The Gene Drive Dilemma: We Can Alter Entire Species, but Should We?
A new genetic engineering technology could help eliminate malaria and stave off extinctions — if humanity decides to unleash it.
How the Pinellas Sheriff’s Office Boosts Its Rape Stats Without Solving Cases
An investigation into how police departments can fail to solve rape cases but still get credit.
If My Scars Could Talk
How acute childhood trauma infects and compromises relationships later in life.
How the World Failed Haiti
But despite all that has been promised, almost nothing has been built back in Haiti, better or otherwise. Within Port-au-Prince, some 3 million people languish in permanent misery, subject to myriad experiments at "fixing" a nation that, to those who are attempting it, stubbornly refuses to be fixed. Mountains of rubble remain in the streets, hundreds of thousands of people continue to live in weather-beaten tents, and cholera, a disease that hadn't been seen in Haiti for 60 years, has swept over the land, infecting more than a quarter million people.
Elizabeth Wurtzel, who died today, was the author of four books, including Prozac Nation. This episode was originally published in October 2013.
"It's not that hard to be a lawyer. Any fool can be a lawyer. It's really hard to be a writer. You have to be born with incredible amounts of talent. Then you have to work hard. Then you have to be able to handle tons of rejection and not mind it and just keep pushing away at it. You have to show up at people's doors. You can't just e-mail and text message people. You have to bang their doors down. You have to be interesting. You have to be fucking phenomenal to get a book published and then sell the book. When people think their writing career is not working out, it's not working out because it's so damn hard. It's not harder now than it was 20 years ago. It's just as hard. It was always hard."
Show Notes
- @LizzieWurtzel
- [16:00] Prozac Nation
(1994)
- [21:00] "The Return of the Replacements: Here Comes a Regular" (The Daily Beast • Sep 2013)
- [31:00] "Elizabeth Wurtzel Confronts Her One-Night Stand of a Life" (New York • Jan 2013)
- [45:30] "From Led Zeppelin to Breaking Bad: The Lamest Generation" (The Daily Beast • Sep 2013)
- [46:15] "Fight the Power" (The New Yorker • Sep 1992)
- [50:30] "Mitt Romney Is Likable Enough" (The Atlantic • Jan 2012)
- [52:30] Thursday, Oct. 24: Wurtzel will be reading at No. 8 in New York. Details
- [53:00] More, Now, Again: A Memoir of Addiction
(2002)
- [53:15] Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women
(1998)
100 Women vs. Harvey Weinstein
The disgraced movie mogul finally faces his day in court. But as his accusers know best, there might not be a Hollywood ending.
The Year in Pivoting to Video
There’s only ever so much you can control at any job.
Such Perfection
Confronting a body excluded from beauty amid Italy’s natural splendor.
A World Without Pain
Does hurting make us human?
Exceptional, Ruthless
On the life and legacy of David Stern.
What I Learned in Avalanche School
“I wanted to be prepared for the worst nature could throw at me. But the real threat turned out to be human.”
The Doctor, the Dentist, and the Killer
Brenda thought she and Ricky would be together forever, until he left her. Kendra thought she and Ricky would be together forever. Then Brenda took matters into her own hands. Inside the case of jealousy, spying, and murder that shook Uptown Dallas.
The Midlife Crisis of the American Restaurant Review
How the #MeToo movement paved the way for a new era of food writing.
The Shadow Commander
Iranian operative Qassem Suleimani has been reshaping the Middle East. Now he’s directing Bashar al-Assad’s war in Syria.
Inside the U.S. military's raid against its own security guards that left dozens of Afghan children dead.
In Aug. 2008, the U.S. military called in an airstrike on its own security guards in Afghanistan. Dozens of children were killed.
Fiction Pick of the Week: "These Bad Things"
A family camping trip; the effects of legends.
Lost in Summerland
At the world’s largest gathering of psychics and mediums, two brothers confront a painful secret.
A Translation Crisis at the Border
For migrants who speak Mayan languages, a grassroots group of interpreters is often their only hope for receiving asylum.
Jerry Saltz is a Pulitzer-winning art critic for New York.
“To this day I wake up early and I have to get to my desk to write almost immediately. I mean fast. Before the demons get me. I got to get writing. And once I’ve written almost anything, I’ll pretty much write all day, I don’t leave my desk, I have no other life. I’m not part of the world except when I go to see shows.”
Thanks to MailChimp and Pitt Writers for sponsoring this week's episode.
A Few Too Many
On the centuries-long search for the perfect hangover remedy.
In the Beginning
The schism at the heart of cosmology.
This Will End Well
The world’s best ice climber is turning 50.
India: Intimations of an Ending
The rise of Modi and the Hindu far right.
The War Vet, the Dating Site, and the Phone Call From Hell
Jared Johns found out too late that swapping messages with the pretty girl from a dating site would mean serious trouble. If only he had known who she really was.
Faulty Equipment, Lapsed Training, Repeated Warnings: How a Preventable Disaster Killed Six Marines
Marine commanders did not act on dozens of pleas for additional manpower, machinery and time. When a training exercise ended in death, leadership blamed the very men they had neglected.
