From time to time, Google Alerts pings me with a mention from the internet. Often, it's an article I've posted here on my blog. Today, however, a used book store described me thus:
Deborah J. Ross is an American author best known for her work in fantasy and science fiction. She has written numerous novels and short stories, often exploring themes of gender, social justice, and environmental issues. Ross is also known for her contributions to the "Darkover" series, which she continued after the original author, Marion Zimmer Bradley, passed away. Her style incorporates deep character development and intricate world-building. In addition to fiction, Ross has written non-fiction essays and articles on writing, and the craft of speculative fiction. She has served as a secretary and board member for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA).
The Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking, by T.
Kingfisher
I don’t know how I missed this delightful fantasy when it
first came out, winning the Hugo and Locus Awards in 2021. It combines some of
my favorite story elements: an intrepid young heroine, weird forms of magic,
and baking. Yep, baking. Fourteen-year-old Mona’s magical talent is, by any
standards, quite modest. She can’t summon lightning, resurrect a cavalry troop of
dead horses, or control a flood. As an apprentice in her aunt’s bakery, she
uses her magic to encourage bread to rise and, upon occasion to delight the
customers, she makes gingerbread men dance. Her life of quiet joys takes a
drastic turn when she discovers a dead body on the floor of the bakery. Before
she knows it, she’s on the run, either suspected of being the murderer or
convinced she is the next target. Worse yet, by the time the dastardly plot is
revealed, the super-wizard who is the city’s primary defense has been lured
away and Mona has only herself and a ragtag bunch of friends to keep everyone
safe.
I loved Mona, her friends, the unusual twists on magic, and
most of all, the voice of the author shining through these adventures. I think
my favorite part was Mona’s gigantic bread “golem” defending the city gates
against the ravening horde. And the zombie horses, who manage to retain both their
personality and their loyalty, like true horses across time and imagination.
In a New York operating room one day in October 2025, doctors made medical history by transplanting a genetically modified pig kidney into a living patient as part of a clinical trial. The kidney had been engineered to mimic human tissue and was grown in a pig, as an alternative to waiting around for a human organ donor who might never come. For decades, this idea lived at the edge of science fiction. Now it’s on the table, literally.
A decade ago, scientists were chasing a different solution. Instead of editing the genes of pigs to make their organs human-friendly, they tried to grow human organs – made entirely of human cells – inside pigs. But in 2015 the National Institutes of Health paused funding for that work to consider its ethical risks. The pause remains today.
As a bioethicist and philosopher who has spent years studying the ethics of using organs grown in animals – including serving on an NIH-funded national working group examining oversight for research on human-animal chimeras – I was perplexed by the decision. The ban assumed the danger was making pigs too human. Yet regulators now seem comfortable making humans a little more pig.
Why is it considered ethical to put pig organs in humans but not to grow human organs in pigs?
Urgent need drives xenotransplantation
It’s easy to overlook the desperation driving these experiments. More than 100,000 Americans are waiting for organ transplants. Demand overwhelms supply, and thousands die each year before one becomes available.
For decades, scientists have looked across species for help – from baboon hearts in the 1960s to genetically altered pigs today. The challenge has always been the immune system. The body treats cells it does not recognize as part of itself as invaders. As a result, it destroys them.
A recent case underscores this fragility. A man in New Hampshire received a gene-edited pig kidney in January 2025. Nine months later, it had to be removed because its function was declining. While this partial success gave scientists hope, it was also a reminder that rejection remains a central problem for transplanting organs across species, also known as xenotransplantation.
Decades of research have led to the first clinical trial of pig kidney transplants.
Researchers are attempting to work around transplant rejection by creating an organ the human body might tolerate, inserting a few human genes and deleting some pig ones. Still, recipients of these gene-edited pig organs need powerful drugs to suppress the immune system both during and long after the transplant procedure, and even this may not prevent rejection. Even human-to-human transplants require lifelong immunosuppressants.
That’s why another approach – growing organs from a patient’s own cells – looked promising. This involved disabling the genes that let pig embryos form a kidney and injecting human stem cells into the embryo to fill the gap where a kidney would be. As a result, the pig embryo would grow a kidney genetically matched to a future patient, theoretically eliminating the risk of rejection.
I listened to the audio version of this compilation of Lee's
early short fiction and later nonfiction, splendidly narrated by Ellen Burstyn,
who is a marvelous actress and perfectly captures Lee’s authorial “voice.” This
book is a collection of Lee’s early short fiction and later nonfiction pieces. The
stories are explorations of characters, settings, and narrative style that
later became To Kill A Mockingbird. They are witty, richly detailed, and
courageous. Every one of them is, in its unique fashion, a gem.
