CONTROVERSY
THE GOP’S REVISION OF JAN. 6 p.6 Rep. Kevin McCarthy
MAIN STORIES
More misery in Gaza and Israel
p.4
TALKING POINTS
What if UFOs are real? p.17
THE BEST OF THE U.S. AND INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
Mask confusion Was the CDC’s about-face on indoor protection premature? p.5
MAY 28, 2021 VOLUME 21 ISSUE 1029 ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT EVERYTHING THAT MATTERS
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Editor’s letter It was the $4.4 million ransom that was the breaking point for me. The many proponents of Bitcoin have been telling us endlessly for years that digital currencies are going to change everyone’s lives. Well, they were right. Thanks to the magic of Bitcoin, a group of hackers based in Eastern Europe can hijack oil pipelines in the U.S., create lines for gas at stations from North Carolina to Florida, and then walk off with millions that can’t be traced. For people who don’t regularly read the financial pages, this is an appropriate introduction to digital currencies— or “crypto,” as the initiates like to refer to Bitcoin and its imitators. Created with utopian dreams of a medium of exchange unburdened by government, Bitcoin has delivered in full: a currency optimized for criminal transactions, a vast regulation-free waste of energy and computing power (see Technology, p.20), a windfall for speculators. And for the rest of us—in the words of Bitcoindabbler Elon Musk—“a hustle.”
So let’s get back to that ransom. The operators of the Colonial Pipeline had no choice but to pay it to get gasoline moving through the Southeast again. Of course there will be more such demands—and bigger ones. If you can get $4 million, why not $20 million? Digital currency is the prerequisite for this growing business. Bitcoin boosters, including much of Silicon Valley, wanted a way to move large sums of money without government interference. We got that, and it hasn’t worked out. As in other areas, the absence of government just returns us to the state of nature—not a kind place. Governments themselves are becoming wise to this, exposing Bitcoin to risks of a sudden crackdown. Just how long this story goes on is anyone’s guess; last week Bitcoin plummeted in a frantic one-day sell-off, then just as mysteriously recovered. But we’ve seen enough now to know the plot, which follows so many science-fiction movies: a Mark Gimein utopian beginning gives way to a dystopian end. Managing editor
NEWS 4 Main stories An explosion of violence in Israel and Gaza; the CDC’s new mask guidelines spark celebrations and confusion
AP, Getty
6
Editor-in-chief: William Falk Managing editors: Theunis Bates, Mark Gimein Assistant managing editor: Jay Wilkins Deputy editor/International: Susan Caskie Deputy editor/Arts: Chris Mitchell Senior editors: Chris Erikson, Danny Funt, Michael Jaccarino, Dale Obbie, Zach Schonbrun, Hallie Stiller Art director: Dan Josephs Photo editor: Mark Rykoff Copy editor: Jane A. Halsey Researchers: Joyce Chu, Ryan Rosenberg Contributing editors: Ryan Devlin, Bruno Maddox
Controversy of the week Should Congress investigate the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection?
7 The U.S. at a glance Supreme Court to hear key abortion case; a sham election audit in Arizona 8 The world at a glance Why so many Brazilian children are dying of Covid; China lands a rover on Mars 10 People Isabella Rossellini’s lockdown romance; a Sex Pistol becomes a caregiver 11 Briefing Should the U.S. boycott the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing? 12 Best U.S. columns How lockdowns helped the economy; the GOP’s cuckoo caucus 15 Best European columns Italy overwhelmed by a new migrant surge 16 Talking points The new culture war over critical race theory; taking UFOs seriously; is it time to start paying people to get vaccinated?
