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In this column, professional speechwriter Chandler Dean provides partly satirical, partly genuine “How To” advice focused on a hyper-specific subcategory of speeches—from graduation speeches to wedding toasts to eulogies, and all the rhetorical occasions in between.

Oh my god, they said your name! It’s you! Everyone’s looking over here! Quick, get up, get up! This counts as part of your time! Move, move, move! And here’s what you should do when you get up there:

Take the sheet of paper out of your pocket that has the remarks you’ve already written, and read it.

Forcefully takes on Republicans in SOTU President Joe Biden Thursday night did not slip on his Aviators and, as Dark Brandon, stare down Republicans in the House chamber. But Biden did all but in his State of the Union address, even calling out Supreme Court justices to their faces for overturning Roe. Biden needed to bring the heat to put the lie to Republican smears that he is a doddering fool. As Col. Pickering said of Prof. Henry Higgins, indeed he did. This was “Fiery Biden” (Washington Post). And “In-Your-Face Biden” (New York Times). MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell followed along in the text and counted the Biden ad libs: more than in any SOTU he’d seen. Biden was not only not doddering, but nimble enough to engage Republican hecklers (including Georgia’s clownish Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene) again and again (Washington Post): At several points, Biden went back and forth with lawmakers — something that used to be a rarity. But in each moment, Biden looked to capitalize on the interruptions, using the heckling to pivot into Democratic talking points. Biden began his address with reference to the U.S.

"Why was the most beautiful corner of the world, with the most beautiful and peaceful people, chosen for these horrific acts without our informed consent?"

Times are tough for our industry, and getting tougher. But this studio, home to beloved, timeless stories for over a century, won’t fold while I’m CEO. With a few strategic innovations, we will start the next chapter stronger than ever, ready for any challenge. Except for the challenge of releasing good movies.

I have bold plans for this company, like changing the name of our streaming service, green-lighting so many spin-offs that even I can’t keep track of them, making our theme parks more expensive and difficult to navigate, and inflating share price by announcing confusing, honestly illogical mergers. Also, I recently found out about video games, and they sound very promising. I’m open to novel revenue generators and blue sky ideation—anything to avoid making a good movie.

Okay so, we all know how the Earth ends, right? In six billion years or so, the Sun swells up into a red giant, and the Earth gets melted. Pretty straightforward. But it turns out that /life/ on Earth will end long before that. There are reasons to think that the biosphere will collapse about […]

How sexuality and religion have been connected in Sarah’s inner life, from ‘prayers with caresses’ to hot Jesus fantasies

- by Psyche Film

Watch at Psyche

Niccolò Machiavelli’s profound insights about the violent origins of political societies help us understand the world today

- by David Polansky

Read at Aeon

Forty years ago, a dispute that would echo through the decades was pushed upon miners and mining communities by a government determined to use whatever they could to destroy the organised working class in Britain. Then, as now, ordinary hard-working men and women, simply fighting for what they believed in, were smeared by the holders […]

Following a lobbying blitz, Congress might punt all efforts to stop shadowy pharmacy benefit managers from inflating drug prices and killing small pharmacies.

On International Women's Day, Penny Pepper celebrates how other disabled women came to be her pillars of strength, wisdom and joy