I fell in love with Ed McDonald’s “Redwinter Chronicles” from
the very first chapter of the very first book. His protagonist, Raine, is at once
brilliantly flawed, self-doubting, and heroic. Her capacity for compassion and her
clear-eyed courage are matched only by her conviction that she is worthless and
unlovable. As an unreliable but deeply sympathetic heroine, she’s unmatched.
All is not well in the world of this second Redwinter novel.
The king is dying, and a war of succession is brewing. With famine gripping the
north, rebellious lords scheme for the power of the Crown that protects the
living world from the forces of evil. Raine thought she had found a home in
Redwinter, where those with magical powers can learn and flourish. But her mentor,
Ulovar, is suddenly struck by a mysterious illness that slowly saps the
vitality from his body, and her new friendships prove unexpectedly fragile. Meanwhile,
the darkness within her grows, fueled by a mystical book that should not exist
and that would mean her death should it be discovered. Everything comes
crashing down when her erstwhile friend, Ovitus, puts together a new alliance
to challenge the existing politics and wrest all power to himself.
Traitor of Redwinter is a complex, nuanced fantasy
novel that does not hold back from difficult choices and dark themes. It builds
on the events and system of magic from the first volume, shattering the established
world and challenging notions of good and evil. It’s a brilliant, moving,
ultimately compassionate tour de force.
Highly recommended, with the proviso that it’s not a
stand-alone. Read the first volume first.
As a writer, I find this to be doubly true for fiction. Except for the part about writing by hand. I think it's fine to compose stories, especially novels, on a keyboard.
Writing builds resilience by changing your brain, helping you face everyday challenges
Ordinary and universal, the act of writing changes the brain. From dashing off a heated text message to composing an op-ed, writing allows you to, at once, name your pain and create distance from it. Writing can shift your mental state from overwhelm and despair to grounded clarity — a shift that reflects resilience.
Psychology, the media and the wellness industry shape public perceptions of resilience: Social scientists study it, journalists celebrate it, and wellness brands sell it.
In my work as a professor of writing studies, I research how people use writing to navigate trauma and practice resilience. I have witnessed thousands of students turn to the written word to work through emotions and find a sense of belonging. Their writing habits suggest that writing fosters resilience. Insights from psychology and neuroscience can help explain how.
Writing rewires the brain
In the 1980s, psychologist James Pennebaker developed a therapeutic technique called expressive writing to help patients process trauma and psychological challenges. With this technique, continuously journaling about something painful helps create mental distance from the experience and eases its cognitive load.
In other words, externalizing emotional distress through writing fosters safety. Expressive writing turns pain into a metaphorical book on a shelf, ready to be reopened with intention. It signals the brain, “You don’t need to carry this anymore.”
Translating emotions and thoughts into words on paper is a complex mental task. It involves retrieving memories and planning what to do with them, engaging brain areas associated with memory and decision-making. It also involves putting those memories into language, activating the brain’s visual and motor systems.
Writing things down supports memory consolidation — the brain’s conversion of short-term memories into long-term ones. The process of integration makes it possible for people to reframe painful experiences and manage their emotions. In essence, writing can help free the mind to be in the here and now.
Taking action through writing
The state of presence that writing can elicit is not just an abstract feeling; it reflects complex activity in the nervous system.
Brain imaging studies show that putting feelings into words helps regulate emotions. Labeling emotions — whether through expletives and emojis or carefully chosen words — has multiple benefits. It calms the amygdala, a cluster of neurons that detects threat and triggers the fear response: fight, flight, freeze or fawn. It also engages the prefrontal cortex, a part of the brain that supports goal-setting and problem-solving.
In other words, the simple act of naming your emotions can help you shift from reaction to response. Instead of identifying with your feelings and mistaking them for facts, writing can help you simply become aware of what’s arising and prepare for deliberate action.
Even mundane writing tasks like making a to-do list stimulate parts of the brain involved in reasoning and decision-making, helping you regain focus.
The Ghost Writer, by Alessandra Torre (Thomas &
Mercer)
I first met Alessandra Torre through InkersCon, which offers
in-person and virtual conferences for writers, mostly but not exclusively
self-published romance writers. I found the virtual events energizing and
worthwhile, in no small part due to Alessandra’s passion and knowledge. She
often references her own work, comprising romance, contemporary fiction, and
suspense/thriller (as A. R. Torre), so I decided to check it out. I knew she
could teach (and organize!), but was this an instance of “those who cannot do,
teach”? The answer was a resounding “No!” The Ghost Writer came out in
2017 and falls under the loose category of “domestic thriller.” It’s a gripping
page-turner fired by the obsession of the narrator, a romance novelist named
Helena Ross. At the beginning, Helena lets us know that she is dying (from
cancer for which she inexplicably refuses to undergo treatment), that she is an
utter perfectionist who cannot tolerate frailty in either herself or others (like
her agent or her rival to the title Queen of Romance), and that, in her words,
her final book is not a novel but a confession. If that isn’t enough, she has
only three months to live, and every day the cancer steals more energy and
focus. The only thing to do is hire a ghost writer, and the most likely—the only
viable candidate—is her rival. This description falls far short of Helena’s
vivid, idiosyncratic voice, the steadily increasing dramatic tension, the whiplash
turns and revelations, and the ultimately satisfying if tragic ending.
