Slate Articles

Mad Men, Season 6

Seth Stevenson — Mon, 20 May 2013 10:53:24 GMT

Paul, Hanna,

Freeze!

Sarah Elizabeth Richards — Mon, 20 May 2013 10:45:00 GMT

Last year, a 38-year-old friend sent me a link to an article titled “My Secret Grief: Over 35, Single, and Childless” by Savvy Auntie author Melanie Notkin about her heartbreak over not having children with the email subject line “She nailed it!” I quickly replied with the answer I’d given many friends who were worried about finding a partner in time to have a baby: “Freeze your eggs!” I gushed about how taking charge of my fertility had made me feel more relaxed and helped my dating prospects. Then I preemptively knocked down my friend’s arguments: You can afford it. It’s not too late. I’ll help you with the hormone shots. Despite my best efforts at cheerleading, she remained tepid: “I’ll think about it.”

Give Spam a Chance

Anna Weaver — Mon, 20 May 2013 09:45:00 GMT

On a recent cross-country road trip, I visited the Hormel Foods factory and neighboring Spam Museum in Austin, Minn. The air surrounding the factory smells just like Spam. If you’re like most Americans, you’re probably gagging at the thought of Spam-scented air. I say, take another sniff. Because if you set aside Spam’s longstanding reputation as a pink, slimy, salty block of sodium, you just might smell something you want to eat.

Particle vs. Antiparticle

Lisa Grossman — Sun, 19 May 2013 11:15:00 GMT

Leo Kouwenhoven is a professor of physics at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. He ended the 75-year hunt for the Majorana fermion—a particle that is its own antiparticle—by creating it on a chip.

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Doctor Who, Season 7, Part 2

Mac Rogers — Sun, 19 May 2013 03:36:17 GMT

In Slate’s Doctor Who TV Club, Mac Rogers discusses the Doctor’s travels via IM every week with the show’s bloggers and fans. This week he’s chatting about the season finale "The Name of the Doctor" with Phil Sandifer, who writes TARDIS Eruditorum.

The Longform Guide to Elephants

Robyn Jodlowski — Sat, 18 May 2013 11:30:00 GMT

Every weekend, Longform shares a collection of great stories from its archive with Slate. For daily picks of new and classic nonfiction, check out Longform or follow @longform on Twitter. Have an iPad? Download Longform’s app to read the latest picks, plus features from dozens of other magazines, including Slate.

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Scandals Galore, Sensory Deprivation, and Bitter Beer Backlash

Byron Boneparth — Sat, 18 May 2013 11:00:00 GMT

“Scandal Jujitsu: How is Obama coping with multiple scandals? By playing them off against one another,” by William Saletan. It’s been a bad week for the White House, with scandals over the 2012 Benghazi attacks, IRS targeting of conservative groups, and Justice Department monitoring of AP reporters’ phone records all making national headlines. Saletan criticizes the administration’s tactic of justifying the AP phone record surveillance by tying it to Republican’s concern about Benghazi-like security breaches. He writes that it’s a cynical move and a failure in messaging that won’t make any of these headaches go away.

Wine Drinkers of the World, Unite

Christopher Hitchens — Sat, 18 May 2013 09:30:00 GMT

The other night, I was having dinner with some friends in a fairly decent restaurant and was at the very peak of my form as a wit and raconteur. But just as, with infinite and exquisite tantalizations, I was approaching my punch line, the most incredible thing happened. A waiter appeared from nowhere, leaned right over my shoulder and into the middle of the conversation, seized my knife and fork, and started to cut up my food for me. Not content with this bizarre behavior, and without so much as a by-your-leave, he proceeded to distribute pieces of my entree onto the plates of the other diners.

The Dreaded C-Word

Stefan Fatsis — Fri, 17 May 2013 22:33:19 GMT

A person’s head collides with an object. Unprepared for the impact, the head jerks in a violent whiplash motion. The person collapses, rolling on the ground and holding his head, before rising slowly and unsteadily. Eyewitnesses testify that the person was confused or disoriented.

A Den of Liberals

David Weigel — Fri, 17 May 2013 22:29:46 GMT

Maybe it wasn’t the best idea for acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller to resign before talking to Congress. He appeared before the House Ways and Means Committee on Friday as a sort of human sacrifice; the first bureaucrat to resign in the scandal, and not even the one Republicans or Tea Partiers wanted. Miller had been a deputy commissioner during the years of scandal, and the IRS inspector general’s report didn’t tie him to any bias or malfeasance.