WARREN’S WAY
Michael Scherer’s July 20 feature on Elizabeth Warren’s influence in Democratic politics prompted Simon Horness of Tucson, Ariz., to cheer on her non-candidacy: “Please don’t run for President so that you can keep the White House & Congress on their toes,” he wrote. Terry Hammer of Huntington Beach, Calif., had the opposite reaction: a presidential candidacy for the Massachusetts Senator would be great–for Republicans. “She’d be a disaster nationally,” he wrote. Meanwhile, Virginia Butterworth of Tiverton, R.I., suggested what Warren should do next: aim her pro-consumer power at “usurious” credit-card interest charges.
VIDEO GAMES
On TIME.com, Rosalind Wiseman, author of the adolescent-culture study Queen Bees & Wannabes, discussed the most surprising conclusions from a recent survey of 1,400 middle-and high school students–namely, that many young boys don’t like the ubiquitous sight of scantily clad women in video games. Some commenters, like MacroManJr., denounced Wiseman’s piece as an attempt to say something “politically correct.” But others, like Cmmsrbl, blamed the gaming industry for the imbalance in how male and female characters are portrayed. Those portrayals can be damaging, wrote oneclickboedice, because they make kids feel “unable to live up to ridiculous social images of ‘gendered perfection.'”
SELFIE SHTICK
When photographer Gjon Mili invited celebrities to take self-portraits at his studio in 1944, it was still 70 years before selfie would make it into the Oxford English Dictionary. And yet the results–like this photo of singer Lauritz Melchior holding the camera’s shutter release–are not so different from the front-facing camera shots we take today with smartphones and selfie sticks. See more of the portraits on life.time.com.
NOW PLAYING
Fourteen-year-old Jazz Jennings–one of TIME’s most influential teens of 2014–has rocketed to fame as a confident, articulate advocate for the transgender community. In a new video, the star of TLC’s new docuseries I Am Jazz talks to TIME about her story, as well as the courage of trans people who find ways to “live their lives authentically.” Watch it at time.com/jennings.
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