Torre doesn’t pull any punches; she plays fair with the
reader every step of the way in both what she hides, what she reveals, and how
she creates one delusional “down the rabbithole” path after another. The book
is an exemplar of precisely timed, nuanced details, superb handling of dramatic
tension, and compelling emotions.
That may well be the question being asked by “No Kings” protesters, who marched, rallied and danced all over the nation on Saturday, Oct. 18, 2025.
Pro-democracy groups had aimed to encourage large numbers of Americans to demonstrate that “together we are choosing democracy.” They were successful, with crowds turning out for demonstrations in thousands of cities and towns from Anchorage to Miami.
And while multiple GOP leaders had attacked the planned demonstrations, describing them as “hate America” rallies, political science scholars and national security experts agree that the current U.S. administration’s actions are indeed placing the world’s oldest continuous constitutional republic in jeopardy.
Once a democracy starts to erode, it can be difficult to reverse the trend. Only 42% of democracies affected by autocratization – a transformation in governance that erodes democratic safeguards – since 1994 have rebounded after a democratic breakdown, according to Swedish research institute V-Dem.
Often termed “democratic backsliding,” such periods involve government-led changes to rules and norms to weaken individual freedoms and undermine or eliminate checks on power exercised by independent institutions, both governmental and non-governmental.
Even so, practices used globally to fight democratic backsliding or topple autocracies can be instructive.
In a nutshell: Nonviolent resistance is based on noncooperation with autocratic actions. It has proven more effective in toppling autocracies than violent, armed struggle.
But it requires more than street demonstrations.
One pro-democracy organization helps train people to use video to document abuses by government.
That momentum can be challenging to generate. Would-be autocrats create environments of fear and powerlessness, using intimidation, overwhelming force or political and legal attacks, and other coercive tactics to force acquiescence and chill democratic pushback.
Autocrats can’t succeed alone. They rely on what scholars call “pillars of support” – a range of government institutions, security forces, business and other sectors in society to obey their will and even bolster their power grabs.
However, everyone in society has power to erode autocratic support in various ways. While individual efforts are important, collective action increases impact and mitigates the risks of reprisals for standing up to individuals or organizations.
Here are some of the tactics used by those movements across the world:
Yet, the U.S. is different in a meaningful way. Here, abortion has historically been framed as a personal right to privacy. In many other countries I’ve studied, abortion is viewed more as a collective right that is inextricably tied to broader social and economic issues.
Initially, for some of those autocratic leaders, limiting access to abortion and contraception was a strategy to gain the approval of the nation’s religious leaders. The Catholic Church held great power in Italy and Spain, as did the Orthodox Church in Romania. At the time, these faiths opposed artificial birth control and still believe life begins at conception.
Restrictions on reproductive rights also aimed to increasebirth rates following two world wars that had stamped out some of the population, particularly in the Soviet Union and Italy. Many political leaders saw procreation as a national duty. They designated women – white, heterosexual women, that is – specific roles, primarily as mothers, to produce babies as well as future soldiers and workers for their regimes.
As energy use rises and the planet warms, you might have dreamed of an energy source that works 24/7, rain or shine, quietly powering homes, industries and even entire cities without the ups and downs of solar or wind – and with little contribution to climate change.
The promise of new engineering techniques for geothermal energy – heat from the Earth itself – has attracted rising levels of investment to this reliable, low-emission power source that can provide continuous electricity almost anywhere on the planet. That includes ways to harness geothermal energy from idle or abandoned oil and gas wells. In the first quarter of 2025, North American geothermal installations attracted US$1.7 billion in public funding – compared with $2 billion for all of 2024, which itself was a significant increase from previous years, according to an industry analysis from consulting firm Wood Mackenzie.
As an exploration geophysicist and energy engineer, I’ve studied geothermal systems’ resource potential and operational trade-offs firsthand. From the investment and technological advances I’m seeing, I believe geothermal energy is poised to become a significant contributor to the energy mix in the U.S. and around the world, especially when integrated with other renewable sources.
