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Each week, a different Vox editor curates their favorite work that Vox has published across text, audio, and video. This week’s recommendations are brought to you by Katherine Courage, deputy editor, Future Perfect.
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Each week, a different Vox editor curates their favorite work that Vox has published across text, audio, and video. This week’s recommendations are brought to you by Katherine Courage, deputy editor, Future Perfect.
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Here’s my public, perhaps ill-advised confession: For an editor, I am not naturally great at spelling. I can spot an extra space or errant bolded period a mile away. But in grade school, spelling tests were my Achilles heel. And I still blame my mediocre handwriting (whether fairly or not) on an attempt to hide spelling flubs as a kid when writing out longhand.
Maybe I could have squeaked by as a quirky, poor-spelling writer in the age of typewriters. But I absolutely credit one innovation for having helped make possible my incredibly fulfilling job as an articles editor: spellcheck, of course. As a parent now, of kids who may or may not have to suffer the weekly indignity of spelling tests, I wonder what new tech might enable success and fulfillment in their future jobs.
But even more, of course, I wonder (okay, deeply worry) about how new tech will alter the trajectory of and options for their lives and careers, very potentially not in a spellcheck-supported kind of way. Vox senior editorial director Bryan Walsh, also a parent, was wondering the same thing. So he posed the quandary to correspondent Sigal Samuel: How can we cultivate children — and ourselves, really — who will thrive in a future that is potentially so AI-driven?
Her response was the very best kind: exceedingly thoughtful and full of action items. It’s not only about raising exceedingly humane and virtuous humans, she explains. It’s also about taking action now to shape a more human-driven future as well as about building up your support networks of other great humans. Ones who will accept homemade food when they could use it, for example — even, or especially, if the handwritten note on it has a misspelling, or two.
Here are some other Vox stories, podcasts, and videos that helped me feel like a more well-rounded human this week. I hope they do that for you, too!
—Katherine Courage, deputy editor, Future Perfect |
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The myth of the downwardly mobile college graduate
This story resonated a lot, as a parent and as an elder millennial (please don’t ask me to write that word out by hand, by the way). And it dovetails nicely with Sigal’s piece. In this deeply researched feature, senior correspondent Eric Levitz jumps in with some good and unexpected news: New college graduates are actually doing better than they were 30 years ago. He explains why that group has become more liberal than in the past — and why it’s not out of economic desperation. Read on in the article and you’ll also get to one of my favorite and most-true subheads I’ve read all week: “Millennials and capitalism got off on the wrong foot.”
It should be much easier to remove the president from office
Aaron Sorkin made it look easy enough in The West Wing. But it turns out that removing a sitting president in the US is actually quite difficult. Much harder, in fact, than it is in many other democracies. In this real-time analysis, senior correspondent Ian Millhiser — Vox’s resident Supreme Court and Constitution expert — helped me understand the hubbub this week around the usually obscure 25th Amendment. (P.S. That was episode “Twenty Five” of The West Wing for those who follow.)
The surprising truth about logging
Chopping down trees on public lands and letting the timber industry sell them for profit seems like, well, a bad idea, right? The whole premise — currently being pushed by the Trump administration — reminded me of the heated spotted owl controversy of the 1990s (when the endangered species was living in public forests that the logging industry very much wanted to harvest for lumber). So when I was talking with correspondent Benji Jones on a call last week and he pitched this story idea to me, I had to say yes when he explained that, actually, it might… not be terrible? One reason: The Trump administration really has only itself to blame if no one wants to buy wood right now anyway.
🎧Why Trump betrayed MAGA, according to Tucker Carlson
All I have to say is if you haven’t listened to this episode of Today, Explained, you should go do that now. In it, host Noel King does an incredible job of probing Tucker Carlson directly on extremely tough topics — and doesn’t let him off the hook for one moment. Carlson explains his efforts to talk Trump out of engaging in Iran, how the MAGA movement is feeling right now, and what he thinks will happen with the next generation of voters. Seriously, go listen.
🎧America, Actually
And, finally, what am I looking forward to? The launch of Astead Herndon’s America, Actually podcast — this Saturday! Ever since I heard Astead was joining Vox last fall, I’d been excited to get to follow his sharp, broad-minded reporting here, especially as we approach midterm elections this year. Through this new series, he will partner with Report for America reporters across the country to meet people in the US where they are. His approach for this show — revealing what politics really looks like across America, beyond the showman ostensibly in charge — is so refreshing. I can’t wait to follow along. Watch full episodes on Vox’s YouTube channel or listen wherever you get your podcasts.
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