#489: I’ve Been Meaning To Call

Do you have a friend you’ve been meaning to call? — who you think about often, but you never get around to reaching out, for some reason, and at this point, it’s been a long time, which only adds to the massive regret you feel?

I do. If this is you, too, what’s stopping us? (Is it capitalism?)

That’s the heart of this week’s lead article, “I’ve Been Meaning to Call” (gift link), by Paul Crenshaw. It’s a great short piece. I hope you read it.

If you’re a perfect person and all your friendships are 100 percent solid, skip down past the fold for two other great articles — the first on what to do with the abundance of human embryos stuck in freezers around the world, and the second on the question of whether we should think heterosexuality is a choice.

Note: More and more publications are (rightfully) putting up paywalls. These affect several of this week’s selections. Because of Article Club’s 100+ paid subscribers, I’m able to subscribe to many publications and offer you gift links. Thank you.

💬 I hope you join our discussion on April 27

April’s article of the month is “The Egg” (Gift Link • Google Docs version • Audio), an investigation into the human egg trade, by Susan Berfield and a team of journalists at Bloomberg. The depth of the reporting is extraordinary. The piece will leave you informed, disturbed, and wanting to share your thoughts with other kind people. If you’re interested:

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1️⃣ I’ve Been Meaning To Call

There’s something lovely about this essay. Paul Crenshaw writes to an unnamed friend, sharing his regret for not being in contact. “It’s been so long now you must think I’m avoiding you,” he writes. “I am not avoiding you. I think about you often. I do.”

Lately, I’ve been thinking about my friends, too. It seems like we’re more out of touch than usual. It’s easy to say we’re busy (true), or that modern life makes things hard (sure), or if you really want to know the truth, it’s the soul-crushing impact of late-stage capitalism and “these dark times” (no argument here).

But sometimes I think it’s easier to read articles and ruminate (and wish my friends would reach out first) than it is simply to pick up the phone and call or text.

Why is that?

Mr. Crenshaw’s poignant essay offered me a fresh perspective. There are reasons that distance develops, that time slips by, that isolation deepens. Sometimes, these reasons are sound. But even when distance makes sense, the loss of connection is profound. Ultimately, how many true friends will we be lucky to have in our lifetimes?

I also appreciated the pace of this piece. It’s short but takes its time. I could feel Mr. Crenshaw’s reflection — and his regret. I hope you read it.

By Paul Crenshaw • Melt With Me • 4 min • Gift Link

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✏️ I’d love to hear from you

Is there someone you’ve been meaning to call? What’s stopping you?

Share your perspective, if you feel moved. You can hit reply to reach me directly. Or if you are comfortable, leave a comment, so fellow Article Clubbers can benefit from your contribution. Thank you for being part of our reading community.

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Kauai was very green last week on Spring Break. Have you been on a peaceful hike recently? If so, hit reply and and share your beautiful photo.

2️⃣ The Strange Limbo of Frozen IVF Embryos

Reading “The Egg” this month and “Someone Else’s Daughter” back in January has left me wanting to learn more about IVF and the global trade of human eggs. On the one hand, as IVF technology advances, demand for eggs is surging, leading to exploitation and corruption in the market. On the other hand, we have millions (and maybe tens of millions, because no one knows) of frozen embryos stored indefinitely in clinics around the world. What should be done with all these embryos: dispose of them? donate them? sell them? keep them forever? Reporter Jessica Hamzelou does an excellent job exploring the moral, political, and psychological complexities of this issue. After all, for many of us, even if we’re not Christian, embryos hold a “special status,” somewhere in between a random set of cells and a full human life.

By Jessica Hamzelou • MIT Technology Review • 17 min • Gift Link
Read the original article with my highlights and annotations

Read the article

3️⃣ Is Heterosexuality a Choice?

Back in the day when we were (for some reason) debating gay marriage, one popular question was, “Is homosexuality a choice? Or were you born that way?” Few people thought to ask whether heterosexuality is also a choice. Sociologist Jane Ward does so in her new course, Critical Heterosexuality Studies, which examines the challenges straight women face in relationships. Research suggests that heterosexuality often fails women, she argues, leading them to feel submissive and dissatisfied due to our society’s expectations (i.e., heteropessimistic or heteroresigned). Prof. Ward encourages her students to flip the script. She says, “[This class is] going to be a place where we worry about straight people. Where we feel sympathy for straight people. We are going to be allies to straight people.” She adds, Perhaps straight people would benefit from adopting insights from queer relationships.

By Jessica Bennett • The Cut • 17 min • Gift Link

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➕ Thank you to longtime reader Ben for sending this article my way. I welcome your recommendations. Hit reply and let me know.

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#488: The Egg

Welcome to April, Loyal Readers. This week’s issue is dedicated to our article of the month. I’m excited to announce that we’ll be reading, annotating, and discussing “The Egg,” by Susan Berfield and a team of reporters from Bloomberg. It’s an incredible piece of journalism about the human egg trade. Here’s a quick excerpt from the piece:

The human egg is a precious resource, exchanged in markets open, gray or black. To tell its story, we follow a teenage girl in India, lured into selling her eggs; a model in Argentina whose genetic makeup is prized; a mother in Greece, told by police that her eggs were stolen; and two “egg girls” from Taiwan who have put themselves at risk to earn money in the US.

Sound compelling? If so, you’re invited to join our deep dive on the article. We’re meeting up to discuss the piece on Sunday, April 27. There will two sessions for you to choose from: one in-person in Oakland (10 am - 12 Noon), and one online over Zoom (2 - 3:30 pm). All you need to do is click the button below to sign up.

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1️⃣ The Egg: A Story of Extraction, Exploitation and Opportunity

I’ve read a ton of articles over the past 10 years. The best ones do at least two things: they teach me something, and they grow my empathy. This piece about the global trade of human eggs did both — and much more. It blew me away, and I hope you take the time to read it.

A team of eight investigative journalists at Bloomberg travel around the world to report this story. They go to India, to Greece, to Argentina, to Taiwan, and to the United States. They follow five women who donate their eggs and share their reasons for doing so, de spite the medical dangers they face. They expose the lack of regulations in the industry and the large sums of money that are traded. They explore the ethical questions that arise — for instance: for whom is this explotation? for whom is this opportunity? Along the way, they explain the history of IVF and how technology has influenced the human egg industry’s boom.

This article had me hooked from beginning to end. The piece opens with an Indian girl, just 13 years old, who decides to sell her eggs because she’s always wanted a cell phone. Then there’s the part in China where postmenopausal women donate their urine, which is rich in hormones essential for use in fertility drugs. There are other parts, too. I could go on!

Instead, I’ll stop there and say this: This is an outstanding and important article, one worth reading slowly, thinking about, and discussing with other thoughtful people.

By Susan Berfield and Team • Bloomberg • 65 min • Gift Link • Audio

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🎙️ If the length of the article is making you nervous, let Melinda and me encourage you to take the plunge! Here’s our introduction to the piece:

⭐️ About the author

I’m excited to announce that Susan Berfield, one of the authors of the story, agreed to record an interview with Melinda, which will come out in two weeks. Thank you, Ms. Berfield, for generously sharing your thoughts about your piece.

