Slate Articles

Where to Hide From Mother Nature

Brendan Koerner — Tue, 21 May 2013 15:18:00 GMT

A tornado devastated parts of Oklahoma City on Monday, twisting schools, hospitals, and neighborhoods into rubble and killing dozens of people. Tornado Alley is a dangerous place to live. Considering all the tornadoes, hurricanes, fires, and floods that afflict the United States, what is the safest place to live? Wyoming? Maine? West Virginia? Slate crunched the numbers in 2005. The original story is below.

How Did "Tornado Alley" Get Its Name?

Jeremy Singer-Vine — Tue, 21 May 2013 15:15:00 GMT

Yesterday’s devastating tornado in Oklahoma spun through the heart of “Tornado Alley.” In 2011, Explainer asked how and when this region got its name, especially since some of the deadliest tornadoes take place outside its boundaries. The original story is below.

NBC Couldn’t Save Save Me

June Thomas — Tue, 21 May 2013 14:13:00 GMT

In the opening moments of a new TV show that premieres this week, a disheveled, hammer-wielding woman stands over her sleeping husband, considering whether to kill him. Deciding against homicide, she heads down to the kitchen, where she chugs a beer, greedily rips into a massive hoagie, and chokes to death.

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Learning to Love the Poems of Edward Thomas

David Rivard — Tue, 21 May 2013 12:00:00 GMT

I came to “There’s Nothing Like the Sun,” and Edward Thomas’ work in general, quite late, thanks to some of my more inane prejudices. The image I’d developed of Thomas’ poems (without having read many of them) didn’t hold much appeal, not for somebody like me, who has lived in cities all his life. I’ve always loved best the American poets who have been most tuned in to life in those places: Williams and O’Hara in particular. Thomas’ sensibility initially seemed to me the product of “cottage England.” His interest in the natural world seemed … well, sort of unrelenting.

Mad Men, Season 6

Hanna Rosin — Tue, 21 May 2013 10:30:00 GMT

Paul, Seth:

Thanks for Nothing

Emily Yoffe — Tue, 21 May 2013 10:15:00 GMT

Emily Yoffe, aka Dear Prudence, is on Washingtonpost.com weekly to chat live with readers. An edited transcript of the chat is below. (Sign up here to get Dear Prudence delivered to your inbox each week. Read Prudie’s Slate columns here. Send questions to Prudence at prudence@slate.com.)

Who's Your Daddy?

Daniel Engber — Tue, 21 May 2013 09:45:00 GMT

First Jackie learned her brother Alex was her uncle. Then things got a little weird.

Profiling Is Great ... Except When You Do It to Me

Farhad Manjoo — Mon, 20 May 2013 23:04:45 GMT

Pretend you work at the Internal Revenue Service. Actually, let’s make this exercise even more terrible. Pretend you’re an underpaid, low-level clerk working in the understaffed IRS backwater of Cincinnati. Every day, a big stack of files lands on your desk. Every day, the stack gets a little bigger than the last. Each file represents a new application for a certain tax status—501(c)(4), a tax-exempt designation meant for “social welfare” organizations. Nonprofits with this status aren’t required to disclose the identity of their donors and they’re allowed to lobby legislative officials. The catch is that they must limit their political campaign activity. According to IRS rules, 501(c)(4) groups can participate in elections, but electioneering must not be their “primary” mission.

Obama’s Other Secret War

Fred Kaplan — Mon, 20 May 2013 22:07:16 GMT

The Obama Justice Department’s crusade against leakers just took a quantum leap—and it’s extremely worrisome.

A Wealth of GIFs

Emma Roller — Mon, 20 May 2013 21:44:14 GMT

The news of Yahoo’s acquisition of Tumblr launched many an irritated post on the microblogging site this week; the response is similar to Instagram users’ histrionic reactions after Facebook bought the photo-sharing company last year. The price tag for the free microblogging site is reportedly $1.1 billion. Is Tumblr really worth more than $1 billion?