Dear Kim and Kanye: Your New Daughter Is Not a Game

Why the birth of the latest Kardashian girl gives me pause.

So over the weekend, Kim Kardashian had herself a baby. Kim tweeted that her as-yet-unnamed child is a “miracle,” which of course she is, because all babies are miracles. The baby’s daddy, Kanye West, delivered an album, Yeezus, which he recorded in France while Kim was stateside, waxing large with child and finalizing the finale to her two-and-a-half-month marriage to basketball player Kris Humphries. I wish the new parents all the best. But I’ve got my fingers crossed for that little girl.

Maybe Sarah Murnaghan Shouldn’t Get a Lung Transplant

Why messing with the rules for allocating organs is a bad idea.

I don’t have a critically ill child, and I don’t usually read articles about people who do. It’s not that I’m heartless. It’s just that nothing points up the unbearable unfairness of life like a sick child. I’m sure that Sarah Murnaghan, the 10-year-old with cystic fibrosis who’s been in the news of late because the arcane rules of transplant lists made her ineligible for a transplant of more readily available (though still mighty scarce) grown-up lungs, is a great kid. Just about all kids are great kids. And it sucks, it really sucks, that kids get sick and sometimes die.

First Day on the Job, Kid? Step Right This Way for the Moonbounce and the Funnel Cake!

Guess what millennials need to ease them into the workplace? That’s right: fun.

You can say what you like about the millennials who are now, with the resurgent economy, trickling into the workplace for their first “real” jobs. (And I do.) But they have this going for them: They are unfailingly, unflaggingly polite. They have such good manners, in fact, that I sometimes find myself stymied in dealing with them. If I send one a request—asking, say, for information for a photo caption—said millennial will email me back the requested information with a cheery smiley face emoticon at the end of the message (and not at all meant ironically). When I email back a brief “Thanks,” I get an equally cheery “You’re welcome!” or “No worries!!” or “My pleasure!!!,” which all seem like one more step in the email chain than is really necessary. For a generation that’s supposed to be savaging one another on Facebook, I find these kids exceedingly nice. Still, I was taken aback to read this Wall Street Journal article about the steps companies these days are taking to be sure this new generation is happy in the new jobs they’re reporting for. If you’ve dropped a child off to college anytime within the past, oh, six or seven years, these steps will have a familiar ring. When our family rolled up to our youngest child’s dorm at his twee-as-all-hell liberal arts college a few years back, the road was lined with enrollees with signs and face paint and beads and matching t-shirts, all jumping up and down and screaming like bloody banshees to show him how welcome he was. That kicked off an entire week of games and rock-wall climbs and scavenger hunts and assemblies and residence-hall parties, all meant to ensure that he landed as gently as possible in his scary new $50,000-a-year Shangri-la. Guess what’s trickled over into the workplace?

Note to Teen Boys: Supermodels Don’t Want to Go to Prom With You

So stop asking them to. Dumb kids.

Is prom season over yet? Really, is it? Because I honestly don’t think I can bear to see one more faux-suave 17-year-old being alternately cool and pitiable in the little video he put together to ask Kate Upton to be his date to the big school dance this year. I mean, what is the matter with kids these days? It used to be a big enough challenge to ask that cute brunette from homeroom. Now you’ve got to go all Hollywood and make life difficult for a gorgeous supermodel? You don’t think she actually wants to go to prom with...

Why We Love Drunken Facebook Pics, Online Reviews and Gangnam Style

Wharton "viral science" prof Jonah Berger talks about his new book, Contagious: Why Things Catch On

Congratulations! Your new book, Contagious: Why Things Catch On, is really catching on. Thanks. The Today Show just called and wants me for an interview. You’re the only person I ever heard say you watch TV for the commercials, not the shows. It’s true. I was watching with my family recently, and they had the commercials muted so they could talk. I asked them to turn them back on. When I was in college, I used to duct-tape ads I liked all over my dorm room’s walls.

You Can’t Make Me Care About Benghazi

And, uh, GOP? America agrees with me.

Last week was supposed to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week for President Obama. The IRS was doing something terrible. The Justice Department was doing something horrible. And in Washington, Republicans held hearings in which they stripped Hillary Clinton naked, tied her to a pole in the Capitol Rotunda, set her on fire, and danced and sang while she burned. No, actually, they threatened to shoot her in the vagina. (That part’s real.) And you know what happened after that? America just liked Hillary Clinton even more.

Watch Out! I’m About to Sexually Harass You!

You know what’s really "unwelcome"? The Department of Education’s new definition of sexual harassment, that’s what.

Hi there! I'm in your English 101 class with you, and you look like a nice person. Would you like to go out on a date with me? No? Okay, well, never mind, then, I’ll just— What? You say I sexually harassed you? How? By asking you out? Since when does that qualify as sexual harassment?

Don’t Let Republicans Scare You About Obamacare

We talked to health experts all over the city for the May issue’s guide to the Affordable Care Act. And guess what? We’re not scared anymore.

For the past few years, my colleague, health and fitness editor Emily Leaman, and I have worked together to produce our annual “Top Doctors” feature. This year, when we sat down with editor in chief Tom McGrath to plan what we’d do, there really only seemed to be one option. As Tom put it, “This is the only time we’ll ever be able to introduce our readers to Obamacare.”

Wall Street Journal: Male Golfers Want Clothes That Won’t Embarrass Them

Then why are they playing golf?

Thank God for weekends. If there weren’t weekends, my house would never get clean. I’d never get to the post office. And I’d never get to catch up with the Wall Street Journal, a.k.a. the paper of record for White People’s Problems. Friday's Journal brought a shining example in the form of a long story, in the Fashion section, called “Is It Tee Time, or Martini Time?” Because, uh, for the Wall Street Journal, those are the only two choices, I guess?