OrnitheInFlight

In June 1986, 24-year-old model Marla Hanson stepped out of a Manhattan bar expecting to collect an $850 security deposit from her landlord, Steve Roth. Instead, two men he hired ambushed her. They held her down and slashed her face with razor blades—leaving deep, permanent scars that required over 100 stitches and ended her rising modeling career in an instant. Roth’s motive? Rejected romantic advances and a petty dispute over rent money. During the trial, the defense tried to blame her—questioning her clothes, her dating life, and her Texas roots. The cross-examination, she later said, hurt almost as much as the attack itself. But Marla refused to hide. She showed up to court without makeup, scars visible for the world to see: “I wanted people to see what they had done.” All three men were convicted. Marla went on to become a powerful voice for victims’ rights, an advocate for reforming how the justice system treats survivors, and even a screenwriter (credits on The Blackout and Subway Stories). Her story is a raw reminder of resilience: beauty isn’t just skin deep, and strength is what you build when the world tries to break you.

I have a bias as a millennial who attended book releases, but I just don’t understand the need to remake Harry Potter at all. I’ve seen people say oh it’s for the new generation but… just read the books and watch the existing media. You’ll never create that magic again, why try?

Vance suggests Iran could have used nuclear suicide vests: “You talk about people who walk into a crowded supermarket and have a vest on, and they blow up the vest and a couple of people get killed, and that's a terrible tragedy. What happens when what's on the vest is not something that can kill a couple of people, but can kill many, many tens of thousands of people?”

Am I the only mom who gets annoyed by how ugly the illustrations are in modern children's books? It's like they put effort into making them look horrible and depressing. Why?

“I don't see color.” "We all bleed red." “There's only one race - the human race.”

Noelia Castillo Ramos is 25. After a life marked by abuse and sexual assault, and a suicide attempt that left her paraplegic, she is scheduled for euthanasia. And this is where we are. A wounded woman, in pain and despair, is told death is a solution. We call it compassion. It is not. It is surrender. A culture that cannot carry the broken will eventually eliminate them. That is not dignity. That is despair dressed up as mercy. The defense of life must be wider. It cannot stop at the unborn. It must stand for the violated, the disabled, the suffering, the forgotten. Otherwise, we simply change who we abandon. And let us be honest: doctors are skilled, but they are not moral authorities. The same hands that heal can also be trained to end life. Skill is not wisdom. Noelia did not need death. She needed protection, love, constancy, and meaning. Life belongs to God. We do not restore dignity by consenting to death, but by refusing to abandon the wounded.

I’m seeing, yet again, this surge of hatred for the Boomer generation. I’m a late season Boomer, born in 1961; I’ve worked for nearly 50 years, have been in the same profession for 37 years, I’ve routinely worked 45-60 hours a week. I don’t get why we are so vilified.