Four women discuss the science and culture of breast-feeding
"One afternoon at the playground last summer, shortly after the birth of my third child, I made the mistake of idly musing about breast-feeding to a group of new mothers I’d just met. This time around, I said, I was considering cutting it off after a month or so. At this remark, the air of insta-friendship we had established cooled into an icy politeness, and the mothers shortly wandered away to chase little Emma or Liam onto the slide. I ended up in the class of mom who, in a pinch, might feed her baby mashed-up Chicken McNuggets."
Trevor Corson shares images from his Mökki vacation
"On the drive to my first Mökki, the roads twisted through green fields of barley and rye and stunning yellow swaths of rapeseed. Sturdy red farmhouses and barns were scattered across the countryside. We arrived at a lake, and there in the woods was a very small, very charming cabin. My friends unloaded our supply of drinking water—which, in accordance with Mökki tradition, consisted primarily of beer—and built a fire to heat the sauna. Someone pointed out the rowboat at the shoreline, noting that a rowboat and a sauna were the only two pieces of equipment necessary for Mökki living."
James Parker provides voiceover commentary for a scene from the Friday the 13th franchise.
"Hockey-masked Jason Voorhees, God love him, has trudged with zombie stoicism through a dozen Friday the 13ths. In a tolerant spirit, the slasher fan gets in line for the new sequel or prequel or remake or “reboot.” If it’s crap, so what? The next one might be better. "
Photographer Evan Abramson narrates a photo essay featuring Bolivian leader Evo Morales and his indigenous supporters
"Since his landslide win in 2005, Evo Morales has championed the country's indigenous majority (some 55 percent of the population). But as he has consolidated power among the patchwork of indigenous groups in the wester highlands, Morales has deployed a rhetoric studded with racial references aimed at his opposition, which is led by wealthy, mostly white businessmen and concentrated in the lowland eastern region that includes Santa Cruz."
James Fallows and Megan McArdle discuss the current industrial moment in China: the rise of new high tech companies, the urbanization of the culture, and the folly of the term "currency manipulators."
"China is down. It is not out. If China were truly like the old Soviet Union, the coming mass unemployment might be the shock that finally turned the people against their rulers. If it were truly like Japan, it might spend a decade or two chugging along but not aligning its systems to new international realities. I suspect that China will be like neither."