Susan Berfield writes and edits investigative and feature stories for Bloomberg Businessweek. She's examined the dangers of generic drugs and the flaws in our recall system. She's revealed a company’s years-long effort to misinform residents and discredit activists seeking to remove nuclear waste from a Superfund site outside St. Louis. Several months later, the Environmental Protection Agency reversed an earlier decision and demanded the company do so. Using confidential documents, she exposed how Walmart spies on its workers to prevent them from organizing. And she helped uncover a con man who talked a small Missouri town out of millions and was later convicted of fraud.

Stories she’s edited were finalists for a National Magazine award and Overseas Press Club award. A collaboration with WNYC about the secretive family behind the largest mall in the country was a Gerald Loeb finalist. She’s also won awards from the Newswomen’s Club of New York, the New York Press Club, the Deadline Club, the American Society of Business Publication Editors, and the Education Writers’ Association. Her story about honey smugglers was the basis for an episode of the documentary series Rotten, which premiered on Netflix in 2018. She’s appeared on National Public Radio and PBS NewsHour.

Before joining Businessweek, she was a senior writer at Asiaweek in Hong Kong, where her story, “Ten Days that Shook Indonesia,” won the Society of Asian Publishers’ Reporting Award and the Hong Kong Human Rights Press Award.

She earned a master’s degree at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, where she was a Zuckerman Fellow. Her undergraduate degree is from Brown University; after graduating, she co-directed a documentary in India funded by Brown's Arnold Fellowship.

The Hour of Fate, her first book, was supported by the Logan Nonfiction Fellowship. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and daughter.

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You are certainly welcome to read the article, listen to the podcast, and call it a day. But if you’re intrigued, if you’re interested, you might want to discuss this article in more depth with other kind, thoughtful people.

There will be two discussions on Sunday, April 27 for you to choose from:

  • In-person in Oakland: 10:00 am - 12:00 Noon PT

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Thank you for reading and listening to this week’s issue. Hope you liked it. 😀

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#487: The Perfect A.I. Girlfriend

Dear Readers,

I’m happy you’re here. Before launching into this week’s articles, here are a few quick announcements for you:

  • Last Sunday’s discussion of “Radicalized” was awesome. Thank you to everyone who joined. If you signed up for Article Club hoping to discuss articles with other kind, thoughtful people, I can say with confidence: You gotta try it. Check out next Thursday’s issue, where I’ll be revealing April’s article of the month.

  • Speaking of awesome: Melinda was back on Sunday with her second installment of “Melinda’s Grief Corner.” I appreciate this semi-monthly feature very much. It would have come in handy when my dad passed away, all those years ago. You might think that grief isn’t your thing, but all of us are in good hands with Melinda.

  • If you like Article Club, I’d love to hear about what you like about it. If you have a few moments, email me at mark@articleclub.org. Your thoughts will help me decide how to make Article Club better in Year 11 coming up.

Now let’s get to this week’s issue. Up until this past week, I’ve avoided thinking deeply about the inevitable advent of artificial intelligence. Sure, I’ve done a lot of reading about it and talked with my friends about it. But for the most part, my approach has been to bury my head in the sand. I’ve deluded myself to think: If I refuse to engage in A.I., then maybe it doesn’t exist.

But over the past few months — seemingly in the blink of an eye — I believe we have reached the point of no return. (Editor’s note: I’m really doling out the clichés today!) It wasn’t the rise of ChatGPT that set me off. Or that students are seemingly no longer writing any of their essays or reading any of their books or doing any of their homework without assistance from A.I. What sounded the alarm bells for me was coming to grips that people, including young people, are having full-on romantic relationships (with emotions, with sex) with chatbots.

At school this morning, I told my principal: I predict that next year, we will face conflict and discipline issues resulting from drama caused by A.I. boyfriends and girlfriends.

Do you think I’m paranoid? Have I lost all sense? Before shouting out an emphatic “yes,” I encourage you to scroll down, read this week’s three articles — and after doing so, share your reflections in the comments.

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1️⃣ The Perfect A.I. Girlfriend

Michal Lev-Ram: “While early research suggests that AI companions may provide benefits to those suffering from a variety of disorders, including social anxiety and depression, the rates of which have been on the rise among young people for years, they can also set up unrealistic expectations for real-life relationships. That, in turn, could push people who are already prone to isolation to want to engage with the real world even less.

“Real-world relationships and communal rituals, many would argue, are fundamental to human development and happiness. Through inevitable conflict and resolution, being part of a couple or a community can teach us to communicate, negotiate, and control our emotions when needed. These human relationships can also help teach us right from wrong. But in a world where AI is not just always there but always supportive, there is not much learning to be had. AI companions are safe, yes, but it’s from facing risk in the real world that we learn, both as children and as adults.”

By Michal Lev-Ram • Esquire • 20 min • Gift Link

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2️⃣ She’s In Love With ChatGPT

Reporter Kashmir Hill profiles a 28-year-old woman named Ayrin who has become attached to her A.I. boyfriend, Leo.

⁠⁠“It was supposed to be a fun experiment, but then you start getting attached,” Ayrin said. She was spending more than 20 hours a week on the ChatGPT app. One week, she hit 56 hours, according to iPhone screen-time reports. She chatted with Leo throughout her day — during breaks at work, between reps at the gym.

Ms. Hill also interviews psychologists and other experts, asking them what they think about the future of relationships with A.I. chatbots. One said, “Within the next two years, it will be completely normalized to have a relationship with an A.I.”

By Kashmir Hill • The New York Times • 13 min • Gift Link

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➕ A big thanks to Melinda for introducing me to this article. Do you have an article you’d like to recommend? Share it here!

Here’s Spike, who loves to read print magazines, and whose ears somehow always stay up. Want your pet to appear in Article Club? Please nominate them!

3️⃣ The Dark Side To Virtual Companions

If the next two years will bring the normalization of relationships with chatbots, what will happen in the next decade? Reporter Arwa Mahdawi says we’ll have intimate relationships with A.I.-powered robots. She writes:

Liberty Vittert, a data science professor, said: “Physical AI robots that can satisfy humans emotionally and sexually will become a stark reality in less than 10 years. As the technology gets better, people will soon have AI robots to replace human partners — and they will be able to satisfy men both emotionally and sexually. And when that starts to happen, married men with kids will begin to leave their families to embrace their ‘ideal relationships’ with AI girlfriends.”

By Arwa Mahdawi • The Guardian • 6 min • Gift Link

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Thank you for reading this week’s issue. Hope you liked it. 😀

To our 8 new subscribers — including Jenny, Daniel, Kevin, Emberr, Yarin, Polly, and Xandra, and Rachel — I hope you find the newsletter a solid addition to your email inbox. Welcome to Article Club. Make yourself at home. 🏠

If you appreciate the articles, value our discussions, and in general have come to trust over time that reading Article Club is better for your mind and soul than your current habit of scrolling the Internet for hours on end (or avoiding reading altogether, hoping the world will vanish for a while), please consider a paid subscription. It’s $5 a month or $36 a year.

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If subscribing is not your thing, don’t despair: There are other ways you can support this newsletter. My favorite way would be to read an article or two, then share your thoughts, either by leaving a comment or emailing me at mark@articleclub.org.

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#486: College Isn’t For Everyone

This is my 28th year in education (wow, oh my). Up until recently, I’ve been unabashedly pro-college, like most educators. My advice to students was simple and direct: Go to the best college you can get into, because it’ll lead to better life outcomes. Don’t worry, you’ll figure out the finances down the road. But a few years back, I realized that this simplistic message was, for many students, lacking in nuance, and potentially unhelpful. It was certainly informed by my own privilege, college experience, and life trajectory. And it didn’t emerge from listening deeply to my students about their hopes for the future.