A May 2025 assessment by the U.S. Geological Survey found that geothermal sources just in the Great Basin, a region that encompasses Nevada and parts of neighboring states, have the potential to meet as much as 10% of the electricity demand of the whole nation – and even more as technology to harness geothermal energy advances. And the International Energy Agency estimates that by 2050, geothermal energy could provide as much as 15% of the world’s electricity needs.
For generations, Maori people in New Zealand, and other people elsewhere around the world, have made use of the Earth’s heat, as in hot springs, where these people are cooking food in the hot water.Wolfgang Kaehler/LightRocket via Getty Images
Why geothermal energy is unique
Geothermal energy taps into heat beneath the Earth’s surface to generate electricity or provide direct heating. Unlike solar or wind, it never stops. It runs around the clock, providing consistent, reliable power with closed-loop water systems and few emissions.
I'm a big fan of Seanan McGuire's "October Daye" fantasy series, so I was intrigued by this story told from the viewpoints of two major characters: Toby herself and her new husband, Tybalt, King of Cats. Here are my reviews of the duology.
Sleep No More, by Seanan McGuire (DAW)
October Daye’s magical life has unfolded over the past
many volumes, from her awakening from being transformed into a fish to her rise
in prestige and power among the aristocracy of Faerie to her enemies-to-lovers
relationship (and marriage) to Tybalt, King of Cats. She’s impulsive,
rebellious, insightful, and passionate, all things that Tybalt and her many
friends love her for. If she has gained influential allies, she has also made
even more powerful enemies. First on that list is Titania, and Titania is now out
for revenge.
October wakes up one morning, content and unquestioning
in her life as a changeling handmaid to her sister, as well as any other purebloods who
feel like bossing her around. She’s not even entitled to defend herself, and
the worst part is that she accepts all this as the natural, perfect order.
Then strangers who claim to know her begin to appear, and the
edges of Titania’s bespelled paradise begin to unravel. Toby doesn’t know whom
to trust, especially when her ability to work blood magic starts to free others
from the enchantment. The only questions are whether this small band will be
enough to overcome the stranglehold Titania has wrought over reality and if Toby
will survive to see the end of it.
One of the challenges of a long-running series is the point
where all the logical “next adventure” stories have been told but readers want
more-more-more-of-the-same. One solution is to spin off other series featuring
minor characters. McGuire has taken a different approach, which is to turn the
reality of the original series inside-out, allowing the reader to become
re-acquainted with central and minor characters as Toby figures out which is her
real life, gathers a resistance force, and goes up against the Mother of
Illusions, the Summer Queen herself. For those familiar with the series, it’s a
grand reunion-with-a-twist. Therein lies much of its charm. The book has all
the strengths of a well-developed world and beloved characters plus all the
freshness of throwing the heroine into a snakepit of dangers unlike anything
she has faced before.
At a Senate hearing on Sept. 9, 2025, on the corruption of science, witnesses presented an unpublished study that made a big assertion.
They claimed that the study, soon to be featured in a highly publicized film called “An Inconvenient Study,” expected out in early October 2025, provides landmark evidence that vaccines raise the risk of chronic diseases in childhood.
The study was conducted in 2020 by researchers at Henry Ford Health, a health care network in Detroit and southeast Michigan. Before the Sept. 9 hearing the study was not publicly available, but it became part of the public record after the hearing and is now posted on the Senate committee website.
At the hearing, Aaron Siri, a lawyer who specializes in vaccine lawsuits and acts as a legal adviser to Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., said the study was never published because the authors feared being fired for finding evidence supporting the health risks of vaccines. His rhetoric made the study sound definitive.
As the head of biostatistics at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, when I encounter new scientific claims, I always start with the question “Could this be true?” Then, I evaluate the evidence.
I can say definitively that the study by Henry Ford Health researchers has serious design problems that keep it from revealing much about whether vaccines affect children’s long-term health. In fact, a spokesperson at Henry Ford Health told journalists seeking comment on the study that it “was not published because it did not meet the rigorous scientific standards we demand as a premier medical research institution.”
The study’s weaknesses illustrate several key principles of biostatistics.
Study participants and conclusions
The researchers examined the medical records of about 18,500 children born between 2000 and 2016 within the Henry Ford Health network. According to the records, roughly 16,500 children had received at least one vaccine and about 2,000 were completely unvaccinated.
The authors compared the two groups on a wide set of outcomes. These included conditions that affect the immune system, such as asthma, allergies and autoimmune disorders. They also included neurodevelopmental outcomes such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, autism and speech and seizure disorders, as well as learning, intellectual, behavioral and motor disabilities.
Their headline result was that vaccinated children had 2.5 times the rate of “any selected chronic disease,” with 3 to 6 times higher rates for some specific conditions. They did not find that vaccinated children had higher rates of autism.
