The Story Behind Dylan Thomas’s “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” and the Poet’s Own Stirring Reading of His Masterpiece

Open Thread

No Retroactive Pseudonymization in Federal Court Under California "Safe at Home" Program

Keith Haring on Creativity, Self-Doubt, and the Love of Life in the Face of Death

For Warmth: Thich Nhat Hanh’s Poetic Antidote to Anger

New AI model could cut the costs of developing protein drugs

This Forest Rodent Serves as a Reservoir for the Deadly Mpox Virus

Richard Dawkins on the Luckiness of Death

Today in Supreme Court History: February 15, 1790

How We Render Reality: Attention as an Instrument of Love

Open Thread

Penny, a Doberman pinscher, wins the Westminster dog show

“Telling someone to love literature because reading is good for society is like telling someone to believe in God because religion is good for society”

Dying Mothers, the Birth of Handwashing, and the Bittersweet True Love Story Behind ‘Frankenstein’

Tolkien’s reading of Beowulf, and his ability to blend the epic with the novel, fiction and scholarship, shaped his sense of story 

“Good politics, like good art, does not lecture or declaim. It strains; it argues; it is an unending negotiation with the difficult and intransigent adventure of humanity”

Our Holiday Reading List

One night in 1973, three Jackson Pollock paintings were stolen. The case continues to reverberate in surprising ways

Famous for telling writers to embrace their “shitty first drafts,” Bird by Bird is one of the most popular writing guides of all time. Is it any good?

The ICE Agent Who Killed Renee Good Disregarded Traffic Stop Guidelines

A Viral Story Claims an ICE Worker Was Caught in a Child Sex Trafficking Sting. The Truth Is Much Stranger.

Federal District Court Judge Rejects Minnesota's Anti-Commandeering Arguments Against DHS "Operation Metro Surge" (and with Good Reason)