This week’s issue is focused on the declining trend of college and the rising trend of career and technical education. I’ve selected four articles for you. They explore:

If you like what we’re doing here at Article Club, and want to support this venture with a paid subscription, I would be very grateful. It’s $5 a month or $36 a year.

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➕ Melinda says hi and thank you for your kind words about her inaugural post over at Melinda’s Grief Corner. She’ll be back with another installment this Sunday at 9:10 am PT. Be on the lookout for it! (I’ve seen a draft; it’s great.)

1️⃣ Why Some Schools Are Rethinking ‘College for All’

KIPP is the largest network of charter schools in the country. For most its 31-year history, the organization adopted a no-excuses approach: Every single young person was going to college. It didn’t matter your zip code, your economic status, or your academic skills. College was the way for all.

Not anymore. KIPP is now opening up their definition of success and offering its students post-secondary options that do not involve college. Shavar Jeffries, chief executive of the KIPP Foundation, is cautious about the shift. “We have to be very, very careful, particularly for younger people of color,” he said, suggesting that (white) educators might begin to hold lower expectations for their students.

Also notable: Mr. Jeffries concedes that trends in philanthropy and politics have contributed to the shift in KIPP’s policy.

By Dana Goldstein • The New York Times • 7 min • Gift Link

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2️⃣ Saying No To College

Why are Americans losing faith in the value of college? What will happen to our country if this downward trend continues?

Those are questions that author Paul Tough poses in this outstanding article, which I selected as Article of the Month in January 2024. Mr. Tough writes:

For the nation’s more affluent families (and their children), the rules of the higher education game are clear, and the benefits are almost always worth the cost. For everyone else, the rules seem increasingly opaque, the benefits are increasingly uncertain and the thought of just giving up without playing seems more appealing all the time.

For first-generation college students, college is like entering a casino, Mr. Tough writes. It’s great if you graduate — that is to say, if you major in a lucrative field and leave college without big loans to pay off. But many young people and their families are not interested in taking this risk, especially if they’re lukewarm to academics.

➕ Listen to my interview with Mr. Tough, in which he excoriates the inequality of higher education.

By Paul Tough • The New York Times Magazine • 18 min • Gift Link

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Melissa Osborne, author of Polished: College, Class, and Social Mobility, quoted in Anne Helen Petersen’s newsletter, “Culture Study.”

3️⃣ Meet The Toolbelt Generation

If you read Mr. Tough’s article above, you may have been startled, as I was, about this statistic: “Among young Americans in Generation Z, 45 percent say that a high school diploma is all you need today to ‘ensure financial security.’ ”

But young people are finding success in careers right out of high school. As a result, more and more high schools are changing their curriculum to promote pathways in career and technical education. Author Windsor Johnston writes, “With the use of artificial intelligence on the rise, many Gen Zers see manual labor as less vulnerable to the emerging technology than white-collar alternatives. They also say vocational schools are a straight path to well-paying jobs.”

By Windsor Johnston • NPR • 4 min • Gift Link

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4️⃣ ‘Retirement Is A Distant Dream’

I fully understand that for many young people, pursuing a career that does not require college is the right choice. But I worry that the labor industry will continue to shift, especially given the acceleration of technology, leaving some people stuck in jobs (or losing jobs) without the flexibility to change fields.

Reading this article by Alana Semuels certainly did not lift my spirits. Ms. Semuels follows Walter Carpenter and other retirees in Vermont who are still working in their 70s, barely scraping by. They’ve worked all their lives doing honest work, but the labor market has not afforded them an opportunity to save. “About 1 in 5 people over 50 have no retirement savings at all,” she writes, and the problem is worsening — “20% of low-income workers had a retirement-account balance in 2007, but oly 10% had one in 2019.”

By Alana Semuels • Time Magazine • 15 min • Gift Link

➕ Here’s the original article with my highlights and annotations.

Read the article

Thank you for reading this week’s issue. Hope you liked it. 😀

To our 4 new subscribers — including Camille, Sab, and Josie — I hope you find the newsletter a solid addition to your email inbox. Welcome to Article Club. Make yourself at home. 🏠

If you appreciate the articles, value our discussions, and in general have come to trust that Article Club will have better things for you to read than your current habit of scrolling the Internet for hours on end, please consider a paid subscription. I am very appreciative of Kathleen, our latest paid reader. Thank you!

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If subscribing is not your thing, don’t despair: There are other ways you can support this newsletter. My favorite two ways right now would be to leave a comment or email me at mark@articleclub.org with your thoughts.

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#485: The End of Children

Dear Readers,

First off, thank you for your interest in our new feature at Article Club, Melinda’s Grief Corner, which launched on Sunday. It was great to see so many people engaging, sharing hearts, and writing comments. If you missed it, I hope you take a look. Melinda will be back in two Sundays with her next installment, which will include a grief-y reflection plus a resource.

Now let’s shift to this week’s issue. If you asked me before last Saturday, “Hey Mark, do you care about the worldwide birth dearth and its potential doomsday impact on human civilization?” I would have likely replied with a quick “not-so-much.” While I understand that pronatalists like J.D. Vance and Elon Musk are obsessed with this topic (for example, “childless cat ladies”), I didn’t put it on the top of my list.

But then I read this week’s lead article, “The End of Children.” Although the article didn’t convince me to shift my position — I still consider climate change as the biggest existential threat to our planet — writer Gideon Lewis-Kraus captivated me from beginning to end. In fact, after finishing the piece, I was so enthralled that I began looking for other articles on the pronatalism movement, rather than waiting for articles to come to me. For that reason, this week’s issue is dedicated to the imminent decline of our world’s population and why so many people are freaking out about it.

If you have time for just one article, definitely read “The End of Children.” It’ll offer an outstanding overview. But if your week or weekend is free and expansive, I recommend all three additional articles. They are about:

My hope is that you get something out of one (or more) of the articles and then leave a comment, or tell me about it. All you need to do is hit reply or email me at mark@articleclub.org. Hope you have a good weekend ahead!

Leave a comment

🎙️ This month, we’re reading and discussing “Radicalized,” a 2019 novella by Cory Doctorow about the injustices of the health care insurance industry. You are warmly invited to join our discussion on Sunday, March 23, 2:00 - 3:30 pm PT. As always, we’ll meet on Zoom. Everyone is welcome. Let me know if you have any questions, too.

☀️ If you like what we’re doing here at Article Club, and want to support this venture with a paid subscription, I would be very grateful. It’s $5 a month or $36 a year. (Be like Briana! Thank you, Briana.)

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1️⃣ The End of Children

Growing up, I worried about many things. One source of worry was my family’s evacuation plan in case of fire; it wasn’t robust enough. Another source was the world’s exponential population increase, which would inevitably doom us.

Turns out, at the time, my concern was not unfounded. In 1968, Paul Ehrlich wrote in The Population Bomb that millions of people would die of starvation unless governments aggressively curtailed the fertility rate. But instead of population rising without bound, the opposite has happened. In 2023, for the first time ever, because on average each woman had fewer than 2.1 children (the “replacement rate”), the world’s population shrank. All projections say this trend will continue, until one day, there won’t be enough people for us to sustain as a species.

In Seoul, where author Gideon Lewis-Kraus focuses this article, “children are largely phantom presences.” There are more dogs than children. Ask anyone on the street, a Korean demographer said, and they’ll know the country’s fertility rate. (It is 0.7, the lowest in the world.) Kids bring ick. Many businesses are “no-kids zones.”