A Gaza building destroyed by an Israeli airstrike (pages 4 and 14)
ARTS
LEISURE
22 Books Letting the forest deliver its wisdom
27 Food & Drink Meaty grilled oyster mushroom kebabs; three wine clubs worth joining 28 Coping How the pandemic messed with our brains; the noisy joys of cicada season
23 Author of the week How Christina Hunger taught her dog to talk 24 Art & Music Agnes Pelton’s cosmic landscapes; St. Vincent’s new sound 25 Film & Home Media Eric Bana feels the heat in Australian thriller The Dry Isabella Rossellini (p.10)
BUSINESS 32 News at a glance AT&T’s disastrous media experiment; Bill Gates’ workplace affairs 33 Making money Returning to a very different office; refund delays at the IRS 34 Best columns The specter of inflation is back; the go-to currency for ransom demands
Group publisher: Paul Vizza (paul_vizza@theweek.com) Associate publisher: Sara Schiano (sara_schiano@theweek.com) West Coast executive director: Tony Imperato East coast account director: Meg Power Group custom content director: Barbara Baker Clark Director, digital operations & advertising: Andy Price Media planning manager: Andrea Crino Direct response: Anthony Smyth (914-409-4202; anthony@smythps.com) North American CEO: Randy Siegel SVP, finance: Maria Beckett Director, financial reporting: Arielle Starkman SVP, global marketing: Lisa Boyars VP consumer marketing: Yanna Wilson-Fischer Consumer marketing director: Leslie Guarnieri Senior digital marketing director: Mathieu Muzzy Manufacturing manager, North America: Lori Crook HR manager: Joy Hart Operations manager: Cassandra Mondonedo Chairman: Jack Griffin Dennis Group CEO: James Tye Group CRO: Julian Lloyd-Evans U.K. founding editor: Jolyon Connell Company founder: Felix Dennis
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THE WEEK May 28, 2021
4 NEWS
The main stories...
Israel’s campaign to degrade Hamas’ military What happened
But as demonstrated by weekend bombings that killed 42 residents of a collapsed apartment building and destroyed offices for the Associated Press and other news organizations, Israel “is pushing the boundaries of legitimate military targeting.” With even some pro-Israel U.S. lawmakers expressing concern, “the collateral political and diplomatic damage to Israel is steadily growing.”
Amid growing international calls for a cease-fire, Israel continued an offensive in Gaza this week to eradicate Hamas leadership and military capabilities, in response to a sustained barrage of more than 4,000 rockets fired at Israeli towns. “The shooting must stop,” said French President Emmanuel Macron, who drafted a cease-fire resolution for the United Nations Security Council. By What the columnists said midweek, the airstrikes had killed The usual arguments about aggresmore than 225 Palestinians, including at least 64 children, displaced Israel’s Iron Dome missiles (right) rising to block Hamas rockets sion and reprisal miss the point, said Shadi Hamid in TheAtlantic more than 58,000, and destroyed hundreds of buildings. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu .com. This latest conflict began in East Jerusalem, when Israel tried to evict Palestinian families and then sent police to raid the tweeted that the attacks would “continue as long as necessary to Al-Aqsa Mosque. Israel’s defenders fail to acknowledge the “wildly restore calm to the citizens of Israel.” Hamas-fired rockets that unequal” power imbalance “in which Israel is the aggressor and slipped past Israel’s Iron Dome defense shield have killed at least Palestinians are the aggressed.” That imbalance provokes humilia dozen Israeli citizens, including two children. In response, Israel ated Palestinians to lash out over and over again, and gives Israel said, it had destroyed 60 miles of underground tunnels, struck 80 no incentive whatsoever to seek peace. rocket launchers, and killed at least 130 Hamas militants. If you’re rooting for a Palestinian state, “you must also want Hamas to be humiliated and defeated,” said Bret Stephens in The New York Times. The sole objective of this terrorist organization has been to turn a “potentially negotiable” conflict into a “zero-sum holy war.” There’s no moral equivalent between Israel’s inadvertent killing of Palestinians and Hamas’ deliberate attacks on Israeli citizens—or its strategy of housing arsenals amid civilian populations so it can “reap the propaganda benefits” when Palestinian children are killed by defensive strikes. Hamas “must be routed.”
