human behavior

What is yodeling, anyway? Some consider it singing, some say it's an ululation, and still others consider it merely a means to herd animals. Whatever yodeling is, one's thing clear: Yodeling has been around for thousands of years and shows no signs of disappearing.

Joyce Maynard has been writing for over 45 years about the kind of human experiences we're often taught to keep hidden - stories  about envy, anger, vanity, self-pity, pride.  

We read her stories because they offer a chance to first confront and then forgive ourselves for how those emotions can shape us into people we don't like. 

The nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to fill the seat of departing Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy had already widened the chasm between Democrats and Republicans before allegations of sexual assault against Kavanaugh blew it wide open. 

We were going to produce a show today on loneliness with British writer Olivia Laing. We still want to do that show with Olivia - but not today.

Instead, we decided to switch gears and talk with Olivia and other artists about the themes in Olivia's new novel because they mirror our own concerns: how to live life in this fast-moving world where the present is history in the blink of an eye and world leaders can end our world with one wrong tweet? How can we exist, create art, raise children, commit to a future in a world that could be ending?

Former Trump official Steve Bannon was disinvited from the 19th annual "New Yorker Festival" Monday, after David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker, first invited him for a "serious" and "combative" conversation in which Remnick promised to pose "difficult" questions to Bannon. 

Mimes have been gesticulating their way into our hearts (or nightmares) for a lot longer than you may think. While it may have been the legendary Marcel Marceau who popularized the mime, people have been communicating through movement since the very beginning.

What do recent events such as #MeToo, the election of Donald Trump, and an onslaught of mass shootings perpetrated by white men all have in common? They’ve all provoked important cultural conversations about manhood in America.

Many of us hoped the white nationalist movement that instigated last year's "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, would suffer a fatal blow. The majority of Americans condemned both the blatant bigotry displayed by the protesters and the president's failure to single out the nationalists as the perpetrators of the "hatred, bigotry and violence." He instead, said he saw that violence "on many sides."

That's not what happened.

The Washington Post, in The Fact Checker database they've kept since the 2016 election, notes an increase in the number of false or misleading claims the president has made in recent months while traveling the country to campaign for Republicans running in summer primaries.

George Packer wrote in The New Yorker this weekend that the only obstacle left to prevent President Trump's full consolidation of power is public opinion. We must vote.

Humans are great at making a mess of things. So far, however, that mess has been confined to Earth. But as we develop into a spacefaring species, our capacity for destruction, pollution, and prejudice (towards aliens of earthly and unearthly origins) threatens to have cosmic consequences.

Why do we dance? The answer is more complicated than you might think. Dancing has served a multitude of functions for various cultures throughout history, and there is even evidence to suggest we, as a species, are biologically hard-wired to dance.

America has never been able to fully measure up to the ideals we embody. Yet, we could reasonably believe that we at least aspired to those ideals of equality, opportunity, and civility.  Today, we can no longer deny that those in power care little about the people they govern.