The study’s summary states it found that “vaccine exposure in children was associated with increased risk of developing a chronic health disorder.” That wording is strong, but it is not well supported given the weaknesses of the paper.
Timeline logic
To study long-term diseases in children, it’s crucial to track their health until the ages when these problems usually show up. Many conditions in the study, like asthma, ADHD, learning problems and behavior issues, are mostly diagnosed after age 5, once kids are in school. If kids are not followed that long, many cases will be missed.
However, that’s what happened here, especially for children in the unvaccinated group.
About 25% of unvaccinated children in the study were tracked until they were less than 6 months old, 50% until they were less than 15 months old, and only 25% were tracked past age 3. That’s too short to catch most of these conditions. Vaccinated kids, however, were followed much longer, with 75% followed past 15 months of age, 50% past 2.7 years of age and 25% past 5.7 years of age.
The longer timeline gave the vaccinated kids many more chances to have diagnoses recorded in their Henry Ford medical records compared with the nonvaccinated group. The study includes no explanation for this difference.
When one group is watched longer and into the ages when problems are usually found, they will almost always look sicker on paper, even if the real risks are the same. In statistics, this is called surveillance bias.
The primary methods used in the paper were not sufficient to adjust for this surveillance bias. The authors tried new analyses using only kids followed beyond age 1, 3 or 5. But vaccinated kids were still tracked longer, with more reaching the ages when diagnoses are made, so those efforts did not fix this bias.
When a junior at an Orange County public high school in Florida visited the school library to check out a copy of “On the Road” by Jack Kerouac, it wasn’t in its Dewey decimal system-assigned location.
It turns out the title had been removed from the library’s shelves because of a complaint, and in compliance with Florida House Bill 1069, it had been removed from the library indefinitely. Kerouac’s quintessential chronicle of the Beat Generation in the 1950s, along with hundreds of other titles, was not available for students to read.
Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the bill into law in July 2023. Under this law, if a parent or community member objected to a book on the grounds that it was obscene or pornographic, the school had to remove that title from the curriculum within five days and hold a public hearing with a special magistrate appointed by the state.
On Aug. 13, 2025, Judge Carlos Mendoza of the U.S. Middle District of Florida ruled in Penguin Random House v. Gibson that parts of Florida HB 1069 are unconstitutional and violate students’ First Amendment right of free access to ideas.
The plaintiffs who filed the suit included the five largest trade book publishing houses, a group of award-winning authors, the Authors Guild, which is a labor union for published professional authors with over 15,000 members, and the parents of a group of Florida students.
I’ve spent the past 26 years training English language arts teachers at Arizona State University, and 24 years before that teaching high school English. I understand the importance of Mendoza’s ruling for keeping books in classrooms and school libraries. In my experience, every few years the books teachers have chosen to teach come under attack. I’ve tried to learn as much as I can about the history of censorship in this country and pass it to my students, in order to prepare them for what may lie ahead in their careers as English teachers.
Legal precedent
The August 2025 ruling is in keeping with legal precedent around censorship. Over the years, U.S. courts have established that obscenity can be a legitimate cause for removing a book from the public sphere, but only under limited circumstances.
In the 1933 case of United States v. One Book Called Ulysses, Judge John Munro Woolsey declared that James Joyce’s classic novel was not obscene, contradicting a lower court ruling. Woolsey emphasized that works must be considered as a whole, rather than judged by “selected excerpts,” and that reviewers should apply contemporary national standards and think about the effect on the average person.
In 1957, the Supreme Court further clarified First Amendment protections in Roth v. United States by rejecting the argument that obscenity lacks redeeming social importance. In this case, the court defined obscenity as material that, taken as a whole, appeals to a prurient – that is, lascivious – interest in sex in average readers.
The Supreme Court’s 1973 Miller v. California decision created the eponymous Miller test for jurors in obscenity cases. This test incorporates language from the Ulysses and Roth rulings, asking jurors to consider whether the average person, looking at the work as a whole and applying the contemporary standards in their community, would find it lascivious. It also adds the consideration of whether the material in question is of “serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value” when deciding whether it is obscene.
Another decision that is particularly relevant for teachers and school librarians is 1982’s Island Trees School District v. Pico, a case brought by students against their school board. The Supreme Court ruled that removing books from a school library or curriculum is a violation of the First Amendment if it is an attempt to suppress ideas. Free access to ideas in books, the court wrote, is sacrosanct: “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion or other matters of opinion.”
These 23 books were removed from Florida school libraries under Florida HB 1069. In his ruling in Penguin Random House v. Gibson, Judge Carlos Mendoza named them and stated, ‘None of these books are obscene.’Illustration by The Conversation
The Village
Library Demon-Hunting Society, by C. M. Waggoner (Ace)
I often dive into books without
reading the description, and in the case of The
Village Library Demon-Hunting Societyby C.
