10 Things

Stuff worth sharing on July 3, 2025

Since tomorrow’s a holiday, I’m sending you 10 Things a day early.

A park near my house.

1. This article about the peacock chair and the Black experience is fascinating.

2. I bought this ridiculous ankle bangle and I swear it makes me at least 32% happier every time I look at it.

   

   Photo: Jennybird.com

3. If you are planning a staycation, you need this for backyard tanning.

   

   Backyard happiness for $69. (You can use it as a pool float, too.) Photo: Funboy.com

4. The vaccination schedules on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s website have already started to change. If you’re interested in comparing the new recommendations with what the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) suggested before all 17 members of that committee were dismissed by the Trump administration, you can do that here (on Scientific American).

5. Speaking of Trump, my employer, WBUR, has joined a friend-of-the-court brief filed by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press in support of NPR and three Colorado public radio stations in support of protecting federal funding for public media. You can read more about it, and learn how to support free, independent journalism here.

6. I’m a big fan of “Girls,” so I was thrilled to hear that Lena Dunham has a new show coming to Netflix next week. And get a load of this cast!

7. “Our phones are the tiny gods we are trying not to worship.”

8. I have not finished the new PBS documentary about caregiving because it is so difficult to watch that I’m spreading out my viewing over several sessions, but oh my goodness we all need to watch this. It feels especially important given the almost certain upcoming cuts to Medicaid.

9. Hims, the telehealth platform for men (and its sister platform Hers), has always given me the creeps.

   Alex Kesin
   , who is much smarter than I am, explains why here.

10. This week’s poem:

    The committee weighs in
    —Andrea Cohen
    
    I tell my mother
    I've won the Nobel Prize.
    
    Again? she says. Which
    discipline this time?
    
    It's a little game
    we play: I pretend
    
    I'm somebody, she
    pretends she isn't dead.

Happy Fourth,