Monday at the Center of the Universe 
This past Monday, I peered into the humming center of the universe. I’m talking about Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, California.
Debra RienstraAugust 12, 2017
Preparedness is Key
With everything going on in the news this week, we might as well come right out and discuss what we’re all thinking about anyway: the apocalypse.
Debra RienstraMay 20, 2017
Bonne Bell Takes Me Back
The first issue arrived in November. I remember being so excited, I brought it along to catechism class on a Wednesday afternoon. How I gazed at the beautiful older girl on the cover—perfect teeth, clear skin, gorgeous late-70s hair. I opened to the first page…
Debra RienstraMay 5, 2017
Dark Vocation
Watson basically teaches Sherlock how to be in a human relationship, and unlike previous Sherlocks, this one slowly concedes that following a life philosophy other than “everyone must serve my genius” might actually be a wiser way to live.
Debra RienstraApril 21, 2017
Lectures: A Triptych
There’s something irresistible and mesmerizing about Coates’s voice. I found Between the World and Me deeply compelling, partly because of Coates’s muscular, precise prose. He’s one of our finest essayists today, in the tradition of James Baldwin and others.
Debra RienstraApril 7, 2017
Quid Est Potentia?
“There are two elements of the constitution, wrote Walter Bagehot in 1867, the efficient and the dignified. … The efficient has the power to make and execute policy, and is answerable to the electorate. … The dignified gives significance and legitimacy to the efficient, and…
Debra RienstraDecember 17, 2016
Speak What We Feel
I’m grieving. Not because I have policy disagreements with the winner. Not because the lady didn’t win. Those things matter, but it’s so much bigger than that. I’m grieving because a person who rode to power on a calculated surge of hatred and bigotry, who…
Debra RienstraNovember 12, 2016
Too Late
Last Friday, when the Trump video hit the news like a meteorite, my spouse spent the day watching the reaction in the news media and Twitterverse and reporting back to me every hour. By evening, we were floating on waves of Schadenfreude, wickedly enjoying the…
Debra RienstraOctober 14, 2016
I’ll Take Less Choice Please
Blue Apron is a relatively new service (started in 2012) that supplies meal kits—pre-portioned ingredients and recipes—shipped in a box right to your door. Yesterday I came home to a box waiting for me on the front stoop. I opened it up to find, packed…
Debra RienstraSeptember 17, 2016
Would You Say Yes?
So your patient can either go to the big hospital, two hours from home, and slowly die there. Or he can die at home, with your help. Many of your colleagues are deeply opposed to PAD. But all you have to do is fill out…
Debra RienstraAugust 20, 2016