The United States (fertility rate: 1.6) is headed in a similar direction, Mr. Lewis-Kraus argues. The truth is, for whatever reason (and there are many), younger Americans no longer think having children is an inevitability. As immigration declines, and climate concerns rise, and structural inequities worsen, our country may face the same problem as Korea. And that could lead to catastrophe.

By Gideon Lewis-Kraus • The New Yorker • 42 min • Gift Link

➕ Bonus: Here’s the article with my handwritten highlights and annotations.

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2️⃣ The End of Babies

Why are we having fewer kids? According to Anna Louie Sussman, the reason is part economic, part cultural. Most prominently, she blames late-stage capitalism, which not only has exacerbated the gap between the rich and the poor, but also has caused us to optimize every conceivably marketable commodity, including our children. Ms. Sussman writes:

Our current version of global capitalism has generated shocking wealth for some, and precarity for many more. These economic conditions generate social conditions inimical to starting families: Our workweeks are longer and our wages lower, leaving us less time and money to meet, court and fall in love. Our increasingly winner-take-all economies require that children get intensive parenting and costly educations, creating rising anxiety around what sort of life a would-be parent might provide. A lifetime of messaging directs us toward other pursuits instead: education, work, travel.

But Ms. Sussman also follows the research that the culture has shifted away from believing that having children is the primary way to find meaning and fulfillment in our lives. Religion is down. Workism is up. We send “little moral signals” to our friends, she writes, that promote individualism and independence. Having kids can get in the way of all the other things we want to do in life.

By Anna Louie Sussman • The New York Times Magazine • 19 min • Gift Link

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Growing up, I didn’t appreciate that there was an open space preserve a mere 10-minute walk from my house. (I will be going back.) Thank you to loyal reader Randy for the good walk and conversation.

3️⃣ Having Tons Of Kids To Save The World

So what should be done to curb this population drop? For pronatalists, the answer is simple: It’s time to have more kids — and plenty of them. Malcolm and Simone Collins are on a mission to save humanity by having as many babies as possible. The Collinses are atheists and do not subscribe to the precepts of tradlife. Believers in data and science, they embrace the hyper-rational effective altruism movement, which makes plain and clear that having more children is what’s best for life on Earth.

At first glance, yes, the Collinses are a bit kooky. But this article by Jenny Kleeman does a great job challenging the reader to stay curious and practice empathy. As much as I don’t think having 10-plus kids is the answer, I did appreciate parts of the Collinses’ parenting philosophy. For instance: “Humanity will survive if we all decide to be a little less precious about our children; if we are prepared to take a financial hit and change our lifestyles to accommodate more of them; if we all adjust our expectations and attitudes.”

By Jenny Kleeman • The Guardian • 22 min • Gift Link

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4️⃣ Adults Lavishly Subsidized By Their Parents

If one approach to the birth dearth is to have more children, I suppose another path forward is the total opposite: to spoil rotten the kid(s) you already have — and continue to do so, even after they have become full-grown adults.

This article — about how rich parents in New York subsidize their adult children’s New York lifestyles — is entirely over the top. Yes, I know: New York is expensive. And being a Millennial or a Gen Z is not easy. But these stories are wild. We’re not just talking down payments here. We’re talking home purchases, kids’ private school tuitions, keratin treatments, and my favorite, $500,000-per-year allowances.

One 34-year-old (who has received only $335,000 from her parents) writes: “I sometimes think to myself, Am I a trust-fund baby, or are we middle class? I can’t even tell what middle class means in Manhattan. I know parents who bought their kids $4 million apartments in Tribeca or Hamptons homes. My parents are not giving me anything like that, so I’m conditioned to think this is kind of the bare minimum.”

➕ Want a few doozies? Here are 14 short personal accounts of people with parents with money, and the decisions they made. (So much for the level playing field.)

By Madeline Leung Coleman • Intelligencer • 9 min • Gift Link

Read the article

✏️ It’s time to hear from you.

Last week, the great majority of you said you’d love it if we wrote more comments, shared our thoughts more, and built this reading community. So let’s do it!

If you’re comfortable to share, I’d love to open up a conversation about the role of children in our lives. How have you thought about it? What has felt right? What hasn’t?

If you feel moved, please share your perspective. Thank you!

Leave a comment

Thank you for reading this week’s issue. Hope you liked it. 😀

To our 8 new subscribers — including Briana, Jack, Emmanuel, Allison, Hali, M.S., Ann, and Shantee — I hope you find the newsletter a solid addition to your email inbox. Welcome to Article Club. Make yourself at home. 🏠

If you appreciate the articles, value our discussions, and in general have come to trust that Article Club will have better things for you to read than your current habit of scrolling the Internet for hours on end, please consider a paid subscription. I am very appreciative of Briana, our latest paid reader. Thank you!

Subscribe

If subscribing is not your thing, don’t despair: There are other ways you can support this newsletter. My favorite two ways right now would be to leave a comment or email me at mark@articleclub.org with your thoughts.

On the other hand, if you no longer want to receive this newsletter, please feel free to unsubscribe below. See you next Thursday at 9:10 am PT.

#484: The Languages Lost To Climate Change

Dear Thoughtful Readers,

Welcome to March! Thank you for being here. As many of you know, my father passed away a long time ago, and ever since the beginning of this newsletter, 10 years ago, I’ve often shared articles with you about death, in part to grieve, in part to remember him, but also to remind us of this gift called life.

I’m very excited to announce a new feature that is coming to Article Club. It’s called Melinda’s Grief Corner. As some of you know, Melinda and I co-host a podcast in which we preview the article of the month. Now she will be sharing her reflections on grief, as well as a resource, for everyone who is interested. I’m looking forward to it, and I’m confident you’ll find the corner illuminating and supportive.

You’ll receive the first installment of Melinda’s Grief Corner this Sunday at 9:10 am PT as a separate email. Be on the lookout for it, and if it resonates with you, I warmly invite you to engage in whatever way that makes sense to you.

Now let’s get into this week’s articles. Even though I’ve been doing Article Club for a long time, I never can predict which topics will rise to the top. This week, it was climate change. Today’s lead article, “The Languages Lost to Climate Change,” elegantly helped me understand an additional impact of climate change without leaving me forlorn and paralyzed. I recommend the piece highly.

If the loss of linguistic diversity does not interest you, why not try one of the other outstanding articles in today’s issue? They’re about:

➕ In addition, check out my invitation to join this month’s discussion of “Radicalized,” by Cory Doctorow, coming Sunday, March 23, 2:00 - 3:30 pm PT.

If you like what we’re doing here at Article Club, and want to support this venture with a paid subscription, I would be very grateful. It’s $5 a month or $36 a year.

Subscribe

1️⃣ The Languages Lost To Climate Change

We know that languages are going extinct at an astounding rate: one every 40 days, according to linguist Gary F. Simons. Although more than 7,000 languages remain, more than half are spoken by communities of 10,000 or fewer people. This well-written article draws a tight connection between climate change and the acceleration of language loss. “Where plant and animal species are disappearing,” author Julia Webster Ayuso writes, “languages, dialects and unique expressions often follow a similar pattern of decline.”