As the bloody fighting continues, Biden faces a war within his own The Israeli bombardment created a growing humanitarian crisis party, said Ryan Lizza in Politico.com. While he’s moved to the left on in Gaza, where power lines were damaged, hospitals and schools were taken out of commission, fuel and water were in short supply, issues from climate to racial justice, “on Israel he’s a throwback”— and he’s facing a rebellion from “a vocal Left that’s deeply disenchanted and a devastated sewer system flooded streets with wastewater. with the Jewish state.” The ground is “We are tired,” said Haya Abdelal, 21, shifting, with progressive Democratic after the building next to her home was What next? lawmakers openly criticizing Israel and destroyed. “We need a truce. We can’t Biden’s call for a cease-fire will have no efpolls showing Democratic voters now bear it anymore.” fect, because “Washington has less leverage “equally sympathetic toward both than ever,” said Walter Russell Mead in The sides” of the conflict. What the editorials said Wall Street Journal. “Everyone in the region” “The narrative is following a familiar is aware that the U.S.’s chief goal is to “reduce Hopes for ending the “vicious cycle” script,” said The Wall Street Journal. America’s Middle East footprint.” Few Israelis of violence are dimmer than ever, said Hamas fires rockets at Israeli civilians, fear that Biden will disrupt the status quo, and David Ignatius in The Washington and Israel strikes back at the source of “even fewer Palestinians believe that the U.S. can Post. In the past, America would have the weaponry. Then “Hamas plays up or will force Israel to make the concessions on urged recommitment to a “peace the civilian casualties, and the world Jerusalem and settlements they demand.” The process,” but no such process exists. In leans on Israel to stop defending itself.” current violence “will burn itself out,” but with Israel, the “political fabric has frayed As the fighting continues, “let’s hope this support for a two-state solution all but dead, this during recent years of electoral impasse isn’t the trap the Biden administration “Hundred Years’ War” looks nowhere “close to and interim government.” On the Palfalls into.” Israel has “an obligation to an end.” The Democratic divide over Israel “is estinian side, the “mess is even worse,” its own people to degrade the threat” going to be a problem” for Biden, said Henry with power flowing away from the with a sustained assault. Olsen in The Washington Post. Biden special“corrupt and feeble” Palestinian izes in finding middle ground, but there is none Authority toward the militant Hamas. It’s time for Israel “to call a halt,” said between pro-Palestinian Democrats and an Israel The only way out is through bold, The Washington Post. Yes, its targeted that’s “shifted dramatically to the right.” In comhonest, and courageous leadership— bombing “is not morally or legally ing years, that tension will only grow. and none is in evidence. comparable” to Hamas’ “war crimes.” THE WEEK May 28, 2021
Illustration by Fred Harper. Cover photos from Reuters, Getty (2)
Getty
The White House said that President Biden told Netanyahu he “expected a significant de-escalation today on the path to a ceasefire.” But Netanyahu declined. That prompted some Democrats to call on Biden to take a tougher stance. “The president needs to tell Netanyahu to stop,” said Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), and Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota said Biden should block a $735 million weapons sale to Israel. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell accused critics of Israel of engaging in “false equivalence between terrorist aggressors and a responsible state defending itself.” The U.S. must “stand foursquare behind our ally,” he said.
