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☆ Cats vs. Dogs? Cats Are Better. - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2024-07-31 | by ( Pamela Paul | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +6 min

It’s not easy not being a dog person. I once moderated a conversation for The Times between Susan Orlean and Julie Klam, both authors of books about dogs. “Everybody who reads my book is a dog person,” Klam, whom I also profiled for her memoir, “You Had Me at Woof,” said at one point. The very bad date in the story “Cat Person” has, of course, two cats. By contrast, I could see the appeal of dogs if they didn’t need to be trained, didn’t bark, didn’t need to be walked, didn’t shed, didn’t smell, didn’t require washing or grooming.

Persons: Susan Orlean, Julie Klam, ” Klam, “, ”, Tim Kreider, Bachelorhood, Guy, Glen Powell’s, Gary, He’s, JD Vance, Kamala Harris, ” Tommy Tomlinson, Mark Twain, Lovewright, Lore Segal Organizations: intuit Locations: people’s, Woof

☆ Opinion | The Debate Over Gender-Affirming Care
▼ + stars: | 2024-07-31 | by ( ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Gender Care Is Ignoring Science,” by Pamela Paul (column, July 14):I appreciated the depth and thoughtfulness of Ms. Paul’s column. But as the mother of a trans daughter, I question her conclusion that the evidence is against gender-affirming care, given the confusing mix of information, research, opinion and anecdotes swirling around the issue. We have been through years of family counseling, and she has continued with an individual counselor as well. Now 10, she has expressed to me and my husband extreme distress at the idea of going through puberty as a boy. Since we live in a state that does not allow puberty blockers, we have begun the process of trying to find her care elsewhere.

Persons: Pamela Paul, Paul Locations: U.S

☆ The Republican Party’s Problem With the Elite Begins With Its Own - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2024-07-25 | by ( Pamela Paul | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

“I’m, like, a smart person,” he boasted on one occasion. “I went to an Ivy League college, I was a nice student,” he said on another. On the left, people think emphasizing intellect and elite schools betrays unfair advantage in a multiple-intelligences, equitable-outcome world. On the right, your average MAGA Joe bristles at anyone who comes across as a coastal elite or too smart for his own good. In MAGA world, glorified ignorance actually serves as a qualification for higher office (see: Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene), empowering more effective rage against “the liberal elite” and “the ruling class.”

Persons: Donald Trump, “, ”, “ liddle ’, ” Trump, MAGA Joe, MAGA, Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene Organizations: Ivy League

☆ Democrats Need Their Own Project 2025 - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2024-07-17 | by ( Pamela Paul | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

As far as campaign slogans go, President Biden’s oft-repeated phrase “Finish the job” isn’t exactly galvanizing. “Finish the job” is a patient gardener determinedly clipping away at that final hedge. The domestic and global situation Biden inherited from the Trump administration has changed radically, with significant economic, technological, environmental and global political developments that are only accelerating. Biden continues to say “We need to do more,” but what he hasn’t said is more what. But tying up loose ends on Biden’s first term isn’t enough to rouse Democrats, independents and Never Trump Republicans, regardless of whether Biden is the party’s candidate.

Persons: Biden’s, hunched, Biden, Trump, hasn’t Organizations: Never Trump Republicans, Democratic Party, Heritage Foundation, Trumpism

☆ Why Is the U.S. Pretending to Know Gender-Affirming Care Works? - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2024-07-12 | by ( Pamela Paul | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Imagine a comprehensive review of research on a treatment for children found “remarkably weak evidence” that it was effective. Now imagine the medical establishment shrugged off the conclusions and continued providing the same unproven and life-altering treatment to its young patients. It’s been three months since the release of the Cass Review, an independent assessment of gender treatment for youths commissioned by England’s National Health Service. Nor, she said, is there clear evidence that transitioning kids decreases the likelihood that gender dysphoric youths will turn to suicide, as adherents of gender-affirming care claim. Scandinavian countries have been moving away from the gender-affirming model for the past few years.

