Every striver who ever slipped the rank of their birth to ascend to a higher order has shared the capacity to ingratiate themselves with their betters. What the truly exceptional ones have in common is the ability to connect not only with their superiors but also with their peers and inferiors. And only the rarest talents among them can bond authentically—not just transactionally—with the people who will help them be who they want to be in the world. It’s a preternatural, almost Promethean gift if you have it, and Amy Chua does.

Thus begins the scandal dubbed “dinner-party-gate,” the latest in the annals of Amy Chua, Yale Law’s very own Tiger Mom, whose infamous defense of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh was the “dinner-party-gate” of its day approximately three years ago. Then, as now, Chua’s differences with some denizens of her milieu played out in the press, vituperations, allegations, insinuations, and all.

“Chewing gum stuck on the sole of China’s shoes.” That’s how Hu Xijin, the editor of the Chinese Communist Party–run Global Times, described Australia last year. The disparaging description is typical of the disdain that China’s diplomats and propagandists have often shown toward governments that challenge Beijing—like Australia’s.

China is now the great power of Asia—or so Beijing believes—but those pesky Australians, mouthing off about human rights and coronavirus investigations, refuse to bend the knee. Beijing has turned to economic pressure to compel Australia to fall in line. “Sometimes you have to find a stone to rub it off,” Hu wrote, of the gum and of Australia. But the Australians have proved impossible to shake, and have instead caused some embarrassment for their image-obsessed tormentor.

As president, Donald Trump wasn’t known for his mastery of the federal regulatory process. The “Muslim ban” is perhaps the most famous example of a Trump policy that was enacted hastily, challenged repeatedly, and ultimately undone by his successor; others, like his attempted changes to the census, methane emissions, and payday lending, fell flat for similar reasons.

Trump’s failures to permanently change government policy were remarkably diverse. Even when his administration pursued classically Republican agenda items, such as cutting food stamps, and had lots of outside help from conservative advocacy groups, it ran into trouble. For a time, the Trump administration did significantly change the way food stamps worked. But in that realm, too, few of Trump’s changes stuck: Some were struck down by courts, and others were reversed by the Biden administration.

We’re halfway through the first summer of full-capacity crowds at American arenas and nightclubs after pandemic-induced hibernation. Have you attended a glorious, mythmaking concert to mark the occasion?  Perhaps Foo Fighters reopening Madison Square Garden gave you chills, or maybe you air-tromboned to the band Chicago at New Jersey’s first big comeback show (NJ.com’s review: “Enjoyment came in many forms Thursday night”).

Or perhaps you’ve had a less lovely live-music experience. One recent viral news story described impalement and alleged strangulation at a rave in Kentucky. Another, from this past weekend, featured someone throwing a shoe at DaBaby. When I went to see a DJ set in my neighborhood, a disturbingly intoxicated guy danced up to me, grabbed my water bottle, guzzled everything in it, and, like some sort of anti-hydration dragon, immediately and theatrically spit it out. Then there’s the COVID of it all: more than 1,000 infections traced to a Dutch music festival, a Foo Fighters’ team member testing positive, talk of possible new shutdowns and cancellations in response to the Delta variant.

A new dichotomy has begun dogging the pandemic discourse. With the rise of the über-transmissible Delta variant, experts are saying you’re either going to get vaccinated, or going to get the coronavirus.

For some people—a decent number of us, actually—it’s going to be both.

Coronavirus infections are happening among vaccinated people. They’re going to keep happening as long as the virus is with us, and we’re nowhere close to beating it. When a virus has so thoroughly infiltrated the human population, post-vaccination infections become an arithmetic inevitability. As much as we’d like to think otherwise, being vaccinated does not mean being done with SARS-CoV-2.

Post-vaccination infections, or breakthroughs, might occasionally turn symptomatic, but they aren’t shameful or aberrant. They also aren’t proof that the shots are failing. These cases are, on average, gentler and less symptomatic; faster-resolving, with less virus lingering—and, it appears, less likely to pass the pathogen on. The immunity offered by vaccines works in iterations and gradations, not absolutes. It does not make a person completely impervious to infection. It also does not evaporate when a few microbes breach a body’s barriers. A breakthrough, despite what it might seem, does not cause our defenses to crumble or even break; it does not erase the protection that’s already been built. Rather than setting up fragile and penetrable shields, vaccines reinforce the defenses we already have, so that we can encounter the virus safely and potentially build further upon that protection.

