Culture

Cancer, unemployment, and the Colbert clip that set Katherine LaNasa on an unexpected path to an Emmy

Before The Pitt, Katherine LaNasa was barely holding it together, then she heard something she couldn’t unhear.

Katherine LaNasa was struggling. She was out of work. She was sick. She was navigating cancer while carrying the quiet belief that if she did everything perfectly, life might stop hurting her.

As Mark Wales reports, it was during that low stretch that LaNasa came across a clip of Stephen Colbert talking with Anderson Cooper. Not a motivational speech. Not advice. Just a conversation about grief, loss, and what it actually means to accept life as it comes.

The idea wasn’t comforting at first. It was unsettling. What if pain wasn’t something to solve or avoid? LaNasa says she kept thinking about it. Sitting with it. Letting it challenge how she’d been trying to survive.

That mindset shift didn’t magically fix her circumstances, but it changed how she carried them, and eventually, she found herself in a place she never could have planned. Face-to-face with Stephen Colbert himself.

Do you have a GOOD picture to share?

Send us your best images, and we may feature them as the image of the day. Be sure to tell us a bit about your pic.

Culture

An NYU professor says manhood isn’t about money or muscles

Scott Galloway lays out a definition of masculinity that will inspire some and irritate others.

Most boys assume that becoming a man just sort of happens. You age, you level up, you arrive. But as Mark Wales reports in this story, NYU professor and bestselling author Scott Galloway says that assumption is exactly why so many people never get there.

In a podcast appearance, Galloway argues that manhood has nothing to do with wealth, influence, or physical dominance. Instead, it begins when you bring more to the world than you take from it. He calls this reaching “surplus value,” a stage where you absorb more stress than you pass on and make the people around you feel safer and better off.

Galloway also admits he didn’t meet his own standard until his 40s. That confession, along with his idea that the highest form of masculinity is planting trees whose shade you will never sit under, landed very differently depending on who was reading.

Some called it a mic drop. Others called it narrow, exclusionary, or still trapped in a transactional mindset. And if you’re already arguing with your screen, Mark Wales takes you straight into the comment section where the real debate breaks out.

Which Muppet does GOOD love most?

Last week, we dove into the rich and shockingly complex world of the Muppets. Which Muppet do GOOD readers love the most? Kermit, the leader of the gang, got the nod from over 40% of you. Which makes sense, he’s a good guy, you’re GOOD people. (Waka waka!) Miss Piggy came in third, and for our safety, I will make sure she never learns that.

• Kermit the Frog – I love that good-guy, straight-man energy (40.6%)

• Miss Piggy – I’m here for the full diva experience (16.7%)

• Fozzie Bear – I can’t get enough of the terrible jokes (13.5%)

• Animal – pure unhinged drum-goblin energy (18.8%)

Choosing those four options was tough for me. Some of my favorites didn’t make the cut, but they showed up in the write-ins. Notably called out were perennial grumps Statler and Waldorf, Gonzo, The Swedish Chef, Beaker, Animal, and, though not a Muppet technically, Jim Henson creation Grover of Sesame Street fame.

Science | From the vault

The medieval sleep habit that kept people sane before electricity

For most of human history, waking up at midnight was normal and, well, maybe that’s better.

If, like my lovely wife, you wake up at 2:17 a.m. and immediately assume something is wrong with you, medieval Europe would like a word.

As Adam Albright Hanna reports in this story, people used to expect a “first sleep” and a “second sleep,” with a quiet, wakeful stretch in between. Read, eat, pray, wander the streets like Charles Dickens. No phones. No panic. Just quiet and candlelight. A sort of reverse nap!

Some sleep experts think electric lighting may have quietly broken something we evolved to do naturally. The idea is called segmented or polyphasic sleep, and history’s overachievers were into it.

That said, not everyone is convinced this is a silver bullet. Switching sleep modes can come with brain fog and productivity dips. Still, for people who lie awake spiraling at night, the takeaway might be surprisingly comforting. Waking up does not always mean failing at sleep.

In January 1925, a deadly outbreak of diphtheria hit the Alaskan gold-mining town of Nome. Local physician Dr. Curtis Welch diagnosed the disease and, on January 22, ordered a quarantine. He sent urgent radio telegrams to neighboring towns, the U.S. Public Health Service, and the territorial governor. “An epidemic of diphtheria is almost inevitable here. I am in urgent need of one million units of diphtheria antitoxin.” Newspapers and radio soon carried the alarm nationwide.

Winter made nearly every solution impossible. The harbor was frozen solid, and the day's aircraft could not operate in the brutal cold and winds, with temperatures dipping to minus 50 degrees. With time running out, territorial officials, the Alaska Railroad, the Nome Board of Health, and local mushers organized a dogsled relay along the winter mail trail.

Antitoxin was located in Anchorage and rushed by rail to Nenana. On January 27, just five days after the crisis became known, the race north began. Approximately 20 teams of dogs and their handlers pushed through extreme conditions, handing off the medicine mile by mile. On this day, February 2, 101 years ago, the lifesaving serum finally arrived in Nome.

In the end, five deaths were officially recorded, though historians believe the true toll was likely higher, with indigenous communities almost certainly underrepresented.

The extraordinary effort is still remembered today through the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, museum exhibits and school programs, statues like Balto in Central Park, and annual commemorations across Alaska and the mushing community.

Do you have something GOOD to share?

We’re always on the lookout for uplifting, enlightening, and engaging content to share with readers like you. If you have something you think should be featured in the Daily GOOD, let me know!

💬 From the group text…

Oh, this poor, adorably illiterate child. 😉

Join the Group Text! Send us your social media gold.