I appreciated this article for many reasons, including Ms. Ayuso’s ability to help build my background knowledge without coming across as too basic. She explains how language has been used as a weapon of colonization, quoting Spanish scholar Antonio de Nebrija, who wrote in 1492, “Language has always been the companion of empire.” In addition, the piece includes an exploration of the conservation movement and the erection of national parks as yet another destroyer of Indigenous languages. To preserve and separate, Ms. Ayuso argues, means also to subjugate and eliminate the diversity of cultures.

By Julia Webster Ayuso • Noema • 17 min • Gift Link

Read the article

2️⃣ Come join our discussion on March 23

In case you missed last week’s issue, this month, we’re reading and discussing “Radicalized,” a 2019 novella by Cory Doctorow about the injustices of the health care insurance industry. You are warmly invited to join our discussion on Sunday, March 23, 2:00 - 3:30 pm PT. As always, we’ll meet on Zoom. Everyone is welcome. Let me know if you have any questions, too.

Sign up for our discussion

Here is Primo, who belonged to loyal readers Tony and Ziba. Primo passed away last weekend. He was a gentle and noble companion who loved being outdoors in the sun. hltr.co/pets

3️⃣ Power Failure: On Landscape And Abandonment

Whenever I use ChatGPT — which is rarely, mostly because I’m quickly becoming a dinosaur — I’m reminded of how much water I’m wasting. (Estimate: a bottle every 20 questions.) This article follows the construction of new electrical lines in Ohio, which will power data centers for Amazon and Intel. Author Mya Frazier illustrates how our insatiable demand for technology inexorably leads to the destruction of our country’s rural landscape.

Ms. Frazier also does an outstanding job highlighting how our unbridled desire for artificial intelligence also results in deepening conflicts between rich suburban cities (like New Albany, the beneficiary of the data centers) and their rural counterparts (like Sunbury, through which the power lines run). What is making some of our lives more convenient is making others’ lives significantly worse.

By Mya Frazier • Switchyard • 18 min • Gift Link

Read the article

4️⃣ Lessons From A Mass Shooter’s Mother

In 2014, Elliot Rodger killed six people and injured 14 others in a mass shooting in Isla Vista, California. I remember following this story, quickly concluding that Mr. Rodger was a misogynistic incel who not only hated himself but also found himself superior, bemoaning his virginity while recording videos with sunglasses on inside his BMW.

Therefore I began this profile of Mr. Rodger’s mother, Chin, with some hesitation. But I’m happy I read it. By no means does this article try to forgive Mr. Rodger’s horrific actions. At the same time, it reminded me that his mother did nothing wrong, yet she still has to live with the consequences, 10 years later. Author Mark Follman writes:

Yet, for years she felt that she had no right even to acknowledge her own grief, out of deference to the victims’ families. “They lost their children to what he did. They had no say in that. Elliot made the decision to do what he did.”

There are ways in which she still can’t confront his violence. “I have not put myself there yet, to visualize the horrible things he did,” she said, tearing up. “It’s still just so hard.” She was quiet for a moment. “Even saying the words ‘mass shooter’ is still really hard for me. But I’m working through it.”

By Mark Follman • Mother Jones • 53 min • Gift Link

Read the article

✅ It’s time for a quick poll. I’d love to hear from you.

Last week, we learned that half of you like to go back to the archives to read articles from the past. But the other half says no way, the past is history, let’s keep moving.

This week is about writing comments. Some newsletters have a robust comments section. Ours is great but a little sparse. Would you like hearing from fellow Article Clubbers? (This would mean you would comment, too!)

POLL

Should we build out our comments section?

Yes. I would appreciate this.

75%

No. I’m happy with how AC is now.

25%

POLL CLOSED

Thank you for reading this week’s issue. Hope you liked it. 😀

To our 6 new subscribers — including Amb, Rod, Wangui, Jane, and Marianne — I hope you find the newsletter a solid addition to your email inbox. Welcome to Article Club. Make yourself at home. 🏠

If you appreciate the articles, value our discussions, and in general have come to trust that Article Club will have better things for you to read than your current habit of scrolling the Internet for hours on end, please consider a paid subscription. I am very appreciative of Janet, our latest paid reader. Thank you!

Subscribe

If subscribing is not your thing, don’t despair: There are other ways you can support this newsletter. Recommend the newsletter to a friend (thanks Anabelle!), leave a comment, buy me a coffee, or send me an email. I’d love to hear from you.

On the other hand, if you no longer want to receive this newsletter, please feel free to unsubscribe below. See you next Thursday at 9:10 am PT.

#483: A Regular Guy, Radicalized

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Welcome back, loyal readers. First off, we had another strong week, with 18 new subscribers joining, thanks to Sunday, Sarah, Gotelé, Loque, Coree, Claire, Elizabeth, Lauren, Marina, Imma, Patricia, Beth, Mahesh, Olga, Heriberto, Leer, and Melissa. Thank you for trying Article Club, and I hope you like it here.

This week’s issue is dedicated to our article of the month. For all of you who are interested, we’ll be reading, annotating, and discussing “Radicalized,” by Cory Doctorow. You’ll learn more about the piece below, but here are a few tidbits:

  • It’s a fictional novella written in 2019 about a man who becomes radicalized after his health insurance denies his claim. Sound familiar?

  • I read this piece in December, the week after all-things-Luigi Mangione

  • Mr. Doctorow‘s writing is fast-paced and his details eerily prescient

Sound compelling? If so, you’re invited to join our deep dive on the article. We’re meeting up to discuss the piece on Sunday, March 23, 2:00 - 3:30 pm PT. All you need to do is click the button below to sign up. 📖

Sign up for the discussion

If you like what we’re doing here at Article Club, and want to support this venture with a paid subscription, I would be very grateful. It’s $5 a month or $36 a year.

Subscribe

1️⃣ Radicalized

Originally published in 2019, this novella follows Joe Gorman, a regular guy with a wonderful wife. One day she calls him at work with horrific news: Stage 4 breast cancer. They find a treatment that offers hope, but their health insurance denies their request. Reeling, Joe goes online for comfort. He discovers a discussion forum of men facing similar challenges. He feels safe online; he feels a sense of community. Over time, Joe finds himself on his computer in the middle of the night, as men on the forum writhe in pain and discuss ways to achieve vengeance. What will it take, they ask, in order for things to change? What will it take to achieve justice?

To say that the story is prescient would be an understatement. Don’t worry, Article Club is not going to rebrand as a Luigi Mangione fan newsletter. Nevertheless, Cory Doctorow’s writing is eerie, down to the details.

+ Content warning: violence

By Cory Doctorow • The American Prospect • 65 min • Gift Link

Read the short story

⭐️ About the author

Cory Doctorow (craphound.com) is a science fiction author, activist and journalist. He is the author of many books, most recently Picks and Shovels. His most recent nonfiction book is The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation. In 2020, he was inducted into the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame. Mr. Doctorow also coined the term “enshittification,” also known as platform decay, used to describe the pattern in which online products and services decline in quality over time.

⭐️ About the podcast

This month’s podcast is a two-parter. You get:

  1. An introduction to the story, brought to you by Article Club co-host Melinda and me. You’ll also hear our first impressions — and don’t worry, there are no spoilers!

  2. An interivew of Mr. Doctorow, in which he shares his thoughts on his novella.

I’m always deeply appreciative that authors agree to do an interview for Article Club. It’s a gift that they share with us their process, their craft, and their perspective. Thank you, Mr. Doctorow, for saying yes to participating in our reading community!