... and how they were covered
NEWS 5
CDC lifts mask rules for vaccinated Americans
Getty
What happened
“Eradication of the coronavirus was never and still cannot be the goal,” said Many Americans took off their face WashingtonExaminer.com. We don’t masks last week after the Centers for demand that other risks be reduced to Disease Control scrapped almost all of zero at any cost, and the same is true its masking and social-distancing recomwith Covid. The CDC’s new advisory mendations for people fully vaccinated is an overdue recognition of the reality against Covid-19, an unexpected anthat, thanks to vaccines, “we have nouncement that was met with celebradefeated the epidemic. It’s over.” Now tion and confusion. Citing new research it’s time to take the next steps. Classthat indicates recipients of Pfizer’s and rooms need to open in full. We should Moderna’s shots are highly unlikely to lift capacity limits at ballparks, theaters, spread the virus or to be infected by and places of worship “where the comvariants, the CDC said vaccinated people munity spread is low—which is almost can safely go without masks in almost all all of the country.” Shoppers in Huntington Beach, Calif. situations—even when they are indoors in large groups. The advisory, an abrupt What the columnists said about-face for an agency that just three weeks earlier had urged The CDC’s guidance has caused “a giant mess,” said Dr. Leana vaccinated people to remain masked in crowded spaces, surprised Wen in The Washington Post. The announcement blindsided goveven the White House. “We’ll smile again,” President Biden said ernors and mayors, leading to a confusing patchwork of new mask on receiving the news, “and now, see one another’s smile.” Within rules across the country, and it left businesses scrambling to find a day, some 20 states had lifted mask mandates for vaccinated residents. Walmart, Trader Joe’s, Costco, Publix, Target, Starbucks, ways to relax restrictions while also protecting the unvaccinated. A scientific agency like the CDC is not equipped to steer policy, and other businesses also dropped mask requirements for inocuso “Biden needs to course-correct, now.” His administration lated customers. should define region-by-region criteria for lifting mask mandates— perhaps when 70 percent of a community is vaccinated—and Real-world data suggests the vaccines are working remarkably help private entities set up apps that people can use to prove their well: At the peak of the pandemic in January, Covid was killing vaccination status. more than 3,300 Americans a day; that figure is now down to about 600. While the U.S. vaccination campaign has slowed from an April high of 3.5 million shots administered daily to 1.8 million Democrats who once demanded that everyone “follow the science” are now aghast that the CDC is doing just that, said Noah Rothman now, about 158 million Americans have received at least one in CommentaryMagazine.com. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy dose and nearly half of U.S. adults are fully vaccinated, including reacted to the agency’s advisory “as though it was a display of pure 70 percent of seniors. madness” and vowed to keep his state’s indoor mask mandate, while Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot pledged that masks would stay Many health officials and doctors said the CDC’s announcement on in her city until she received “clarification from the CDC.” For was premature and could undercut one of the most effective tools liberals, face coverings have become “a tribal identifier and a sign of for battling the coronavirus—which is still infecting about 35,000 righteousness,”said Kevin Williamson people a day. “The guidance shifts all in NationalReview.com. They won’t the burden onto individuals to be ‘on What next? give them up any more readily than their honor,’” said Johns Hopkins UniWith more than 4,100 Americans dying of the they will Subarus or Whole Foods. versity epidemiologist Lisa Maragakis. coronavirus every week, the pandemic is “not “The likely result is almost no one will over by any means,” said Paul Waldman in The CDC’s mask guidance depends on wear a mask.” WashingtonPost.com. “But if millions of people people being truthful and considerate, are going to be removing their masks” and said Julia Bosman and Sarah Mervosh What the editorials said resuming activities known to spread the virus, in The New York Times. But the “Don’t toss out your face mask and it’s vital we get as many people inoculated as pandemic has exposed how little trust rush out on the town just yet,” said possible. Nearly half of GOP voters still say they there is between red and blue America. the Los Angeles Times. For starters, don’t plan to get a shot; that might change if We’ve witnessed “screaming crowds” the CDC guidance is full of exceptions: Republican leaders stopped treating vaccinaprotesting lockdowns, strangers It doesn’t extend to prisons, schools, tion “like some kind of shameful secret.” Of the growling at one another about social hospitals, trains, planes, or businesses 212 Republicans in the House of Representatives, distancing, and infuriating stories of that require face coverings. “So much only 95 were