Sarah Seltzer
By Sarah Seltzer
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Life Jenny Slate Takes on Abortion in ‘Obvious Child’
In the new romantic comedy “Obvious Child” Jenny Slate’s character, Donna, is a self-described “menorah on top of the [Christmas] tree that burns it down.” She’s referring to her prospects with a nice goyishe boy from Vermont, with whom she proceeds to have a wacky one night stand resulting in an unintended pregnancy. Indeed, Donna,…
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Life Why Santa Barbara Rampage Is Terror Against Women
University of California students at a vigil for the shooting victims. Getty Images I spent the holiday weekend at my alma mater in Vermont at a writer’s retreat. On our last night in town we were reminded to walk home in numbers, especially if we were women. Independent in my comings and goings, you’d think…
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Life Where Do Trigger Warnings Belong?
Thinkstock Trigger warnings in academia, the idea that professors should flag, in advance, potentially traumatizing content for students, are a subject of hot debate this week after a series of articles on the topic showed up big venues. Content that might provoke a trigger warning include rape, violence, and historical atrocities like lynchings, slavery, even…
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Life Was Jill Abramson Pushed Off ‘Glass Cliff’?
Getty Images The media world, and particularly its women, were scandalized by the abrupt ouster of former New York Times Executive Editor Jill Abramson, the first female to hold the position, and her replacement by Dean Baquet, who as of yesterday is the first African-American in the spot. It was a sudden and rather undignified…
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Life Mothering My Jewish Mother
Sarah Seltzer Last week, a few days before Mother’s Day (and my mom’s birthday, which always falls at the same time of year), I stood on the street near Morningside Park in Upper Manhattan with my mother, venting and kibbitzing. I was on my way home from work, she had biked up to say hi….
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Life Born Behind Bars
Courtesy of Terry Gydesen When Deborah Jiang Stein was a young woman, already smarting from feelings of being an outsider as a multiracial adoptee in her intellectual Jewish family, she discovered the documents that revealed the truth about her background: She had been born in prison, to a heroin-addicted mother. After years of lashing out…
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Life Tal Fortgang’s Misguided Princeton ‘Privilege’ Lament
I’ve been watching with exhaustion the saga of the privileged Princeton kid, grandson of Holocaust survivors, who has declared via a bratty op-ed echoing ‘round the web, that he will not apologize for his privilege. White, male, and proud. Take that, ye P.C. police, young Tal Fortgang declares. Such a moment was inevitable, both as…
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Life In Donald Sterling Drama, It’s All About Power
Getty Images // Donald Sterling and V. Stiviano It reads better than a soap opera, the interpersonal and romantic drama that led to the exposure and punishment (a lifetime ban!) for racist soon-to-be-former NBA franchise owner Donald Sterling. All the juicy pieces were in place: an estranged wife, Shelly Sterling, who resented V. Stiviano, the…
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