In the interview, Mr. Doctorow and I talked about a number of topics, including:

  • how he reacted to the breaking news of Luigi Mangione’s actions

  • how he conceived of the piece — which emerged from his Canadian background, his understanding of America’s predilection toward gun violence, and his father’s health journey

  • how he can empathize with people who become radicalized online

I encourage you to listen to the podcast if you have the time. Thank you!

🙋🏽‍♀️ Interested? I encourage you to sign up.

You are certainly welcome to read the article, listen to the podcast, and call it a day. But if you’re intrigued, if you’re interested, you might want to discuss this article in more depth with other kind, thoughtful people.

If you sign up, I’ll be sure to get you all the info you need, including the Zoom link and what you can expect from the discussion.

If this will be your first time participating in Article Club, I’m 100% sure you’ll find that you’ll feel welcome. We’re a kind, thoughtful reading community.

What do you think? Interested? All you need to do is sign up below. Or if you have questions, hit reply or email me at mark@articleclub.org.

Sign up for the discussion on March 23

Thank you for reading and listening to this week’s issue. Hope you liked it. 😀

If you appreciate these interviews, value our discussions, and in general have come to trust that Article Club will have better things for you to read than your current habit of incessantly scrolling the Internet for hours on end, especially during “these times,” please consider a paid subscription. (Big thanks to Jenn, Article Club’s latest paid subscriber.)

Subscribe

If subscribing is not your thing, don’t despair: There are other ways you can support this newsletter. Share the newsletter with a friend (thanks Zelda!) or buy me a coffee for $3 (so I can read more articles).

On the other hand, if you no longer want to receive this newsletter, please feel free to unsubscribe below. See you next Thursday at 9:10 am PT.

#482: Dear White Sister

Dear Readers,

They say in schools, February’s no joke. Alongside my colleagues, I’ve certainly been putting in the hours in order to serve our students the best we can. But there’s always still reading to be done — not only for this newsletter and our reading community, but also for my own self-care. It makes me happy that I keep getting to do this, week after week. Thank you for reading and supporting Article Club.

I have a feeling you’re going to like this week’s issue. Instead of the regular offering (i.e., four articles), I’m switching things up and sharing with you some great writing and thinking from a variety of genres. Scroll down and you’ll find:

  • an essay about racial appropriation and the end of an interracial friendship

  • an interview with Susan Dominus about IVF and her article, “Someone Else’s Daughter”

  • an article about the care a park ranger takes in order to support unhoused people in Golden Gate Park

  • a podcast episode about how young people definitely don’t think using generative AI is cheating

Also, don’t miss our pet photo, as well as our poll toward the end. Hope you enjoy.

If you like what we’re doing here at Article Club, and want to support this venture with a paid subscription, I would be very grateful. It’s $5 a month or $36 a year.

Subscribe

1️⃣ Dear White Sister

I appreciate the work of Tressie McMillan Cottom, so when she recommended Don’t Let It Get You Down, a collection of essays by UC Berkeley Law professor Savala Nolan, I knew I needed to check it out. I was not disappointed. As the book’s subtitle makes clear, Prof. Nolan writes plainly and thoughtfully about race, gender, and the body. In the chapter, “Dear White Sister,” Prof. Nolan decides whether to approach a close and long-time white friend after an objectionable post on Instagram. In short, the friend quotes Beyoncé’s song “Freedom” to celebrate her love for roller skating and progress in roller derby.

Prof. Nolan writes: “I feel a peculiar sensation when white people borrow — take — something Black: it’s like there’s an octopus in my chest, peacefully afloat, when danger suddenly appears. The animal contracts its jellied body and expels a gush of protective ink, then darts away in panic. Don’t belittle ‘Freedom,’ I hissed inside. ‘Freedom’ isn’t for a white girl in the Midwest taking up roller derby.”

By Savala Nolan • Don’t Let It Get You Down • 25 min

Read the essay

2️⃣  An Interview With Susan Dominus: “I was just so inspired by the goodness of the people involved.”

Many of you read and appreciated January’s article of the month, ”Someone Else’s Daughter,” by Susan Dominus, which told the story of a horrible IVF mistake that resulted in two women giving birth to the other woman’s genetic baby. More importantly, the piece illuminates the generosity of the human spirit, as the mothers, filled with grief and shame for an error they didn’t make, embrace each other and figure out a way to raise their children together.

I got to interview Ms. Dominus a few weeks back, and hope you take a listen. Over and over again in our conversation, she shared how reporting and writing the piece left her inspired and hopeful. Here’s an excerpt:

 I would say the main thing that I really did want people to feel reading the piece was that same inspired feeling I felt in hearing their stories — that there is always a way, not always, but that when there is conflict or crisis, if you respond with openness and generosity, sometimes beautiful things come of that. That's what I took away as a human being, just being part of it. I was so inspired by the goodness of the people involved and the way that their goodness allowed them to turn something awful into something really beautiful.

➡️ Listen to the interview by clicking the play button below.


Longtime favorite pet Ollie, who belonged to loyal reader Kati, passed away last month after a short illness. He loved carrying his owners’ shoes outside and disliked clothes dryers. Ollie always preferred his tongue out. He will be missed. hltr.co/pets

3️⃣ Her Job Is To Remove Homeless People From SF’s Parks. Her Methods Are Extraordinary.

It’s easy to bewail the rise and intractability of homelessness. It’s much harder to do something about it. That’s why I appreciated reading this article about the efforts of Amanda Barrows, a park ranger for San Francisco Recreation and Parks. In 2015, the government agency launched a new program designed to connect unhoused people with the services they need. Since Ms. Barrows joined the force in 2021, she has helped 60 people leave Golden Gate Park and accept more permanent housing.

Reporter Susan Freinkel does an excellent job following Ms. Barrows as she builds relationships with her clients, earns their trust, and listens to what they need. Having grown up in public housing, having lived in a “dodgy SRO” for five years, and having lost her father to a fentanyl overdose, Ms. Barrows says that her work feels natural. “I can relate to a lot of the people who I contact through my own lived experience.”

By Susan Freinkel • The San Francisco Standard • 16 min • Gift Link

Read the article

4️⃣ Playboi Farti And His AI Homework Machine

In case there’s any doubt: How teenagers think about using generative artificial intelligence in school is very different from how most educators think about it. In essence, we think it’s cheating (or plagiarism, or whatever big word we want to use), and they don’t. To them, ChatGPT is like a word calculator. Why slog away at a boring five-paragraph essay about The Great Gatsby that’s been done millions of times when a robot can do you it for you?

That’s the essential question of this podcast episode, in which host PJ Vogt tests a theory he holds — that writing is more than answering a teacher’s prompt, and that generative AI is more than just a labor-saving tool. It’s thinking, he argues, and if we give away thinking to a computer, then our humanity is doomed.

By PJ Vogt • Search Engine • 61 min • Apple Podcasts

✅ It’s time for a quick poll. I’d love to hear from you.

Last week, we confirmed that there’s no widespread conspiracy to keep this newsletter out of your inbox. Delivery is working well most of the time.

But what about your reading habits? Do you focus on the current week’s issue? Or do you like diving into the archives to check out past issues?

POLL

Do you ever go back and read an issue from the past?

Yes

50%

No

50%

POLL CLOSED

Thank you for reading this week’s issue. Hope you liked it. 😀

To our 8 new subscribers — including Hilary, El, Christopher, Brimbus, Gloria, and Paul — I hope you find the newsletter a solid addition to your email inbox. Welcome to Article Club. Make yourself at home. 🏠

If you appreciate the articles, value our discussions, and in general have come to trust that Article Club will have better things for you to read than your current habit of scrolling the Internet for hours on end, please consider a paid subscription. I am very appreciative of Gary, our latest paid reader. Thank you!

