Author: Lance Garrison
To the Editor:Re “$3 Billion Later, Where’s the (Planet-Saving, Lab-Grown) Beef?,” by Joe Fassler (Opinion guest essay, Feb. 11):In his extensively reported piece, Mr. Fassler pulls back the curtain on cultivated meat. The hard sell for lab-grown meat has always sounded more like Theranos-style spin than feasible innovation, and Mr. Fassler’s reporting certainly gives that impression. So where does that leave us?The industrial meat industry takes a terrible toll on the planet and animal welfare, and cultivated meat enthusiasts have long argued the only alternative is to provide consumers with facsimiles of the real stuff.In the essay, one alt-meat die-hard…
Does the West have a double standard when it comes to Israel, pouncing on everything it does with undue harshness?When he was challenged about the bloodshed in Gaza on “Face the Nation” last weekend, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel responded, “What would America do” after something like the Oct. 7 Hamas attack? “Would you not be doing what Israel is doing? You’d be doing a hell of a lot more.”Rabbi Marvin Hier in The Jerusalem Post condemned “an unprecedented double standard” that relentlessly criticizes Israel’s bombing of Gaza but is unbothered by the Allied bombing of civilians in Germany…
When the United States and its Middle Eastern allies went to war against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, there was nothing clean or surgical about the campaign.Retaking Mosul from the Islamic State’s fighters, a struggle that ran from the fall of 2016 through the following summer, left between 9,000 and 11,000 inhabitants of the city dead, according to an Associated Press report, with about a third killed by the U.S.-led coalition and Iraqi air bombardments. Many of those victims were simply described as “crushed” in the subsequent medical reports.In 2021, my colleagues at this newspaper reported on a…
As the House member who spearheaded Mr. Trump’s first impeachment, who played a key role in the Jan. 6 select committee and who has served as a top Trump critic on cable news, Mr. Schiff has been vilified across the MAGAverse. He has earned no fewer than three puerile nicknames from the former president: Pencil Neck, Liddle’ Adam Schiff and, my favorite, Shifty Schiff. More seriously, House Republicans booted him from the intelligence committee early last year and later censured him for his role in the Russia investigation, claiming he advanced politically motivated lies about Mr. Trump that endangered national…
I slipped away from this nightmarish election campaign into a delicious dream the other evening. I dreamed that, when Joe Biden gets up to reset his beleaguered presidency at the State of the Union address, he gives this astonishing speech:Mr. Speaker. Man, Mike Johnson was a nobody just weeks ago — now he’s Neville Chamberlain. Madam Vice President. Oy.Our first lady — you hottie! And our second gentleman. Members of Congress, leaders of our military, justices of the Supreme Court. And you, my fellow Americans.My report is this: The state of my mental competency is strong. And the union’s OK,…
By Sarah AmandolareWith vast forestland, suburban developments, and urban high-rises alike burning in recent months and years, it can feel as if few places in the U.S. are safe from fire. Around the world, experts warn that fires are a worsening global crisis. In the United States, 8% more fires broke out in 2020, compared to 2019, killing an estimated 3,500 people and injuring 15,200.Legislators, local communities, and nonprofit organizations have all rushed to help in the aftermath. California residents created mobile food pantries for people displaced by the 2021 Dixie Fire. The Red Cross and corporate donors are spearheading…
Heitner pointed out that although artificial intelligence adds a new dimension, kids have been passing around digital sexual images without consent for years. According to a 2018 meta-analysis from JAMA Pediatrics, among children in the 12 to 17 age range, “The prevalence of forwarding a sext without consent was 12.0 percent,” and “and the prevalence of having a sext forwarded without consent was 8.4 percent.”In her book, Heitner offers an example in which an eighth-grade girl sends a topless photo to her boyfriend, who circulates it to his friends without her permission. After they broke up, but without her knowledge,…
After a routine iPhone update, a new Journal app recently appeared. Intrigued, I tapped it, which led to the instruction “Enable journaling suggestions.” If I agreed, my phone promised to give prompts like “Take a moment to write about something special in your life you’ve been taking for granted” and “Take a look around you and take a picture of something you’ve overlooked. What do you notice about it?”Apple is attempting to lure me into the world of Journaling 2.0, complete with the help of artificial intelligence. The app promises meaningful reflection, apparently gleaned from my phone usage, that I…
For weeks now, red flag warnings from the National Weather Service indicating elevated wildfire risk have been popping up all across the United States — from the Mexican border to the Great Lakes and the Florida panhandle. Similar warnings are appearing north of the Canadian border. On Feb. 20, the province of Alberta, the Texas-size petro-state above Montana, declared the official start to fire season. This was nearly two weeks earlier than last year, and six weeks earlier than a couple of decades ago. Alberta is in the heart of Canada, a famously cold and snowy place, and yet some…
Last year in the middle of a crowded party, Constance Marie, a seasoned television actress known for her longtime role on George Lopez and, most recently, Hulu’s How I Met Your Father, stood chatting with friends when a woman approached her, flushed and slightly bashful. But the partygoer wasn’t there to ask the actress for an autograph. She wanted advice. “She said, ‘I’m so sorry, you don’t know me, but I’m having hot flashes, and your friend said that if anyone here would know what to tell me, it would be you.’ I said, ‘Girl, I’m an open book. Let’s talk about this.’” Marie…