’s just a dream I had in mind,” sings Lana Del Rey as she opens up the chorus on her newest track, “Looking…
Change the Policies Around Red Flag Laws, Not the Labels
Protesters hold a rally against gun violence in response to recent mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio.Karla Ann Cote/NurPhoto via Getty In the aftermath of consecutive atrocities in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, the grim compilation of mass gun death has so consumed our national attention that it’s easy to overlook…
David Berman Treated Ennui Seriously Enough to Make It Into a Joke
Edd Westmacott / Getty David Berman, who died Wednesday at the age of 52, was most famous as the frontman of the band Silver Jews. He wrote with a cheeky melancholia that brought him a certain kind of fame throughout the 1990s and 2000s. Some of his lyrics were infused with an offbeat surrealism that…
“This Shithole Made Me”: 4 Extremely Online Writers on How the Internet Broke Our Brains and How We Can Unbreak Them
Jasu Hu Can the very online ever unplug? An entire cottage industry has sprung up around this particular anxiety: everything from offline vacations and “digital detox” apps to books about how we might uncouple ourselves from an economic order in which our very attention is a commodity. Mother Jones put the question to four writers…
A Racist Mass Killer Wasn’t Going to Stop an Off-Duty Soldier From Saving Kids’ Lives
Glendon Oakley Jr., whose heroic instincts saved lives during the mass shooting at the mall in El Paso, Texas, on August 3, 2019Courtesy of Glendon Oakley Jr. and Task & Purpose Welcome to Recharge, a weekly newsletter full of stories that will energize your inner hellraiser. See more editions and sign up here. Recently back…