10 Questions About America, The Death of the Top Sheet, Why We're All Moving: Our Top 5 Pieces of the Summer
Our Most Popular Pieces from Our Biggest Season Yet
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We've had a busy summer at The Nonlinear Life--and have welcomed a huge number of new readers. Thank you! To catch you up, here are our Top 5 pieces from a busy few months. See you this fall!
Taken from the long list of questions on the naturalization exam, these ten questions are the ones the Whitney has chosen to highlight. Can you answer them?
1. What is the name of the national anthem?
2. Name one problem that led to the Civil War.
3. What did the Emancipation Proclamation do?
4. What is the rule of law?
5. What is the supreme law of the land?
6. Who did the United States fight in World War II?
7. What movement tried to end racial discrimination?
8. What is the economic system of the United States?
9. What is one responsibility that is only for United States citizens?
10. What stops one branch of government from becoming too powerful?
2. How Millennials Killed the Top Sheet
As the Wall Street Journal reported this month, the top sheet is the latest mark of a generational divide. (Or, if you prefer, civilization in decline.) “If millennials killed the fussy top sheet," the Journal headline read, "Gen X and Boomers have something to say about it: ‘There are very passionate people on both sides.’”
To its fans, the top sheet is an essential part of a made bed: a crisp, clean buffer between The Body and The Blanket. To its detractors, that same top sheet is a superfluous distraction that is a pain to arrange in the morning and annoyingly bunches around one’s feet at night. Team Top Sheet argues that it’s more hygienic, more proper, just more correct to use one. Team None responds that it’s more efficient to skip it, and if you change your duvet cover regularly, it’s just as clean.
3. Why Does Everybody Hate the New Gerber Baby?
In 1928, the little-known Freemont Canning Company of Michigan introduced a line of baby foods named after its owner, Dan Gerber, and put out a call for a portrait of a baby to use in its advertising. Leslie Turner, a popular comic book illustrator, and his wife, Bethel, who lived in Southern Connecticut, submitted a sketch of their daughter, Ann Leslie. The sketch was made by the family’s neighbor, Dorothy Hope Smith, a commercial illustrator.
As a grown-up, Ann Turner Cook (she later took her married name) described what happened next to the St. Petersburg Times, “I have to credit Dorothy with everything. I was really no cuter than any other baby, but she had wonderful artistic talent and was able to draw a very appealing likeness.”
But as Ms. Cook, who died this month at age 95, kept quiet for decades, having her portrait become one of the most recognized corporate logos in the world had its challenges.
4. Relocation Nation: Why People Are Moving So Much And What It Means For America
Americans are on the move. Will it change the country in meaningful ways or merely be a brief detour in our descent into division?
As longtime readers of The Nonlinear Life know, I’ve spent the last five years collecting and analyzing hundreds of life stories of Americans of all ages, all walks of life, and all corners of the country. A large reason I do this exciting-but-quite-labor-intensive work is that it can surface insights in real-time that are often invisible as we’re all going through them. The stories I’ve assembled and the findings I’ve identified form the basis of my last book, Life Is in the Transitions, and a new book I’m finishing this summer.
One moment in the analytical process has always stood out to me. While working on my last book, I was speaking with my team of ten coders one morning when I asked them, “Have any of you detected a pattern that I wasn’t thinking about when I was conducting the interviews?” One member of my team, a young economist, raised his hand.
“I notice that people move a lot during their life transitions.”
5. Who Killed Summer? Why Some Schools Start in August and Others in September
I’m spending time with my family in my hometown of Savannah, Georgia, this week, and yet again, I’m reminded of what may be the least-discussed-yet-most-consequential difference between North and South. I’m not talking about politics, religion, or college football prowess (Go Dawgs). I’m not even talking about eating habits, as exemplified by the culture-war skirmish that broke out last week when Cracker Barrell announced it was adding plant-based sausage to its menu, igniting charges of woke breakfast.
I’m talking about the first day of school.
Schools started in Georgia—and across much of the South—last week, in the opening hour of August. (In Arizona, the opening day was July 27th.) Schools start in New York City, checks calendar, four and a half weeks from now. That’s nearly as long as Noah was on the ark.
What could possibly explain this gap? And will rising temperatures across the country lead to rethinking this policy of sending children to school in the squelching weeks of August?
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Thank you for reading The Nonlinear Life. Please help us grow the community by subscribing, sharing, and commenting below. Also, you can learn more about me, read my introductory post, watch my latest TED Talk, or scroll through my other posts. And if you'd like to do a storytelling project with a loved one similar to the one I did with my father, click here to learn more.
