The ideal collaborator

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I’m thinking back on all the projects I did with a partner. What qualities made for an ideal collaborator? They were passionate about ideas. Their ideas were different from mine. They have skills I didn’t have, and that the project needed. They were good at arguing without becoming nasty. They understood what a logical argument … Continued

How the Boston Globe trolled gay football player Carl Nassib with its choice of photo

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Yesterday, Carl Nassib, defensive lineman for the NFL’s Las Vegas Raiders, revealed on Instagram that he was gay. Most of the photos in articles about the news were straightforward — but the Boston Globe decided to play some childish subliminal tricks. Nassib’s announcement was historic because he’s the first gay NFL player to come out … Continued

Pitiless editing

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Editors can’t be sentimental or be swayed by politics within author organizations. The only thing that matters is what the reader will read. As a nonfiction book editor, your only concern should be whether a book will be worthwhile and successful. That success depends on the answers to these questions: Will the reader want to … Continued

God’s test

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God is testing you. But maybe not the way you think. I am betting you are a committed person. The values you hold close are sacred to you. You put a lot of energy into living and sustaining those values. But that is not always easy. There will come a moment when you are tested. … Continued

Josh Hawley’s radical manifesto “The Tyranny of Big Tech”

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Missouri Senator Josh Hawley’s book The Tyranny of Big Tech is a diatribe against large tech platforms like Facebook and Google. It’s a remarkably radical, even quasi-Marxist critique for a Republican — one that proposes a series of regulations that would endear him to the most liberal of Democrats. I have problem with both Hawley’s … Continued

I question the ethics of ProPublica purloining rich people’s tax returns

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ProPublica, a nonprofit investigative journalism site, obtained and then published details of the tax returns of billionaires including Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Warren Buffet, and Michael Bloomberg. Their reporting echoed across the internet, but did it really justify stealing people’s private information? “ProPublica has obtained a vast trove of Internal Revenue Service data on the … Continued