King Arthur’s Round Table is an impressively austere sight in The Green Knight: a circle of white stone bathed in dim light where mythic figures sit like statues, ready to be venerated. Tucked in the background of this scene is Gawain (played by Dev Patel), a young warrior eager to prove his mettle by going on the same journey as his idols. But David Lowery’s adaptation of the epic poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight puts him on a stranger path, a voyage of self-discovery that evokes the original work’s heady mix of chivalry, temptation, and valor while digging into its contradictions.

It’s the movie Lowery was born to make, a dreamy piece of high fantasy that bombards the viewer with visual delights, skimps on all but the most essential dialogue, and turns an age-old tale into something to be puzzled over anew. Throughout his career, Lowery has moved between more straightforward commercial works (Disney’s Pete’s Dragon remake, The Old Man & the Gun) and artsier fare (Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, the terrific A Ghost Story). The Green Knight feels like the perfect blend of his interests, a Dungeons & Dragons tale told with intimacy and loaded with aesthetic oddments; it’s easily the best and most complete-feeling film I’ve seen all year.

Not long ago, a New York City data analyst who had been laid off shortly after the pandemic hit told me she had filed for unemployment-insurance payments and then spent the next six months calling, emailing, and using social media to try to figure out why the state’s Labor Department would not send her the money she was owed.

A mother in Philadelphia living below the poverty line told me about her struggle to maintain government aid. Disabled herself and caring for a disabled daughter, she had not gotten all of her stimulus checks and, because she does not regularly file taxes or use a computer, needed help from a legal-aid group to make sure she would get the newly expanded child-tax-credit payments.

Some remote workers would do anything to burn their sweatpants and get back to cubicle life. Aaron Batilo is not one of them. The Denver-based software engineer is the Roger Federer of working from home: He’s gone commute-less for several years now, “way before it was the cool thing to do,” he told me.

The remote-work revolution was supposed to bring Colorado a lot more Aaron Batilos. If you’ve been aching to leave the West Coast, the state can sound like downright paradise: the best hiking you’ll find basically anywhere! An actual home—not some creepy underwater lot—for less than $1 million! And yes, legal weed! There’s just one problem. Squint at the fine print on remote-job listings lately and you might see something like this, for a senior sales manager at Samsung: “This role can be performed remotely anywhere in the United States with the exception of Colorado.” Or like this, for a job at Johnson & Johnson: “Work location is flexible if approved by the Company except that the position may not be performed remotely from Colorado.”

Here’s something I almost never say: The NFL is right.

When pro football announced last week that it will impose stiff penalties on teams that experience a COVID-19 outbreak involving unvaccinated players, it exposed a serious vaccination divide among its athletes. Fans also learned in real time that some of their favorite NFL stars are not only vaccine-hesitant but also susceptible to some of the same misinformation that has duped millions of other Americans.

Despite their superior access to doctors and medical experts, many professional football players haven’t been persuaded to get a shot. In a tweet that he has since deleted, the Arizona Cardinals wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins wrote: “Never thought I would say this, but being put in a position to hurt my team because I don’t want to partake in the vaccine is making me question my future in the NFL.” Several Buffalo Bills took to social media with their opinions on the NFL’s announcement. The wide receiver Cole Beasley, a vocal opponent of the COVID-19 vaccines, said he hadn’t wavered in his position. “Nothing has changed,” Beasley tweeted. “I’m still livin freely. Goodnight.”

May 2011

“The only thing a uterus is good for after a certain point is causing pain and killing you. Why are we even talking about this?” Nora jams a fork into her chopped chicken salad, the one she insisted I order as well. “If your doctor says it needs to come out, yank it out.” Nora speaks her mind the way others breathe: an involuntary reflex, not a choice. (Obviously, all dialogue here, including my own, is recorded from the distortion field of memory.)

“But the uterus …” I say, spearing a slice of egg. “It’s so …”

“Symbolic?”

“Yes. Don’t roll your eyes.”

“I’m not rolling my eyes.” She leans in. “I’m trying to get you to face a, well, it’s not even a hard truth. It’s an easy one. Promise me the minute you leave this lunch you’ll pick up the phone and schedule the hysterectomy today. Not tomorrow. Today.”