M. Waggoner, this yielded many delightful surprises and plot twists. I picked
it up thinking I’d find a cozy mystery, conveniently forgetting the “demon-hunting”
part of the title. Indeed, the opening is very cozy: a small town, a quaint
library with older, single librarian sleuth (Sherry Pinkwhistle, great name!) with
eccentric friends and a sweet beau, and a murder mystery. As she investigates, she
realizes something is not quite right. A suspect confesses but not all the
evidence fits. Sherry wonders why her little town has a disproportionate number
of murders and why she is always the one to solve them, much to the annoyance
of the local sheriff. And why, at the peak of the chase, the town is cut off
from the outside world.
At this point, things go seriously
demon-pear-shaped. Supernatural forces are at work, creating the same Murder,
She Wrote scenario over and over, while preying on Sherry’s private guilt.
By the time the sheriff yells at her in an inhuman voice that she must
investigate another murder, all Sherry’s suspicions are in full play. It’s off
to the library to do research!
Despite the demon-hunting weirdness,
the cozy quality and Sherry’s intrepid librarian superpowers never failed to
deliver a great read. The moral for demons and murderers alike: Never mess with
a librarian.
The Make America Healthy Again movement has generated a lot of discussion about public health. But the language MAHA proponents use to describe health and disease has also raised concerns among the disability and chronic illness communities.
I’m a researcher studying the rhetoric of health and medicine – and, specifically, the rhetoric of risk. This means I analyze the language used by public officials, institutions, health care providers and other groups in discussing health risks to decode the underlying beliefs and assumptions that can affect both policy and public sentiment about health issues.
As a scholar of rhetoric and the mother of an autistic child, in the language of MAHA I hear a disregard for the humanity of people with disabilities and a shift from supporting them to blaming them for their needs.
Such language goes all the way up to the MAHA movement’s highest-level leader, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. It is clearly evident in the report on children’s health published in May 2025 by the MAHA Commission, which was established by President Donald Trump and is led by Kennedy, as well as in the MAHA Commission’s follow-up draft recommendations, leaked on Aug. 15, 2025.
One key concept for understanding the MAHA movement’s rhetoric, introduced by a prominent sociologist named Ulrich Beck, is what sociologists now call individualization of risk. Beck argued that modern societies and governments frame almost all health risks as being about personal choice and responsibility. That approach obscures how policies made by large institutions – such as governments, for example – constrain the choices that people are able to make.
In other words, governments and other institutions tend to focus on the choices that individuals make to intentionally deflect from their own responsibility for the other risk factors. The consequence, in many cases, is that the institution is off the hook for any responsibility for negative outcomes.
Beck, writing in 1986, pointed to nuclear plants in the Soviet Union as an example. People who lived near them reported health issues that they suspected were caused by radiation. But the government denied the existence of any evidence linking their woes to radiation exposure, implying that lifestyle choices were to blame. Some scholars have identified a similar dynamic in the U.S. today, where the government emphasizes personal responsibility while downplaying the effects of public policy on health outcomes.
A shift in responsibility
Such a shift in responsibility is evident in how MAHA proponents, including Kennedy, discuss chronic illness and disabilities – in particular, autism.
In its May 2025 report on children’s health, the MAHA Commission describes the administration’s views on chronic diseases in children. The report notes that the increased prevalence in “obesity, diabetes, neurodevelopmental disorders, cancer, mental health, autoimmune disorders and allergies” are “preventable trends.” It also frames the “major drivers” of these trends as “the food children are eating, the chemicals they are exposed to, the medications they are taking, and various changes to their lifestyle and behavior, particularly those related to physical activity, sleep and the use of technology.”
Extensive research shows that genetics accounts for most of the risk of developing autism, but the MAHA Commission report discussed only lifestyle and environmental factors.Dusan Stankovic/E+ via Getty Images
There’s nothing inherently wrong with studying the environmental factors that might contribute to autism or other neurodevelopmental disorders. In fact, many researchers believe that autism is caused by complex interactions between genes and environmental factors. But here’s where Beck’s concept of individualization becomes revealing: While the government is clearly not responsible for the genetic causes of chronic diseases, this narrow focus on lifestyle and environmental factors implies that autism can be prevented if these factors are altered or eliminated.
While this may sound like great news, there are a couple of problems. First, it’s simply not true. Second, the Trump administration and Kennedy have canceled tens of millions of dollars in research funding for autism – including on environmental causes – replacing it with an initiative with an unclear review process. This is an unusual move if the goal is to identify and mitigate environmental risk factors And finally, the government could use this claim to justify removing federally funded support systems that are essential for the well-being of autistic people and their families – and instead focus all its efforts on eliminating processed foods, toxins and vaccines.