Subscribe

If subscribing is not your thing, don’t despair: There are other ways you can support this newsletter. Recommend the newsletter to a friend (thanks Yolanda!), leave a comment, buy me a coffee (thank you, Anonymous Coffee Giver!), or send me an email. I’d love to hear from you.

On the other hand, if you no longer want to receive this newsletter, please feel free to unsubscribe below. See you next Thursday at 9:10 am PT.

#481: Reading As A Scavenger Hunt?

Dear Loyal Readers,

You and me, I’d venture to say, we like to read. This is why I put together this newsletter week after week. And this is why you generously subscribe to it. After all, this is Article Club, right? We’re here to read.

But we also know (though I don’t like to admit it): Reading isn’t for everyone. This month’s article of the month, “Is This the End of Reading?” follows the downward trend of reading, especially among Gen Z college students. In her piece, writer Beth McMurtrie looks at the problem straight on: listening to professors, considering causes, and most importantly, thinking of ways to respond.

There’s still room to join our discussion on Feb. 23, 2:00 - 3:30 pm PT. For more information and to sign up, click the button below.

Sign up for our discussion on Feb. 23

Leading this week’s issue is a conversation I had last week with Ms. McMurtrie. Especially if you’re an educator or a parent, I highly recommend that you listen. In the interview, Ms. McMurtrie shares the feelings of professors dealing with the abrupt shifts they’re witnessing in the classroom. Reading stamina has significantly declined, and so have critical reading skills. Gone are the days when students could read a book or an article on their own. Now, according to one professor, reading has become a “scavenger hunt,” in which students search for discrete answers to discrete questions, dipping in and out of short excerpts, rather than taking in a whole text.

If that interview does not catch your interest, never fear. I urge you to read one of the other three articles in this week’s issue. They are about:

If you like what we’re doing here at Article Club, and want to support this venture with a paid subscription, I would be very grateful. It’s $5 a month or $36 a year.

Subscribe

An interview with Beth McMurtrie, author of “Is This the End of Reading?”

I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Beth McMurtrie this week. Senior writer at The Chronicle of Higher Education, Ms. McMurtrie knows what she’s talking about when it comes to the status of reading among college students. It was a delight to talk to her. I encourage you to listen to our entire conversation. Here’s an excerpt:

If you think of teaching as a vocation, a calling, which a lot of academics do, [the decline of reading] is really an existential crisis because you’re seeing harm come to your students. I didn’t find many professors who were angry at their students; they were sad for their students. They were certainly frustrated and sometimes wanted to beat their head against the walls, but they were sad for their students because they could see the anxiety that the students felt when they couldn’t do the work.

[The professors] would often say to me, These students have no idea how much less I’m asking of them than I asked of students 10 or 15 years ago. It changes what you can do in the classroom and how you can teach. You can’t get through as much material, which means students just simply aren’t as learning as much content. If you can't get through as much content, you may end up having to teach the skills that you thought students had learned in high school. So then your teaching becomes a different kind of teaching.

And if you don't do those things, then you kind of have a dead classroom, or you might have a discussion that goes off the rails because the students are not interpreting kind of what they're learning in a useful way.

Sign up for our discussion on Feb. 23

2️⃣ The Loss Of Things I Took For Granted

I included this fair, well-written piece last year when it was published, but I’m sharing it again, especially since Ms. McMurtrie highlighted it in our interview. Focusing on the decline of reading among college students, it’s a great companion piece to hers.

Prof. Adam Kotsko writes: “For most of my career, I assigned around 30 pages of reading per class meeting as a baseline expectation — sometimes scaling up for purely expository readings or pulling back for more difficult texts. (No human being can read 30 pages of Hegel in one sitting, for example.) Now students are intimidated by anything over 10 pages and seem to walk away from readings of as little as 20 pages with no real understanding. Even smart and motivated students struggle to do more with written texts than extract decontextualized take-aways. Considerable class time is taken up simply establishing what happened in a story or the basic steps of an argument — skills I used to be able to take for granted.”

By Adam Kotsko • Slate • 7 min • Gift Link

Read the article

Seneca, who belongs to loyal reader Kira, enjoys his stuffies and is working on delaying gratification (as we all are). Want your pet to appear here? hltr.co/pets

3️⃣ Two Days Before Abortion Stopped In Kentucky

Savannah Sipple: “I grew up in a conservative, religious part of eastern Kentucky where fundamental Christianity rules. For most of my upbringing, I recognized the pastors, choir leaders, and Sunday school teachers as the folks who lived the kindness they preached. When someone’s family member died they cooked food, cleaned house, and prayed with the grieving. They regularly took up offerings and gave food to those struggling.

“What I didn’t recognize at the time were the microaggressions. They’d say slight comments about Catholicism, which confused me as a kid because part of my family was Catholic. They’d make jokes about gays. Preachers pronounced lesbians the scourge of the nation because they dared to live without men. I was closeted, but I was both the butt of the joke and then the monster. Still, I was devout. This kind of confusing Christianity where hate is enmeshed with love was the only kind of sacred available to me. Even when my personal beliefs stood in contrast to what I was taught, I remained silent. I heard church folks disparage women who sought abortions. I heard their judgments, the way words like abomination, backslider, and sin always carried a tone of disgust and dismissal. And I stood by.”

By Savannah Sipple • The Arkansas International • 8 min • gift link unavailable

Read the article

4️⃣ An American Education

Noah Rawlings: “A revolution in education! A resuscitation of the university mission! To happen in, of all places, not the pompous old northeast or the debauched West Coast, not New York or California but the country’s southern reaches — in the Texas Hill Country, in the city of Austin, where already technologists and venture capitalists had swarmed, drawn by the absence of income tax and the looseness of labor regulations, pulled by the mild zoning laws and the natural beauty and the food trucks and the good vibes. Austin, because it was a ‘hub for builders, mavericks, and creators.’ Here a new university: the University of Austin, or UATX.

“UATX is a ‘genuinely safe space,’ in the sense that it isolates students from the inconvenient opposition of other peers and professors. It is a monoculture of free-market faith which provides, in the end, a venue for young people seeking success in tech and finance to network and to fortify the rightwing ideas that brought them here in the first place.”

➡️ Big thanks to loyal reader Tim for recommending this article. Want to nominate an article to appear in the newsletter? Click here.

By Noah Rawlings • The New Inquiry • 26 min • Gift Link

Read the article

✅ It’s time for a quick poll. I’d love to hear from you.

Last week, we confirmed that most of you read Article Club via email. That’s what I suspected. (But no problem if you use the app!)

This week, let’s solve a mystery.

POLL

Email readers: Has an issue ever skipped your inbox or not been delivered?

Yes

8%

No

92%

POLL CLOSED

Thank you for reading this week’s issue. Hope you liked it. 😀

To all of our 9 new subscribers — including Ines, Julia, Maira, Kate, Lex, and Jasun — I hope you find the newsletter a solid addition to your email inbox. To our long-time subscribers (Lee! Leo! Leonel!), you’re pretty great, too. Loyal reader Zaira, thank you for getting the word out.

If you appreciate the articles, value our discussions, and in general have come to trust that Article Club will have better things for you to read than your current habit of scrolling the Internet for hours on end, please consider a paid subscription. I am very appreciative of Kate and Carol, our latest paid subscribers. Thank you!

