“You guys are scaring me”: A woman accused three New York Mets of raping her during spring training in Florida in 1991; they were never charged. Almost 30 years later, hardly anyone knows it happened. Daniel Engber grew up idolizing the Mets, who won the World Series in 1986. He knows countless facts and anecdotes about the team but did not even remember this woman’s story. He wanted to understand it, and when he dug in—telling, for the first time, the story of what happened to the accuser—he found eerie echoes with our current times.
Dumb, dumb, dumb: The Oscar nominations were announced this morning, and Joker led the pack with 11. Dan Kois bravely stands astride the track to say: Enough. “Stop the madness. Joker is not the best picture of the year. Joker is dumb as hell.” Meanwhile, Dana Stevens wants to know if the Academy thinks that Little Women directed itself? She’d like to throw this year’s nominations in the fireplace for having neglected to honor Greta Gerwig for directing. Read all our Oscars coverage here.
You are the rite of movement: For most of Western history, it’s been understood that people have a fundamental right to free movement—to walk urban streets free from government intrusion, to navigate the seas, to travel via plane or automobile. But slowly, over the years, the U.S. courts have chipped away at this right. Kia Rahnama looks at what went wrong.
One more snub for the road: You might be surprised to learn that the beloved children’s book Goodnight Moon is not on the New York Public Library’s Top 10 list of most-checked-out books. Turns out the omission has a lot to do with the crusade of one snooty (but trailblazing) librarian, Anne Carroll Moore. Dan Kois has the story.
For fun: Is 47.2 really the most miserable age?
31.36 has been a mixed bag,
/>Abby