Persons: It’s, Dr, Hilary Cass, person’s, ”, ” Cass, Reem Alsalem Organizations: Cass, England’s National Health Service, Cass Review, United Nations Locations: United States, Germany, France, Switzerland, Scotland, Netherlands, Belgium

☆ Opinion | An Aversion to Political Protests
▼ + stars: | 2024-07-08 | by ( ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

To the Editor:Re “No, I Don’t Want to Protest,” by Pamela Paul (column, June 21):I often enjoy Pamela Paul’s well-expressed and proud contrarian views. As Ms. Paul acknowledges, “we live in a country born of protest.” Was not the Revolutionary War our grand protest against Britain’s oppressive colonial rule? My guess is that Ms. Paul disapproves of the recent student encampments protesting Israel’s aggressive actions in Gaza. It is all well and good that Ms. Paul chooses not to join protesters — that is, of course, her right. She should take pains, though, to respect and perhaps even be impressed by the earnest Americans who decide for moral and/or political reasons to demonstrate for causes that may very well produce a better world.

Persons: Pamela Paul, Pamela Paul’s, Paul, “, ”, Martin Luther King, Jim Crow Locations: Gaza

☆ Opinion | Who You Calling Conservative?
▼ + stars: | 2024-06-27 | by ( Pamela Paul | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

You know you’ve touched a nerve with progressive activists when they tell you not just that you’re wrong but that you’re on the other side. Such is the fate of any old-school liberal or mainstream Democrat who deviates from progressive dogma. New York magazine’s liberal political columnist Jonathan Chait was accused of lending “legitimacy to a reactionary moral panic” for critiquing political correctness. But the goal and the effect is to narrow the focus of acceptable discourse by Democrats and their allies. If liberals are denounced for “punching left” when they express a reasonable difference of opinion, potentially winning ideas are banished.

Persons: Republican ”, it’s, Jonathan Chait, Nellie Bowles, ”, ” Meghan Daum Organizations: Republican Locations: New York

☆ Opinion | Jamaal Bowman Deserves to Lose
▼ + stars: | 2024-06-18 | by ( Pamela Paul | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

We’ve heard plenty about the outsize funding for Latimer, particularly from AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobbying group. Onstage, Bowman proudly cursed in a manner unbecoming to a public official. But let’s put aside money and manners. Let’s even put aside the war in Gaza, an issue on which the candidates strongly differ. (Latimer offers a centrist view broadly supportive of President Biden’s policy, while Bowman has taken a forceful pro-Palestinian stance.)

Persons: George Latimer, Jamaal Bowman, We’ve, Latimer, Bowman, ” We’ve, There’s, let’s, Biden’s Organizations: Congressional, Westchester County, Israel Locations: Tuesday’s, New York, Westchester, South Bronx, Gaza

☆ Opinion | The Joys and Perils of Return Travel
▼ + stars: | 2024-06-13 | by ( Pamela Paul | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Venice is one of those bucket-list places, a city so extraordinary you want to see it at least once. For those of us who love to travel, the question of whether to revisit a place you’ve been to before is a repeated conundrum. You go back to some places to see certain people or to visit in the company of new people. Whichever way, return travel is as much an act of time travel as it is a geographic one. You’ve changed and the place has changed.

Persons: I’d, You’ve, You’re Locations: Venice

☆ Opinion | A Warning on Social Media Is the Very Least We Can Do
▼ + stars: | 2024-06-12 | by ( Pamela Paul | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

You’re in the middle of a public health emergency involving a dangerously addictive substance — let’s say an epidemic of fentanyl or vaping among teens. Issue a warning. In the midst of a well-documented mental health crisis among children and teenagers, with social media use a clear contributing factor, the surgeon general, Dr. Vivek Murthy, recommends choice one. As he wrote in a Times Opinion guest essay on Monday, “It is time to require a surgeon general’s warning label on social media platforms, stating that social media is associated with significant mental health harms for adolescents.”It’s an excellent first step, but it’s a mere Band-Aid on a suppurating wound. We need to strongly regulate social media, as Europe has begun to do, and ban it for kids under 16.

