Cord Jefferson Cord Jefferson is a writer living in Los Angeles. The Awl Be less stupid.

“Anil's crowning troll-glory is suggesting that everyone check their privilege: ‘recognize your own privilege or entitlement which makes you feel as if you should be able to decide what’s right for others.’ The… fine upstanding American businesses that are movie theaters actually decided that? And…

“the biggest problem is that little word ‘privilege.’ Why should precisely that be the key term? A privilege is something extra — and from a very young age, I knew that when something was referred to as a privilege, I was in danger of losing it. How does that make sense, for instance, with something…

Shedding a preconceived notion can be a difficult and disconcerting thing, especially when that notion turns out to be more than just a notion, but a deeply held personal belief. Like a superstition or a phobia, it may not be anchored in logic, but in your bones you know it to be right and true.…

He was the man who always had a plan walking up to the plate. He was the man who always wore his batting helmet on the field. And he was the man with the sweet, sweet swing. I’m of course talking about none other than John Olerud, who is the focus of this week’s Flashback Friday post. Johnny O had…

Why Go Out? I wonder why I am up here on this stage when I’d rather be at home, when being at home would be so much more comforting. And I wonder why all of you are sitting there in the audience, when so many of you would also be happier at home. At home, you can wear your pyjamas. No one is going…

Fiction August 5, 2013 Illustration by Martin Ansin “What you got there, then?” The boy didn’t hear the question. He stood at the end of a ruined pier, believing himself quite alone. But now he registered the presence at his back, and turned. “What you got there?” A very old person, a woman, stood…

“Crucially, the levy does not appear to have hurt families, the poor and businesses, as opponents argued it would.”

When I read last month that voters in Portland, Oregon, had defeated a bill that would have fluoridated their drinking water, I was reminded of my first experience with an anti-fluoridation wacko. Jeffrey lived three houses down from me when I was a child. He was in his forties, lived at home with…

FORTY-NINE YEARS AGO, Sports Illustrated profiled an engineering professor with jolting theories about baseball. Earnshaw Cook, author of the then-unreleased Percentage Baseball, claimed that advanced math and objective analysis could turn any team into a pennant winner. He didn't call it…

Preorder my new book Hi! Please preorder my new book, The Small Stuff: How to Lead a More Gratifying Life, out summer 2026. You can click up here to do it. —love, ian Writing I write both general-readership magazine stories (mostly for The Atlantic, where I am a contributing writer), and scholarly…

Brian Jackson, a senior planner with the City of Richmond, B.C., near downtown Vancouver, July 28, 2012. Jackson was recently appointed General Manager for Planning and Development for the City of Vancouver.Jeff Vinnick/The Globe and Mail After a series of public rebellions against new developments…

“A big fear that many people have about a private-sector approach to public transit is that rewards efficiency at the expense of providing a social service. If a particular route isn’t capturing much fare revenue, for instance, then business-minded officials might be more apt to cut it. That…

Caption: A color-coded map of the perceived safety of New York City neighborhoods, based on Web volunteers' comparisons of images extracted from Google Maps' "street view" archive. Credits: Image: Macro Connections Group Caption: A color-coded map of the perceived safety of New York City…

A terrific tribute to impending Hall of Famer Tom Cheek by @Wilnerness590, who helped get him to Cooperstown: http://t.co/F8SY1ml7Qj

Photo by mellbin. Thanks to the Vancouver Sun for publishing the VPSN’s letter in support of the City of Vancouver’s proposal for cycling and pedestrian enhancements to the Point Grey-Cornwall Corridor today, which are going before Vancouver’s council on Tuesday, July 23rd. (You can find the letter…

"NW was her attempt to write an ‘existential novel’, to channel her reading of Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre into a modern, black, female setting. ‘Women often have a great need to portray themselves as sympathetic and pleasing, but we’re also dark people with dark thoughts. I wanted to have…

