When Mean Girls, the musical remake of the 2004 film, hit theaters in January, the film appeared to shock audiences for, well, being a musical. Theatergoers recorded the moment that their fellow viewers realized what kind of movie it was; in one video, the crowd groans loudly as soon as a character starts singing, before laughing at their own reactions. But the studio behind the remake wasn’t surprised by these responses.

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Sometimes, at a party or on the internet, you will encounter someone who is unimpressed by human ingenuity. The pace of technological progress has stalled, they’ll say. Our art is getting dumber. We aren’t as creative as we used to be.

Of what, you may ask—love affair, divorce, death, storm
illness, joy, betrayal, revelation, blessing?
In my courtyard, a heap of stuff blown from many directions—
wet socks, branch about to bloom, TV antenna
bent-over window screen, a sandbag without sand.
I could set up shop, sell broken merchandise
to the broken, sell wails and sobs to the grieving.

The warrants issued by the International Criminal Court against Israel’s prime minister and former defense minister represent many historic firsts.

Passing judgment on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was never going to be simple for the International Criminal Court. Even harder than acting fairly and impartially would be appearing to have done so, in a conflict that stirs fierce passions the world over.
On top of that, equality before the law is a basic principle of justice, but until this point, the ICC has mainly prosecuted authoritarian and non-Western leaders.