Author: Lance Garrison

Frank Bruni, a contributing Opinion writer, hosted a written online conversation with the politics writers Joe Klein and Olivia Nuzzi to discuss the state of the likely Biden-Trump race, this week’s State of the Union address and the state of possible third-party threats.Frank Bruni: Olivia, Joe, I’m so psyched to be doing this with two journalists I so hugely admire. This conversation appears on Super Tuesday, which means we’re fully, terrifyingly deep into the presidential election season — and I can’t shake the sense that it’s over, at least the part where we know the nominees. Am I bowing too…

The Republican Party doesn’t like to talk about identity. And that has been on full display throughout Nikki Haley’s primary campaign.But Michelle Cottle, an Opinion writer and a co-host of the “Matter of Opinion” podcast, thinks that the party’s tendency to avoid identity politics at all costs, especially gender, may be alienating parts of the electorate. In this audio essay, Michelle argues that despite Haley’s historic run (as the first woman to ever win a Republican presidential primary), the G.O.P. isn’t on a path to elevating more women in the party any time soon.(A full transcript of this audio essay…

My dad and I were once invincible dominoes partners, I was his frente, and he was my compiche, my wingman. When the domino table materialized at that time of the night at our family parties, he scanned the room looking for me until we locked eyes. I am not competitive, but I was driven to win, if only to see the fire in his eyes. The thrill of the domino smack on the table, as my soft-spoken papi yelled “Capicuá!” — he just knew he killed it.We are not close in the way some families are. We don’t tell each…

I write this as a great admirer of First Lady Jill Biden. As the presidential election grows nearer, I cannot help but think that she must be more and more conflicted. The choice she faces — promoting her husband’s political ambitions or protecting his legacy — can no longer be avoided.Having worked closely with Nancy Reagan during her husband’s first term, and seeing how she weighed choices like this one, I’ve found myself wondering if Mrs. Reagan were in Dr. Biden’s position, what advice would she have given to Ronald Reagan? Nancy was both a sounding board and guardian of…

Produced by ‘The Ezra Klein Show’Marilynne Robinson is one of the great living novelists. She has won a Pulitzer Prize and a National Humanities Medal, and Barack Obama took time out of his presidency to interview her at length. Her fiction is suffused with a sense of holiness: Mundane images like laundry drying on a line seem to be illuminated by a divine force. Whether she’s telling the story of a pastor confronting his mortality in “Gilead” or two sisters coming of age in small-town Idaho in “Housekeeping,” her novels wrestle with theological questions of what it means to be…

A good friend of mine, when talking about the New York dating landscape that led her to choose single motherhood, often refers to Adelle Waldman’s 2013 novel, “The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P.” An unromantic comedy, the book is a note-perfect depiction of Obama-era literary Brooklyn and the Ivy-educated cads who think of themselves as sensitive and enlightened even as they treat women as disposable.It was a big hit, making lots of year-end best-of lists and inspiring a bunch of way-we-live-now essays, themselves relics of a bygone time when elite culture was coherent enough to have zeitgeist-defining novels.But instead of…

Tired of living with a stuffy nose, postnasal drip, sinus infections, facial pain, poor sense of smell, and the other symptoms that come with nasal polyps? It’s time to seek treatment.“There are a full array of treatments available for nasal polyps,” says Cecelia Damask, DO, an ear, nose, and throat specialist in Lake Mary, FL.Your doctor can create a treatment plan that aims to shrink or eliminate these noncancerous growths in your nostrils and sinus cavities, allowing you to breathe easier.These are the most common medications used to treat nasal polyps:Topical steroids: This is usually the first treatment doctors recommend…

Bruce Black is no stranger to sinus trouble. He’s had it for much of his adult life, thanks to hay fever, asthma, and nasal polyps.Nasal polyps are teardrop-shaped growths that can form anywhere in your nose or sinuses. They aren’t cancer, but can wreak havoc on your nasal passages.Black’s first surgery to remove nasal polyps was 20 years ago. Since then, the Harrod, OH, man has been on a cycle of sinus infections, polyps, and surgery every few years.He had his seventh nasal polyp operation in 2021.“My lower sinuses were fine, but I had polyps growing in my upper sinuses…

First, there’s a striking double standard in the ways politicians are allowed to talk about different regions of America. Voters from rural states often complain about not getting enough respect, but can you imagine the reaction if, say, the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, were to describe Alabama — which in 2021 had an extraordinarily high rate of firearm mortality — as a place where everyone runs around shooting one another and themselves?Second, and more important, I’m always struck by the extent to which today’s right-wing politics is driven by a grim, dystopian image of America,…

If you have depression, antidepressants and talk therapy could be part of your treatment plan. Antidepressants modify levels of serotonin and other chemicals in your brain. They can be an effective way to relieve sadness and other depression symptoms, but only if you take them. What often happens is [people] just stop taking their medication. They don’t refill their prescription, And they don’t think to come back. Jo Anne Sirey, PhD Talk therapy can help you work through what’s troubling you and keep you from running things in your mind over and over.The most effective treatment plan will combine medication…