atlantic – LT: 3p||<

The Election That Could Break America

There is a cohort of close observers of our presidential elections, scholars and lawyers and political strategists, who find themselves in the uneasy position of intelligence analysts in the months before 9/11. As November 3 approaches, their screens are blinking red, alight with warnings that the political system does not know how to absorb. They see the obvious signs that we all see, but they also know subtle things that most of us do not. Something dangerous has hove into view, and the nation is lurching into its path.

You’re Showering Too Much

In october, when the Canadian air starts drying out, the men flock to Sandy Skotnicki’s office. The men are itchy. Skotnicki studied microbiology before becoming an assistant professor of dermatology at the University of Toronto. She has been practicing for 23 years, always with an eye to how the environment—including the microbial one on our skin—affects health. “I say to them, ‘How do you shower?’ ” she told me. “They take the squeegee thing and wash their whole body with some sort of men’s body wash. They’re showering twice a day because they’re working out. As soon as I get them to stop doing that and just wash their bits, they’re totally fine.”

Why So Many People Are Unhappy in Retirement

There is a script to life that most of us have internalized, whether consciously or not. It’s in many of the most beloved fictional stories, and—from the outside, at least—it looks like the lives of successful people tend to follow it as well. It is often called the hero’s journey, or the monomyth.