Slate Voice

Two years ago, Uber was valued at nearly $70 billion—more than General Motors, Ford, or Honda. If it could do for driving what Amazon did for shopping, the thinking went, it could end up controlling more of the personal transportation market than any automaker does today. The road to global ride-hailing dominance has proven bumpy, however.

This month, Slate is republishing some of our favorite stories. Here’s today’s selection: There are a lot of Slate columns I miss, but if I could revive one it would probably be Bryan Curtis’The Middlebrow, a weekly investigation into the obvious. This one about cheerleaders is a perfect example: We never think about cheerleaders, but the whole enterprise is weird as heck.

Welcome to Should This Thing Be Smart? Each month, Justin Peters examines a smart object and try to determine whether there is any good reason for its existence—and how likely it is to be used for nefarious reasons. Previously on Should This Thing Be Smart?: The $60 smart fork and the $199 smart socks. Item: Ember Ceramic Mug Price: $79.95 on the Ember website Function: The Ember Ceramic Mug is basically a coffee mug that is also a thermostat.

Excerpt reprinted from Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History copyright © 2017 by Kurt Andersen. With permission from the publisher, Random House. All rights reserved. One set of fantasies has had more current, awful, undeniable real-world consequences than any other: the one that recast owning guns as among the most important rights, as American liberty and individualism incarnate. During my lifetime, the love of guns has become a fetish.

It’s that time of year again: Love Actually season is upon us. The modern holiday classic is full of egregious flaws, from the not-so-romantic cue card scene to the constant body shaming of a healthy, attractive woman—flaws that fans such as myself have had to come to terms with in order to enjoy the holiday season staple.

It’s not an overstatement to say that, if you are a young writer who interrogates American race relations and white supremacy, Cornel West is the foundation upon which you stand. Alongside the likes of Kimberlé Crenshaw, Angela Davis, Toni Morrison, and, of course, James Baldwin, West’s work is part of the canon that teaches younger writers how to think and write about race.

Retired gymnast McKayla Maroney filed a lawsuit Wednesday seeking damages for the sexual abuse she says she suffered for years at the hands of Larry Nassar, a doctor who recently pled guilty to assaulting several young gymnasts under his care. According to the suit, the Wall Street Journal reports, USA Gymnastics paid Maroney $1.25 million in a confidential settlement last fall in exchange for her silence. Maroney, a 22-year-old gold medalist from the 2012 U.S.

Maine Sen. Susan Collins has not been pleased with the Capitol press corps lately. In recent days the mild-mannered senator has cut off reporters or told them how tired she is of their “cynicism.” On Tuesday, when she was asked for the umpteenth time about her confidence that two health care bills she supports would become law by the end of the year, she unloaded.

MIDDLETOWN, Conn.—Dave Bagatelle and a handful of his buddies sat in folding chairs on a Saturday morning this fall, chomping on thick cigars and sipping Sapporo beers. It was early, still a few hours before that afternoon’s game between the Wesleyan Cardinals and Bates Bobcats, but the party had already started. Bagatelle and his friends played football at Wesleyan in the 1980s and they’ve been tailgating at Andrus Field ever since.

Since the dancing baby delighted our screens more than two decades ago, memes have taken various forms, their popularity aided as tools have made it easier to create memes of our own. Still photos and images, like the now ubiquitous text-overlaid image memes, can be easily created on the fly with some basic Photoshop skills. Giphy offers a whole trove of GIF-style memery. Internet discussion boards like Reddit are a constant source of new viral fodder, too.

As one politician after another resigns in the face of sexual harassment allegations, one man remains standing: Donald Trump. Despite detailed accusations by multiple women, backed up by Trump’s recorded boasts of groping women without their consent, he insists his accusers’ stories are “fabricated.” In fact, says the White House, voters have acquitted Trump. On Dec.

When the entire cast belts out “THIS IS THE GREATEST SHOW” a minute into your movie, the film itself had better live up to it. The Greatest Showman—how shall I put this?—doesn’t. Something feels off right from the beginning, as we see Hugh Jackman’s P.T. Barnum making his way through the space behind the circus bleachers in silhouette, pounding his cane to the rhythm of crashing drums.

House Republicans gave themselves a lengthy ovation on the floor of the chamber Tuesday afternoon when it was clear the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, had met the threshold for passage. They gave themselves another lengthy ovation, a couple of minutes later, when Speaker Paul Ryan enthusiastically gaveled in the vote at 227 to 203. They will presumably re-create these ovations again on Wednesday, when they have to re-vote because certain provisions of the bill violated Senate rules.

For many Alabama voters, the administration of last Tuesday’s special election was a disaster. Republican Secretary of State John Merrill refused to prepare for high turnout, leading to confusion and long lines; poll workers spread misinformation at understaffed precincts; and some citizens were initially denied a ballot due to a recent “refresh” of the voter rolls.

When Matt Lauer was fired last month, TMZ dug up a 2012 clip from the show Watch What Happens Live, in which Katie Couric told Andy Cohen that her then–co-host Lauer’s most annoying habit was “he pinched me on the ass a lot.” Cohen and the audience laughed, and that was the end of it. How is it possible that we thought this was funny so recently? The answer is in our history.

In 1996, Julie Aigner-Clark was a stay-at-home mom in Colorado frustrated by a lack of sufficiently educational entertainment for her 18-month-old daughter. She shot the first Baby Einstein video in her own basement with a borrowed camcorder, a few puppets, and an $18,000 budget. Five years later, she sold the company to Disney for a reported $25 million.

Prosecutors got approval from a federal judge in Utah to sell more than 513 bitcoins and 512 bitcoin cash they had seized from a man allegedly running a counterfeit pharmaceuticals ring on the darknet, Ars Technica reports. The cryptocurreny was taken from Aaron Shamo, who was arrested a year ago. At current prices, the bitcoins would be worth more than $8 million, while the bitcoin cash would sell for almost $1 million. The U.S.

On Sunday, Roy Moore wrapped up his campaign with another volley of falsehoods. In an interview with The Voice of Alabama Politics, he denied knowing any of the nine female accusers shown in a campaign ad by his opponent, Doug Jones. At this point, anyone who still trusts Moore’s denials probably can’t be swayed.

Dave Grohl, who many lifetimes ago was in a band called Nirvana, stopped by Saturday Night Live with his new band the Foo Fighters, and he brought some Christmas cheer with him! After starting off with “Everlong,” from 1997’s The Colour and the Shape, the Foo Fighters turned in a rocking performance of “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” by Darlene Love (off Phil Spector’s 1963 Christmas album) and a guitar arrangement of the Vince Guaraldi classic, “Linus & Lucy,” which first appeared on A Charlie Brown Christmas in 1965....

All eyes are on what Donald Trump will do, as the oracles on Twitter and the Hill have predicted that the president may fire special counsel Robert S. Mueller around the holidays. Trump’s lawyers have denied that he is considering such a move, and Trump himself has not directly criticized Mueller. However, Trump has recently expressed dissatisfaction with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, calling him “weak” and a threat.