Even more worrisome is the implication that autism is a kind of damage caused by the environment rather than one of many normal variations in human neurological diversity – framing people with autism as a problem that society must solve.
How language encodes value judgments
Such logic sets off alarm bells for anyone familiar with the history of eugenics, a movement that began with the idea of improving America by making its people healthier and quickly evolved to make judgments about who is and is not fit to participate in society.
Kennedy’s explanation for the rise in autism diagnoses contradicts decades of research by independent researchers as well as assessments by the CDC.
Even if organic foods and a toxin-free household were the answer to reducing the prevalence of autism, the leaked MAHA Commission strategy report steers clear of recommending government regulation in industries such as food and agriculture, which would be needed to make these options affordable and widely available.
Instead, MAHA’s supposed interventions would remain lifestyle choices – and expensive ones, at that – left for individual families to make for themselves.
Just asking questions
Kennedy and other MAHA proponents also employ another powerful rhetorical tactic: raising questions about topics that have already reached a scientific consensus. This tactic frames such questions as pursuits of truth, but their purpose is actually to create doubt. This tactic, too, is evident in the MAHA Commission’s reports.
MAHA rhetoric thus continues a troubling trend in the anti-vaccine movement of calling all of science and Western medicine into question in order to further a specific agenda, regardless of the risks to public health.
The MAHA Commission’s goals are almost universally appealing – healthier food, healthier kids and a healthier environment for all Americans. But analyzing what is implied, minimized or left out entirely can illuminate a much more complex political and social agenda.
I was lucky enough to grow up in a
family of readers. Admittedly, on my
mother’s side of the family, some of them mostly read the Bible or religious
works. Others, like my mother and
grandmother, loved the “sweet” Romances of the period. My uncles loved Westerns and police
thrillers. My father’s parents, on the
other hand, were serious Leftists and read serious Leftist books, like DAS
KAPITAL in the original German. Both
sides, however, believed in reading aloud to children. They also believed in public libraries.
From the time I was big enough to
walk the ten blocks or so to our local branch, my grandmother and I made a
weekly trip to the library. She loaded
up on genre reading for her, and I loaded up on books from the children’s
section, mostly animal stories, which I particularly loved. As soon as I could read, I read a lot, well
beyond that illusory category, “grade level”.
That’s when the trouble started.
Not from my grandparents, I hasten to add, but from the other adults
around me.
When I was an older child and young
teen-ager, back in the 1950s, I began to hear entirely too often, “You
shouldn’t be reading that book. It’s not
for you.” No, I hadn’t picked out a book
with too many big words or too much sex, nothing from the “Adult” section of
our public library, no Leftist tracts, either.
I had committed the sin of liking Boys’ Books.
It may be hard to imagine now, but
there used to be fixed categories of Boys’ Books and Girls’ Books. Boys got science fiction, adventure stories,
historical stories of battles and exploration.
Girls got junior Romances, stories of girls helping others or setting up
their own homes, horse stories, and . . . well, I never found much else in that
section of the library. Some were well
written, like the “Anne of Green Gables” books or the “Flicka” horse
stories. Most struck me as utter crap,
even at thirteen, particularly the junior Romances, such as the Rosamund de
Jardin “Marcy” series. Oh yes, I can’t
forget the forerunners of “self help” books.
Those available for girls in the 1950s centered around “how to look
pretty and get a boyfriend.” I never
noticed any self help in the Boys’ section.
They, apparently, didn’t need advice.
What I wanted were the adventures,
the battles, and the science fiction.
Among the Boys’ Books, I discovered Roy Chapman Andrews and Robert
Heinlein’s YA novels, along with a lot of lesser writers whose names, alas, I
have forgotten but whom I loved at the time.
When I went to the library desk to check these books out, the voices
started. “Are you getting those for your
brother? No? Why do you want to read those? They’re for boys. You should look in the Girls’ section.” No librarian actually prevented me from
taking the books home, mind. That was
reserved for my mother. “Why are you
reading that junk?” was one of her favorite phrases. “It’s not for girls. Take those back. Get some good books.”
I read most of Heinlein’s YA books
while sitting in the library. Why risk
taking them home and getting nagged?
When as a teen, I graduated to SF for grown-ups, the disapproval escalated,
too. My mother helpfully tried to get me
to read proper female literature by checking out books for me. I dutifully read them -- hell, I’d read
anything at that age, from cereal boxes on up -- but I never liked them. Finally, she gave up.
