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Back in 1999—the good old days—a Canadian band that called itself Great Big Sea released a wonderful song titled “Consequence Free.” It was a gentle poke at social conformity, guilt, and, yes, perhaps even what was then called political correctness.

Photographs by Andrej Vasilenko
In 1999, a remarkable book was published in Poland. Its author, Kazimierz Sakowicz, had died 55 years earlier, and it’s not clear whether he hoped, let alone expected, that what he had written would ever be published. The first edition appeared under the one-word title Dziennik (“Diary”), with the explanatory subtitle “Written in Ponar From July 11, 1941, to November 6, 1943.

This is an edition of Time-Travel Thursdays, a journey through The Atlantic’s archives to contextualize the present and surface delightful treasures. Sign up here.
Over the past week or so, my X feed has been overtaken by Moo Deng, the baby pygmy hippopotamus whose glistening skin, jaunty trot, and rippling neck rolls have won the internet’s devotion.

This is an edition of The Weekly Planet, a newsletter that provides a guide for living through climate change. Sign up for it here.
Living in the days of climate change means we are living in the era of ecological grief. The emotional phenomenon has inspired funerals for glaciers in Iceland, Oregon, and Switzerland. Scientists have reported feeling shock and loss with each consecutive return to the Great Barrier Reef, as new expanses of coral bleach and desiccate.

Ellen DeGeneres has been raising chickens. She loves those chickens, and the feeling, she thinks, is mutual. She watches them play on a little swing. It’s been two years since the comedian was last in the public eye, and she’s eager to chat about what she’s been doing in the interim. “Let me see what else I can tell you about that’s been going on,” she muses in her latest—and, according to her, last—stand-up special, Netflix’s For Your Approval. She’s stopped getting Botox injections, she notes.