Chester Bennington is gone and I’ve been thinking all week about what it means for someone who kept so many people from committing suicide to have themselves committed suicide. It’s sort of unfathomable, in its way, like the way the world works is broken, like glue...
New vegetarians always jump straight for the soy. All those trendy-looking meat-substitute packages pop from supermarket refrigerators, perkily promising to taste, well… just like chicken. Some of them do, but a lot of them are just terrible—bland, mealy, or just...
We tend to give “100% cotton” a thumbs up when we see it on T-shirt tags. Intuitively, cotton feels better: it’s natural and socially associated with quality. Polyester, on the other hand, gets a thumbs down: it’s plastic, manufactured, uses fossil fuels, and tacky....
I believe that certain people who have done special evil in this life end up in a particular compartment of Hell where they have to live in New York City and move apartments every few months. They are forced to do so on tiny, unreliable incomes with flaky, unreliable...
As a vegetarian, I have always shunned leather and opted instead for cheaper pleather alternatives when shopping for shoes or jackets. I paid fractions of the price for similar-looking products and got to congratulate myself on my eco-friendly purchase. Unfortunately,...
“I’d love to eat organic, but it’s such a rip off. It’s too expensive. Who can afford that?” Anyone who has gone shopping in an American grocery store has noticed the price difference between organic and conventional products. It’s a very real price gap: USDA data for...
I’d love to have an annual Citibike membership. At $149, they break down to just over $15 a month if you don’t ride at all from December through February, and even less if you bike year-round. I spend nearly that much every month on unlimited Metrocards (which cost...
Though the media may have washed its hands of Occupy Wall Street, the movement lives on through Occupy Madison and the Tiny House Movement. Four years ago a loose collection of activists founded the Occupy Wall Street movement, and similar protests appeared around the...
For many, Uber has turned out to be a disaster. It was a great idea: push a button, get a cab, and pay less through supply-and-demand pricing. Some riders love Uber and use the service frequently, but others have been injured or assaulted and left unprotected. Drivers...
The newest tool in the battle against HIV/AIDS has just entered the global playing field. Truvada is the first FDA-approved HIV prevention drug. It has been used in conjunction with other medications to treat diagnosed HIV for years, but was approved as a preventative...