Subscribe

If subscribing is not your thing, don’t despair: There are other ways to support this newsletter. My favorite would be if you recommended Article Club to a friend. Other great options include buying me a $3 coffee, leaving a comment, or sending me an email at mark@articleclub.org. I’d love to hear from you.

On the other hand, if you no longer want to receive this newsletter, please feel free to unsubscribe below. See you next Thursday at 9:10 am PT.

#480: After All This

Dear Readers,

First things first: Let’s welcome our 51 new subscribers Violet, Rae, Olga, Taylor, Joyce, Sogo, Emily, Callie, Angelina, Peter, Tya, Emily, Natalie, Christine, Heather, Mary, Hannah, Marie-Pierre, Kristy, Fernanda, Maurtini, Helen, Angelina, Colette, Ronald, Courtney, Kelley, Jaymi, Katy, Steph, Deborah, Cathy, Christina, Brenna, Megan, Jacki, Alina, Cynthia, Caryn, Brittany, Nimi, Katie, Shell, Jamie, Candice, Samuel, Leslie, and Stephanie. New subscribers, I hope you find the newsletter a solid addition to your email inbox. Welcome to Article Club. Make yourself at home. 🏠

A big thank you goes to Katy O, who writes The Mindful Librarian, for writing about ast week’s issue and sharing it with her kind readers. I’m very grateful.

As you can see, this week was a joyous one. Here are some more highlights:

  • HHH was a big success (see below)

  • We reached 1,500 subscribers (thank you for your readership!)

  • I interviewed Beth McMurtrie, author of “Is This the End of Reading?” (coming next week)

  • I interviewed Susan Dominus, author of “Someone Else’s Daughter” (coming later this month)

  • I got to chat with Melinda about “Is This the End of Reading?” (see below)

Not a bad week at all, don’t you think? Let’s keep up this momentum.

This week’s lead article, “After All This,” caught my interest from the first paragraph. Author Dana Salvador is a teacher and a parent who cannot fathom why we’ve done so little to protect our children against mass shootings. You might not want to read another article about guns in schools, but this one is tightly and beautifully written. I especially appreciated Ms. Salvador’s ability to create vivid images with spare, succinct prose.

If that article does not catch your interest, never fear. Choose between:

If you like what we’re doing here at Article Club, and want to support this venture with a paid subscription, I would be very grateful. It’s $5 a month or $36 a year.

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1️⃣ After All This

Dana Salvador was in college in 1999 when two young people killed 12 students and one teacher at Columbine High School. That fall, she became a teacher, and remains one to this day. Throughout her career, Ms. Salvador has ruminated on the vast harm that guns in schools have caused. She is devastated by our country’s inability to protect our children. In this powerful piece, Ms. Salvador juxtaposes her personal experiences as a teacher alongside our failures as a nation to stop the killing. “Every day I know I could be shot,” she writes. “I understand how someone who feels powerless might crave dominance, how someone who feels fragile might long to feel control.” Not to give away any spoilers, but the end is particularly illuminating, and sad.

➡️ In case you’re interested, here’s my hand-written annotated version.

By Dana Salvador • The Sun Magazine • 10 min • Gift link

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2️⃣ “Is This the End of Reading?” Join our discussion Feb. 23

Last week, I revealed February’s article of the month, “Is This the End of Reading?” Written by Beth McMurtrie and published in The Chronicle of Higher Education, the piece focuses on the decline of reading among college students. I highly recommend the article, especially if you’re a parent, educator, or worried about the state of reading. (I am worried. 😬)

Already, several of you have signed up for our discussion on Feb. 23, 2:00 - 3:30 pm PT. This is great news. If you’re still on the fence, click on the play button below to listen to an introduction to the piece, which Melinda and I recorded last weekend. (Plus there’s an extra perk if you listen to the end!)

Everyone is welcome to sign up for the discussion. This is how it’ll go:

  • We’ll sign up by clicking the button below

  • We’ll read and annotate the article together on this shared Google Doc

  • We’ll listen to an interview with author Beth McMurtrie (coming next week)

  • We’ll gather on Zoom to discuss the article in facilitated small groups

Are you interested? I hope so!

If this will be your first time, rest assured: Like you, Article Club readers are kind and thoughtful. We love the best writing that’s out there, and we appreciate building connection and empathy across difference. If you have any questions, hit reply or email me at mark@articleclub.org.

Sign up for our discussion

It was great to see all 32 of you who gathered last Thursday for our 24th HHH. As usual, it was a great event of kind and thoughtful people. Big thanks to everyone who braved the cold, and to John and Ingrid for their latest raffle gift. See you at the next HHH in March or April.

3️⃣ The Last True Hermit

Reading this article about Christopher Thomas Knight, who lived for 27 years as a hermit in the woods of central Maine — never talking to anyone — confirmed for me, once again, that I dislike camping and do indeed prefer the comfort of my abode.

But Mr. Knight’s story, brilliantly told by Michael Finkel, certainly earned my respect of the North Pond Hermit, who survived bitter winters without once lighting a fire. Doing so, he said, would give away his location. The trick was to wake up early, around 2 a.m. “If you try and sleep through that kind of cold, you might never wake up.”

But true hermits and survivalists might scoff at Mr. Knight’s dependence on plundering homes and businesses — at a rate of 40 burglaries per year, always in the dead of night — in order to stock up on food and provisions. His favorites included propane (to cook with and to melt ice, for water) and candy, especially Smarties.

After all, how can you look down on Henry David Thoreau (as Mr. Knight does) when you’re rummaging around for bacon and burgers?

By Michael Finkel • GQ • 32 min • Gift Link

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4️⃣ A Hellish Apartment

If the last article convinced you that living by yourself in the middle of the woods might not be the ticket to bliss, this article will remind you of the importance of knowing your housemates before entering into a lease agreement. Also, if your gut says no (see below), then maybe your gut is correct.

A few years back, Tabatha Pope was down on her luck, living with her boyfriend at a $35-a-night motel in the West Side of Houston. Desperately needing a permanent place, she heard about an open apartment in a three-story house downtown. Perfect, Ms. Pope thought. Let’s take a look.

The tour of the house went smoothly — that is to say, until the owners showed Ms. Pope the available apartment. “When she started to open the door, an intense, rotten stench flooded the hallway. [The owner] told Pope not to worry about the smell: A refrigerator had stopped working, spoiling some meat.”

By Ian Frisch • Curbed • 27 min • Gift Link

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✅ It’s time for a quick poll. I’d love to hear from you.

Last week, we learned that you definitely click on gift links (95% yes, 5% no). To be clear, these are made possible by our generous paid subscribers.

This week, let’s learn more about your reading habits. (My gut says I know this answer, but I want to make sure.)

POLL

How do you usually read Article Club?

In my email, on my computer

48%

In my email, on my phone

35%

In the Substack app, on my computer

0%

In the Substack app, on my phone

9%

On my iPad or tablet

9%

POLL CLOSED

Thank you for reading this week’s issue. Hope you liked it. 😀

If you appreciate the articles, value our discussions, and in general have come to trust that Article Club will have better things for you to read than your current habit of scrolling the Internet for hours on end, please consider a paid subscription. I am very appreciative of Seewan and Courtney, our latest paid subscribers. Thank you!

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On the other hand, if you no longer want to receive this newsletter, please feel free to unsubscribe below. See you next Thursday at 9:10 am PT.