Persons: “, Vivek Murthy, ”, Murthy Locations: Europe

☆ Opinion | And Now, a Real World Lesson for Student Activists
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-30 | by ( Pamela Paul | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The encampments have been cleared, campuses have emptied; protester and counterprotester alike have moved on to internships, summer gigs and in some cases, the start of their postgraduate careers. Leaving aside what impact, if any, the protests had on global events, let’s consider the more granular effect the protests will have on the protesters’ job prospects and future careers. A 2023 survey of Princeton seniors found that nearly 60 percent took jobs in finance, consulting, tech and engineering, up from 53 percent in 2016. A desire to protect future professional plans no doubt factored into the protesters’ cloaking themselves in masks and kaffiyehs. According to a recent report in The Times, “The fear of long-term professional consequences has also been a theme among pro-Palestine protesters since the beginning of the war.”

Persons: let’s, ” Organizations: Princeton, The Times, Palestine Locations: The

☆ Opinion | What Does Hollywood Owe Its Jewish Founders?
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-23 | by ( Pamela Paul | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The Jews who founded Hollywood — and make no mistake, the big studio heads were overwhelmingly Jewish — shared several things: ambition, creative vision and killer business instincts. But more than anything else, the men who were the driving forces behind Paramount, 20th Century Fox, Warner Brothers, Universal, Columbia and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer shared a very 20th-century sense of being Jewish in America. They were assimilationists who considered themselves American above all else and who molded Hollywood to reflect and shape their American ideals. Beyond a few brief mentions, including Billy Wilder fleeing Nazi Germany, a photo of the MGM mogul and academy founder Louis B. Mayer looming over Judy Garland, and a few scoundrels in an exhibit on #MeToo, Jews were absent. Jewish studio heads, business leaders and actors were almost entirely shut out, an oversight that led to much outcry.

Persons: —, Mayer, assimilationists, ” Neal Gabler, ” Louis B, Hollywood’s, Billy Wilder, Louis B, Judy Garland Organizations: Hollywood —, Paramount, Century Fox, Warner Brothers, Universal, Columbia, Metro, Goldwyn, MGM, Academy Museum of Motion Pictures Locations: America, An, Nazi Germany

☆ What Does ‘Good Mom’ Even Mean? - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-10 | by ( Pamela Paul | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Sometimes, particularly in a public parenting setting, I will play the Better Mother. This is the mother who stands attentively outside a music audition, serenely listening to the notes emanating from within. The Better Mother understands the lacrosse match (game? The Better Mother ensures her kids have dress shoes that aren’t two sizes too small. She knows which side of the field her child is playing on and possibly which position.

Persons: “ Haydn, ”, “ Biden, sprawled

☆ One Black Conservative Continues to Stand Apart - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-08 | by ( Pamela Paul | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Glenn Loury thought maybe the world — maybe he — had been wrong about Derek Chauvin, the police officer convicted of murdering George Floyd in 2020. Loury had watched a documentary, “The Fall of Minneapolis,” that had circulated largely on right-wing social media, arguing that Chauvin had been wrongly convicted, and found himself persuaded. Floyd’s death had ignited protests nationwide and spurred a passionate national debate about racism that often left Loury, a prominent Black conservative, at odds with many other Black intellectuals and with much of the American left. Commenters on his newsletter and social media also took issue. Then Radley Balko, an independent journalist, published a lengthy and meticulous critique of the film, calling it “all nonsense.”

Persons: Glenn Loury, —, Derek Chauvin, George Floyd, Loury, Chauvin, Floyd, Liz Collin, JC Chaix, Glenn, Radley Balko Organizations: YouTube Locations: Minneapolis, ”

☆ Opinion | PEN America Has Stood By Authors. They Should Stand By PEN.
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-28 | by ( Pamela Paul | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

But too often, recent efforts to reform institutions have meant reconstituting them in ways that distort or fundamentally undermine their core mission. Nonprofit organizations, governmental agencies, university departments and cultural institutions have ousted leaders and sent their staffs into turmoil in pursuit of progressive political goals. The latest target is PEN America, a nonprofit organization dedicated to free expression by journalists and authors. This followed a refusal by several writers to have their work considered for PEN’s annual literary awards. According to its 21 signatories, mostly up-and-coming authors, “among writers of conscience, there is no disagreement.

