Culture

One generation never had screens, another is trying to survive them

The search for something real is pushing Gen Z toward analog rituals they were told were obsolete.

There is a term in biology called convergent evolution, when totally different pressures push different species toward the same solution.

In this case, the two species are Gen Z and boomers. One generation never had screens*. The other is desperately trying to get away from them. As Mark Wales reports, the result looks oddly familiar: analog hobbies that slow time, demand attention, and make boredom feel useful again.

The real surprise hiding in the ten-item list is how social everything becomes. Baking turns into shared meals. Board games replace scrolling. Birdwatching becomes group hikes and collective awe. In trying to escape a hyperconnected world, Gen Z is quietly rebuilding the offline rituals that were once just a part of life.

* - I mean, screens in the modern sense, wildly addictive pocket supercomputers. I am aware that boomers had access to TVs.

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Family

The motherhood penalty, and the country that decided to pay it

Denmark has taken most of the ouch out of motherhood, at least financially.

Kids are expensive. Have you enrolled a child in a sport recently? Or looked into what it costs to insure a new driver? Woof! 

The cost of turning tiny humans into full-fledged adults is not shared evenly between parents. Setting aside the obvious biological injustices that evolution has already locked in for mothers, there is a near-universal toll imposed by society. Lower pay. Fewer hours. Careers that quietly stall. Researchers even have a name for it: the motherhood penalty.

As Alexandra Killewald reports, while we haven’t found any good fixes for squaring up the tab biologically, Denmark has taken a serious bite out of the financial impact of contributing new citizens to their country.

Yesterday’s “Manly” Results

In our latest Daily GOOD, we shared an NYU professor’s idea of manhood: You are not a man until you create surplus value. A complex topic, and GOOD readers, I wanted to know your thoughts. What did you think of his theory? 

More than half of you thought he was half right.

• He’s right. Manhood starts when you give more than you take. (27.1%)

• He’s wrong. This definition excludes too many people. (8.2%)

• He’s onto something, but this isn’t about gender. (51.8%)

• This frames masculinity like a value scorecard, and that’s the problem. (12.9%)

Reader Roberta Rheinschild summed up the majority’s thinking. “I think this is what makes a good adult.“

Culture

A list of 10 green flags in women came in delightfully light on sexism

A simple question turned into a quietly radical list of relationship green flags.

This article has a little something for everyone. Maybe you’re a guy reading along to see if you agree. Maybe you’re a woman side-eyeing the list while quietly keeping score. Either way, it pulls you in fast.

In this story by Adam Albright Hanna, a simple question sparked a surprisingly thoughtful conversation. Men were asked to name the biggest green flags they have seen in women. What you won’t find are height requirements, body measurements, or any of the usual internet nonsense. What you will find are things like empathy, creativity in conversation, emotional resilience, and the rare relief of being genuinely listened to.

That contrast is what makes the list stick. These are not demands or dating myths. They are small, lived-in signals that make relationships feel safer, lighter, and more mutual. You may nod along. You may argue with your screen a little. But you will probably keep reading to see what else made the cut.

A Correction

On February 3, 1863, in the thick of the Civil War, “Mark Twain” made his debut, launching a career that would permanently reshape American literature and politics. This was not a quiet literary arrival. The country was ripping itself apart, and Twain’s voice showed up right on time.

Before he was Mark Twain, he was Samuel Langhorne Clemens, a frontier journalist in California and Nevada, sharpening a style that blended humor, fury, and moral clarity. He’d cycled through pen names before settling on “Mark Twain,” riverboat slang for safe water, two fathoms deep. It’s a fitting joke. His writing was anything but safe for the people in power.

Read today, Twain’s work can feel abrasive. The language is rough. The slurs are real. Some readers dismiss him outright because of it. But that reaction misses what he was doing. Twain used the everyday language of his time to expose everyday racism, cruelty, and hypocrisy. The ugliness was the instrument, not the message. He wrote how people actually spoke, then forced America to listen to itself.

That choice helped invent an American literary voice that was skeptical of humbug, sympathetic to the vulnerable, and fearless with a joke. You can hear it in Hemingway’s stripped-down prose, in Faulkner’s knotted regional rhythms, and even in Stephen King’s small-town choruses and kids-eye moral stakes.

Twain went on to write dozens of novels, travel books, and essays, taking on everything from U.S. imperialism and lynching to King Leopold’s Congo. He died in Redding, Connecticut, on April 21, 1910, of a heart attack, one day after Halley’s Comet passed Earth, exactly as he had predicted.

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