O pioneer: Chuck Berry, who died Saturday, both invented and perfected rock ’n’ roll, Jack Hamilton argues. Berry’s greatest genius was “his ability to write songs about being black in America that could double as allegories for being a teenager in America.”
Supreme controversy: Confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Neal Gorsuch began Monday. Dahlia Lithwick argues that Democrats should focus on the way Gorsuch privileges religious people’s beliefs above others. And Mark Joseph Stern argues that Gorsuch’s chauvinism, reflected in blithe comments about pregnant women exploiting corporate maternity benefits, underlies much of his jurisprudence.
Silence or deportation: The U.S. has long protected immigrant victims of abuse through the U visa, a safe path to citizenship intended to encourage undocumented people to report serious crimes. Nora Caplan-Bricker spoke to dozens of lawyers, advocates, and immigrants and learned that, with Trump’s deportation force gearing up, victims are increasingly choosing to face violence rather than go to the authorities.
Down with tolerance: “Intolerant” has become an effective slur aimed at the political left. But is tolerance a goal in and of itself? Alan Levinovitz argues that defending truth and decency sometimes requires us to abandon tolerance.
For fun: We asked a psychic spy if the CIA astrally projected to Mars in 1984.
Considering a career in psychoenergetics,
Molly