Death at a Highland Wedding (A Rip Through Time Novel)
by Kelley Armstrong (St Martins)
Death at a Highland Wedding is the fourth
installment in Kelley Armstrong's “Rip Through Time” time-travel novels
that feature modern-day homicide detective Mallory Atkinson, who has slipped
150 years into the past to Victorian Scotland. By now, three books later, she's
developed meaningful relationships with the people around her and is using her
training as an assistant to undertaker Dr. Duncan Gray and Detective Hugh
McCreadie. That’s all the backstory a reader needs, since Armstrong skillfully
weaves in the relevant material as the plot unfolds. The important thing is
that Duncan and Hugh, along with Hugh’s independent-minded sister, Isla, know Mallory’s
true identity and trust her investigatory skills.
Now the four are off to a beautiful highland hunting lodge
for the wedding of Hugh’s younger sister. All is not well, however. The new gamekeeper
has been laying traps that threaten not only local wildlife but the poor folk
accustomed to traveling freely over the estate. Soon, Mallory and her friends
are caught up in a series of increasingly bizarre mysteries that culminate in
the murder of one of the guests, for which the inexperienced young constable
arrests the groom.
The combination of time travel and murder mystery would furnish
an entertaining read, but Armstrong goes further. Her sensitivity to relationships,
the vulnerability of women in the 1870s, especially those without rank or
money, and Mallory’s compassion and quick insight all make for a deeper story.
It’s not necessary to have read the preceding volumes to enjoy Death at a
Highland Wedding, although you’ll likely want to gobble up as many of the
adventures of Mallory and her friends as you can find.
Deborah J.
Ross: Tell us a little about
yourself. How did you come to be a writer?
Katharine
Kerr: From childhood on, I’ve
always loved to read. Somewhere around age 8 I realized that books did not just
magically appear – they were written by people! And I vowed that one day I’d be
one of them. I never lost sight of that goal, even when my life turned very
difficult in my 20’s. I just kept reading and kept writing for practice. When I
finally finished a novel, FLICKERS, that is, a family saga such as was popular
in the 1980s, I realized I’d need an agent. People ask me: how did you learn
how to get published without the internet? The answer always seems to surprise
them. I don’t know why. I went to the public library and looked up the subject
in the old-fashioned card catalog. Lo and behold! There was a whole shelf of
books on the subject. I read several and followed their advice.
DJR: What inspired your
book, Haze?
KK: For some time, several years really,
before I started work on it, I had a scene in my mind. A derelict, probably an
addict, was sitting on the sidewalk in a far future city when a military
officer came striding to offer him redemption . . . for something, I didn’t
know what. But they turned out to be Dan Brennan and Captain Evans. I started
writing from there.
DJR: How does it relate to your other hard
sf?
KK: When I wrote POLAR CITY BLUES, back in
the 1990s, I didn’t realize that it was the beginning of something longer.
After years of working on the Deverry Saga, I wanted to write a one-off,
something that ended! One of my friends, Kate Daniel, thought otherwise. She
wrote almost all of POLAR CITY NIGHTMARE even though my name’s on the cover –
commercial reasons, of course. In these two books, Humanity have settled only a
few exoplanets. The dominant species are the Kar-Li and the H’Allevae (known as
Hoppers), but the Leps are represented too, under the condescending name of
“lizzies”.
In a short story I wrote, “Its Own Reward,” another
sapient species appears, the Val Chiri Gan. This story takes place a long while
before the Polar City pair, when the Old Earth is dying. They may reappear in
ZYON. I’m not sure yet.
SNARE and PALACE are two books more closely linked to
HAZE. Both are victims of the sudden closing of the same interstellar
shunt. PALACE was another collaboration.
I had nothing to do with the sequel, however, and unlike PCN, my name certainly
belongs on the cover of PALACE itself.
Charlie seems like an average guy, having given up his career
as a journalist for substitute teaching that barely pays for groceries and cat
food. He’s kind and sweet, a sucker for a cute cat or two. His current dream is
to buy a landmark pub, although it’s unlikely the bank will approve the loan.
To make matters worse, his siblings want to sell the house they jointly own.Then his
long-lost Uncle Jake dies, and before Charlie realizes what’s going on, he
finds himself heir to a supervillain business and the target of his uncle’s
rivals, a cabal of rich, soulless multinational predators. Along the way,
Charlie discovers a knack for negotiating with wisecracking sentient dolphins
who threaten a strike if their demands for better working conditions aren’t
met, intelligent spy cats who communicate via typewriters, and a terrifyingly
competent henchwoman.
It's all brilliantly witty but with an undercurrent of thoughtfulness.
Again and again, Charlie demonstrates how logic, common sense, and an utter
lack of deference to bullies can and do prevail. The dialog is top-notch, as
are the reversals and plot twists. Having grown up in a union family, I
heartily cheered for dolphin workers’ rights.
