Slate Magazine - Fraywatch

A Fray Editor bids farewell

Geoffrey Andersen — Sat, 3 Jan 2009 22:35:38 EST

Last week's poetry selection from Robert Pinsky cast our readers upon the winter landscape of the English countryside with Thomas Hardy's "The Darkling Thrush." In his introduction, Pinsky argues that this elegiac piece of light verse may serve us well in this moment of transition, expressing our world-weary and half-futile effort to project hope upon the bleakest of landscapes. Professional poets, amateur wordsmiths, and appreciative readers came out to fling their souls upon the Poetry Fray, joining Pinsky in a remarkable discussion of the poem's theme, structure, and technique. I found the ensuing talk of transitions and thresholds especially poignant as I listened in and searched for the words to use in this, my final Fraywatch column.

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Readers adding value.

Moira Redmond — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 03:53:57 EST

There's more Fray participation to go with that mentioned below: Paul Bloom's "Faith-Based" article on whether religion makes you nice produced a phenomenal response from readers, who turned up in their hundreds to discuss it. Among them were psychologists Ara Norenzayan and Azim Shariff, whose recent work was mentioned in the article and who came to make several points on the issue, including "surveys asking people to report on their own virtuous behavior can be unreliable" and "Were American atheists to form moral communities in the way that religious folk do, it might make them happier. But it would also make them likely to adopt many of the unsavory aspects of groupishness that many of their banded religious brothers exhibit." Article author Paul Bloom came into the Fray to answer them. You can read the argument in full at the end of the article or in the Fray here.—MR … 9:00 a.m. GMT

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How to ride an elephant into the future.

Geoffrey Andersen — Sat, 8 Nov 2008 19:28:00 EST

"The Conservative Crackup," Slate's dialogue between conservative intellectuals about the meaning of this year's bruising GOP electoral defeat, makes for truly insightful reading. The attendant conversation in The Fray provides an excellent source of further illumination on the problems facing the GOP as it regroups from its recent losses.

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Manners are free; birthday dinners aren't.

Moira Redmond — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 09:12:23 EST

Slate's customer base: "gangstas that want to pimp their lives"? Yes, we, too, were surprised by JonIscream's description, it conjured up such an … unlikely view of you all. The topic was etiquette one way or another: This post referred to the review of a new biography of Emily Post, but etiquette was also at the heart of John Swansburg's piece on other people's birthdays. That article touched a nerve with you gangstas, and it is time to trundle out the Fray Multiple Post summarizer. Birthday reactions divide (with a bit of unmannerly pushing and shoving) into the following categories: The person with the birthday should be paying for everyone, not being treated. There was strong support for this view, though "Grown-ups pay for themselves" was a puzzle. KateNonymous means by this that one grown-up pays for everyone else—who knew? No, says another strong faction. If I invite you to the cinema, or a sports game, or a vacation, you don't expect me to pay for you, do you? By far the most imaginative variation on this was from kari9704: "Would you be hosting if you said to your friends, 'I'm going to the zoo; want to come along?' Would you be responsible for buying their elephant key chains and cotton candy during the outing?" Kari, a friend who would invite you to the zoo is a friend worth paying for.We don't have this problem, say some readers. It doesn't arise in other parts of the country, they say, perhaps because New Yorkers notoriously have less room at home for the suggested alternatives: a cheap party ("potluck … karaoke. Best Birthday Ever") or barbecue at home. Even then there can be difficulties—Anse told us about a recent event (a wedding, but still): "It was set up for a classic Czech-Catholic affair, except for one glaring problem: instead of barbecue brisket, sausage, and potato salad, they served prime rib and grilled chicken. There were complaints." This nuance falls into the category of inexplicable but compelling for some of us. "Your significant other should be the one to take you to the steakhouse for your birthday," says hstein—oh bad luck if you don't have one then. Mystifying posts. Several people mentioned the Puerto Rican option (as opposed to the Jefferson Davis solution suggested in the original article)—so what was this? "Full internal autonomy within the sovereign territory of the United States"? No apparently, it's something to do with drinking rather than eating. And those of us of a timid disposition are also mystified by this description of a bachelor party.Posts that tell their story in the title: Server POV; Been there! Started a price cap! Now write an article about weddings.

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We're Fixing as Fast as we Can

Moira Redmond — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 04:07:17 EST

Note to all Fraysters: the Fray is offline right now because of technical problems. We're sorry about that, we know how many of you rely on your daily Fray fix, and we hate to disappoint you. We're working on it, and we'll be back online as fast as we possibly can. Keep checking back, and we'll try to get you back your boards, and to keep you informed. And when we do get the Fray back, we're looking forward to hearing your views on the re-design of Slate.

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