Persons: George Floyd, Salman Rushdie, PEN’s, Suzanne Nossel, Jennifer Finney Boylan, ” Organizations: Nonprofit, PEN America, PEN Locations: Gaza, Israel

☆ Opinion | You’ve Been Wronged. That Doesn’t Make You Right.
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-25 | by ( Pamela Paul | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

No matter who you are or what your politics, whatever your ethnic origin, economic circumstance, family history or mental health status, chances are you have ample reason to be ticked off. If you’re on the left, you have been oppressed, denied, marginalized, silenced, erased, pained, underrepresented, underresourced, traumatized, harmed and hurt. If you’re on the right, you’ve been ignored, overlooked, demeaned, underestimated, shouted down, maligned, caricatured and despised; in Trumpspeak: wronged and betrayed. What was Jan. 6 at heart but a gigantic tantrum by those who felt they’d been cheated and would take back their due, by whatever means necessary? Nor has the urge to leverage powerlessness as a form of power felt quite so universal — more pervasive on the left, if considerably more threatening on the right.

Persons: you’ve, they’d, it’s

☆ Opinion | Let Young People Live With Strangers
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-18 | by ( Pamela Paul | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

And now is the time of year when many kids, just accepted into college, decide they won’t do it. Their intermittent snores, the way they hum while cleaning or just miss the trash can when flinging dirty tissues. But forcing kids from widely diverging backgrounds, ethnicities and economic classes to live in close quarters is one of the benefits of a residential college. It can produce terrible conflict, but that, too, is essential to preparing young people for the world. Or they use a campus matching service like RoomSync or StarRez, which schools can license and tailor to their needs.

Persons: It’s

☆ Opinion | A Moment of Unity, on Earth as in Space
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-08 | by ( Pamela Paul | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

For a phenomenon that traversed the country from the contentious southern border to the far reaches of New England, Monday’s eclipse attracted remarkably few conspiracy theories or accusations. From where I stood, in Buffalo, the major threat to the moment was a forecast of heavy clouds. Perhaps I was too primed to seek meaning, having found unexpected significance in the last major eclipse to cross the country, back on Aug. 21, 2017. I wanted mountains, rock structures, landscapes and vistas that would give me that sense of This Too Shall Pass, and the planet will still be around. We decided to spend 10 days in South Dakota, starting at Mount Rushmore and ending in the Badlands.

Persons: Donald Trump’s Organizations: Trump, Mount Locations: New England, Buffalo, America, South Dakota

☆ Opinion | Wes Moore’s Big Experiment for Maryland
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-04 | by ( Pamela Paul | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Taking a gap year, or devoting a year to public service, whether to develop yourself or to serve a higher purpose, can be very alluring and, just as often, very impractical: How do you find the right opportunity, or fit it into your life, and most of all, swing it financially? Wes Moore of Maryland is trying to find a way to make it work for more people. One of the centerpieces of his administration is the newly established Department of Service and Civic Innovation, which includes a public service program with two arms, the Service Year Option, for Maryland residents within three years of high school graduation, and Maryland Corps, which is open to a range of applicants. Each provides access to entry-level positions at nonprofits and state agencies, as well as a small number of businesses with a strong service component, such as public health or community development. Participants are paid a minimum of $15 per hour and provided help with transportation and child care, which could otherwise keep out those with fewer support systems.

Persons: Wes Moore, Francis Scott Key, that’s, Moore Organizations: Gov, of Service, Civic, Maryland Corps Locations: Maryland, Baltimore

☆ Opinion | Is Threads the Good Place?
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-28 | by ( Pamela Paul | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Once upon a time on social media, the nicest app of them all, Instagram, home to animal bloopers and filtered selfies, established a land called Threads, a hospitable alternative to the cursed X, Formerly Known as Twitter. The good people of X tried to flee, scattering to the hinterlands of Mastodon and Bluesky, whose distant confines they then complained about on X. It would be Twitter But Nice, a Good Place where X’s liberal exiles could gather around for a free exchange of ideas and maybe even a bit of that 2012 Twitter magic — the goofy memes, the insider riffing, the meeting of new online friends. With many key functions still in development, Threads even had a pleasingly lo-fi ambience. I joined Threads shortly after its July 5 debut as an observer (having fled Twitter well before it X-ed itself out).

