Slate Picks

What Happened at Slate This Week? A Weekly Roundup From Slate Staff.

Senior editor Dan Kois shares highlights from the past week, as well as what he considers the “wrongest piece in the history of Slate.”

Hello, Slate Plus members! We’re going to send you a weekly letter from a Slate staffer giving you a little bit of a roundup on who we are and what Slate’s been up to. This week, your guest editor is … me!

I’m Dan Kois. I’m a Capricorn. I work at Slate D.C., where my office is right next to Weigel’s and across from Dobson’s, so I am like a lonely bastion of Culture among all the philistines of D.C. (Just kidding, Weigel watches more movies than me.) I came to Slate in 2009 from my basement, where I worked as a freelance writer, and before that from New York magazine, where I was a founder of the Vulture blog.

My association with Slate is long and proud; the first freelance article I ever got paid for was in Slate, in 2004, when I quit/was fired from a job in book publishing and I was like, Screw this, I am gonna WRITE. It was an incisive, crucial Explainer answering the question “Does peeing on your hands really make them tougher?” Now 10 years later I edit our TV coverage and the Slate Book Review, plus other culture stuff. I also host the Audio Book Club and co-host Mom and Dad Are Fighting. And I’ve been the editorial lead on Slate Plus, helping Jennifer and Jeff make all this sweet content.

This week at Slate was marked by the official launch of Slate Plus. We were in beta for the last few weeks, but now we’re real. (I think the term is “gamma” now, right tech people?!) I spent all of Monday commenting madly on Plotz’s official Slate Plus welcome, which I hope you checked out.

But I also edited regular Slate pieces this week! Here’s a piece I ran, reprinted from our friends at Orion magazine, about the amazing new plans to revitalize the New York and New Jersey shorelines, post-Sandy, using oysters and sand dunes and other methods of letting nature take the coast back.

Here’s the most important piece Slate ran all week.

This TV Club on Sally and Don in the second episode of Mad Men is the piece this week I agree with the most.

Here’s the piece on Slate this week whose argument I most strongly disagree with.

Here’s the wrongest piece in the history of Slate, now and forever, forever and ever, amen.

Thank you for being a member of Slate Plus! I am thrilled that we have such active, engaged, passionate readers, and honored that you guys want to spend some money on us. I hope you continue to enjoy your Slate Plus membership for months. No, years! Jeff and Jennifer told me to say “years.”

As always, email Jeff and Jennifer at plus@slate.com if you have any questions or concerns or suggestions. And thanks again!

-Dan