I hear a wide variety of languages spoken in greater Los Angeles, but nowhere have I found a richer Babel than the very same place whose other chief attractions include shoe shopping at Foot Locker, a hamburger at Johnny Rockets, and a 3D Hollywood spectacle at the AMC 7. No matter how hard I…

“branding and intellectual property issues will become increasingly “complicated” for hardware, just as they are now for software and content. Many people will have to shift from controlling design to offering better services to make money, or perhaps band together under a particular brand known for…

Last year my first novel Malarky was published in Canada; it is about to come out in Britain. I received a $1,000 advance from my Canadian publisher and a megawatty – by my impoverished standards – £6,500 advance from OneWorld in the UK. That might sound a lot, but Malarky took me a dozen years to…

Earlier this year, I listened to Susan Rice, White House National Security Adviser, address the Women in the World conference in New York. Unsurprisingly, there was discussion aplenty about North Korea and the Middle East. But there was also abashed laughter about basketball. For before Rice…

Latest News Film TV Music Games Anime Books Aux Newsletter Bluesky Instagram Twitter YouTube Facebook Latest News TV Film Music Games Anime Aux Newsletter Featured Games Movies TR-49 is a strong—if irritating—addition to mystery gaming’s best new genre January 23, 2026 | 12:00pm Movies The Legend Of…

“The 7.4-kilometre track is on an original portion of the Interurban line, from 176A Street near Highway 10 in Cloverdale to the intersection of 64th Avenue and 152nd Street, in the old Surrey neighbourhood of Sullivan. It runs through some of Surrey’s busiest areas to some of its most bucolic. And…

“In the American context, when we say ‘race’ what we mean is the un-dealt-with legacy of slavery. But it is a gross mistake, and a triumph of the racist system we are supposed to be seeking to overcome, to suppose that this legacy is about phenotypes or skin color.”

“Over much of the post-war period, with some exceptions, most notably our shameful treatment of Aboriginal people, Canada did pretty well in both social trust and equality, tucked in just behind the Scandinavian countries and Netherlands. The last couple of decades, however, have seen a sharp…

Economics June 24, 2013, 4:44 AM For decades, the world has thought of Canada as America's friendly northern neighbor -- a responsible, earnest, if somewhat boring, land of hockey fans and single-payer health care. On the big issues, it has long played the global Boy Scout, reliably providing moral…

President Obama spoke about the killing of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin and the subsequent acquittal of his killer, George Zimmermann, at the White House press briefing today. REPORTERS: Whoa! Q: Hello. PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: That’s so -- that’s so disappointing, man. Jay, is this kind of -- the…

“If you want an annual membership for Vancouver's bike share program, it will run you $95. Weekly and daily options ($20 and $5 respectively, for adventurous tourists or locals dipping their toes in the bike-commute waters) will also be available.”

“Vancouver’s relatively unblemished streets, smooth transit system, “bourgeois bohemians,” and ever-rising (in both quantity and price) housing stock might suggest that the city lacks down-and-out sections, but stroll along Hastings Street and you’ll see the city’s diversity.”

Chart by Rutgers University professor and noted bicycle researcher John Pucher. This was one slide from a presentation he gave last week in Seattle. 2002 to 2008. When we talk about the amazing growth of bicycling in Portland, those are more or less the years we’re talking about. Before 2002, to…

Years ago I heard someone say that many arguments would be averted if only we would use the word merely more often. Case in point: I titled my last post “Don’t Be a Relay in the Network.” My point could have been more appropriately stated, “Don’t Be Merely a Relay in the Network.” The difference is…

Back when the Machine was the dominant technological symbol, a metaphor arose to articulate the fear that individual significance was being sacrificed to large-scale, impersonal social forces: it was the fear of becoming “a cog in the machine.” The metaphor is in need of an update. This train of…

Six of the 19 Canadians who have been selected to play in the MLB All-Star Game. A Canadian will be playing in the Major League Baseball All-Star Game for the 17th consecutive season. Cincinnati Reds first baseman Joey Votto, who grew up in Etobicoke, Ont., will start at first base for the National…