Persons: X, Musk, Donald Trump, Kanye West, Andrew Tate, ” Organizations: Kanye, Twitter, IRL

☆ Opinion | The Real Royal Scandal Is on Us
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-23 | by ( Pamela Paul | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Americans have always loved a royal scandal, even a smidgen more than British royalists do themselves. Lately, however, the British royals have been given the same reality-star treatment every microcelebrity in America attracts. Prince Andrew’s close ties with the since convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his own accusations of sexual abuse. And a massively popular Netflix series swanned in, dramatizing these and other ignoble ordeals, ready to sully the gleam before watchful eyes. In January, Catherine, Princess of Wales, as she is officially known, stepped back from royal duties with a dissatisfyingly vague and brief announcement from Kensington Palace.

Persons: Duke, Windsor’s, Prince Charles’s, Diana’s, Prince Andrew’s, Jeffrey Epstein, sully, Kate Middleton’s, Catherine , Princess of Locations: British, America, Catherine , Princess of Wales, Kensington Palace

☆ Opinion | Universities Need to Stick to Their Mission
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-14 | by ( Pamela Paul | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

For over a century, an understanding existed between American universities and the rest of the country. Universities educated the nation’s future citizens in whatever ways they saw fit. Their faculty determined what kind of research to carry out and how, with the understanding that innovation drives economic progress. “Politically, what society expects of us is to train citizens and provide economic mobility, and that has been the bedrock of political and economic support for universities. But if universities are not fulfilling these missions, and are seen as prioritizing other missions instead, that political bargain becomes very fragile.”

Persons: ”, Anna Grzymala, Busse, “ Organizations: Universities, Stanford

☆ Opinion | My Impeachable Offenses
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-27 | by ( Pamela Paul | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

There were the things I promised I would do or just repeatedly said I would do and then didn’t. It was I, for example, who issued the decree about making one’s bed. No one, I said, should leave the house without making the bed first. I could say “Don’t forget to make your bed!” several times in a single morning and occasionally into the afternoon — it didn’t make a whit of difference. It was on me to inspect the beds, to re-articulate the rules and if necessary, to ensure consequences were put in place in response to lapses.

Persons: It’s, Adm, William McRaven’s Organizations: U.S . Navy

☆ Opinion | The Debate Over Transgender Care and Detransitioning
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-10 | by ( ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Ms. Paul cites stories of detransitioners as if they are damning to the practice of gender-affirming care as a whole. Not all detransitioners regret their transition, and not all transgender people will medically transition. By writing this article, Ms. Paul further stigmatizes health care for transgender people. What we do know is that transgender youth are under attack across the nation. Texas’s attorney general, Ken Paxton, last month demanded records from providers outside his state to single out hospitals or clinics that have treated transgender youth from Texas.

Persons: Pamela Paul, Ms, Paul, Ken Paxton Locations: Netherlands, Texas

☆ Whoever Donald Trump Chooses as His Running Mate, Please Let It Not Be a Woman - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-08 | by ( Pamela Paul | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Whoever Donald Trump chooses as his running mate, please let it not be a woman. Perhaps you think it’s beside the point to worry over this. There’s also the very real prospect that should a 78-year-old Trump be re-elected, he may not complete his term. “It’s very clear he’s holding these open auditions like it’s ‘The Apprentice,’” Kurt Bardella, a Democratic strategist, said of Trump to The Guardian. They will all debase themselves and humiliate themselves and jockey for that spot.”

Persons: Donald Trump, Trump, There’s, “, it’s, ’ ” Kurt Bardella, ” Organizations: Democratic, The Guardian

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