willing to tell CNN that they’d gotten vaccine-line jumping. Now Amerifor getting back to normal.” Then shots. Many vaccine holdouts aren’t stereotypical cans are being asked to lower their there’s the fact that only one-third of “anti-vaxxers, ” said former FDA Commissioner guard and accept that every maskless Americans are fully vaccinated, and Scott Gottlieb in The Wall Street Journal. A large person is fully vaccinated. Michigan there’s no way to know if the maskless number just find getting a shot inconvenient or resident Tori Saylor, who is immunopeople near you in a restaurant or store unnecessary. There’s reason to hope that the CDC compromised, says she isn’t yet ready have had their shots. There’s still a risk, tying inoculation to freedom from masks will be to make that assumption. “How can I albeit a low one, “of sparking new inthe nudge these Americans need “to make that judge whether someone is vaccinated fections when you gather unvaccinated appointment to get vaccinated.” by making momentary eye contact and unmasked people in a room and with them?” let them mix.” THE WEEK May 28, 2021
6 NEWS
Controversy of the week
Jan. 6: Should a bipartisan commission investigate? agree with him that the election was stolen. “Hey, remember that Jan. 6 attack on the Democrats want a commission to damage the Capitol?” said Bess Levin in Vanity Fair. GOP and protect their own hold on power, Republicans would prefer that you didn’t. said The Wall Street Journal in an editorial. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy Their goal is to buttress their narrative that this week reversed himself and called on Jan. 6 “was a planned attempted coup.” the GOP caucus to reject a proposed bill, With no chance of a “fair-minded inquiry,” brokered by McCarthy’s own negotiators, why should Republicans play ball? for a 9/11-style, bipartisan commission to investigate the attempted insurrection. The That’s rather rich, given that Republicans bill was expected to pass the House anyway staged 10 congressional investigations into and head to the Senate, where Minority Trump supporters breaking into the U.S. Capitol the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi, Leader Mitch McConnell quickly declared Libya, said Jonathan Chait in NYMag.com. But now McCarthy his opposition. To be fair, some Republicans said, a commission thinks we don’t need even one probe into how a defeated U.S. presishould also probe left-wing “political violence” such as the rioting in Portland. If that excuse sounds transparently absurd, consider the dent enlisted a violent mob to try to “cancel an election because he lost.” Congressional Republicans have good reason to fear a thorefforts of House Republicans last week to rewrite history about the deadly assault—which left five dead and 138 Capitol police officers ough investigation, said Greg Sargent in WashingtonPost.com. The injured. Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona described the rioters as “peace- “ugly truth” is that many were “all in with Trump’s effort to overturn the election.” McCarthy also does not want to testify about his ful patriots,” while Rep. Andrew Clyde of Georgia likened the mid-riot phone call to Trump pleading with the then-president to violent insurrection to a “normal tourist visit.” Do tourists break call off his supporters. Trump reportedly told him, “Well, Kevin, I down doors and windows, drag officers down steps and bash them guess these people are more upset about the election than you are.” with flagpoles and bats, and prowl the Capitol hallways shouting “Where’s Nancy?” and “Hang Mike Pence”? The GOP is now tryThe GOP is minimizing Jan. 6 for two disgraceful reasons, said Fred ing to memory-hole “one of the darkest days in modern American Hiatt in The Washington Post: to preserve the Big Lie of the stolen history,” said Chris Cillizza in CNN.com. It all speaks to “just how 2020 election and “to give cover for actions that in 2024 could turn low the party has stooped in its worship of the former president.” the Big Lie into the Big Steal.” That’s why Republican state legislaGOP leaders may not be principled, but they “are playing it smart,” tures are proposing and passing bills designed not only to suppress the Democratic vote but also to let those legislators override election said Harry Enten in CNN.com. They’re poised to recapture the officials, said Michelle Goldberg in The New York Times. These House and perhaps the Senate in next year’s midterms if they can just turn out “their 2020 base and a little more.” To join Democrats laws will enable state legislatures to refuse to certify Democratic victories. In 2020, “Trump’s rolling coup attempt didn’t succeed,” but in an investigation of Jan. 6 would endanger that prospect by it revealed how to rig the system for next time. incensing Trump and the 70 percent of Republican voters who
Q The University of Wiscon-
sin’s new guidelines for campus speech affirm students’ right to be “free from any official speech code” but also from hearing any “insulting and demeaning comments.” Laura Beltz of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education said while colleges often “contradict themselves” on free speech, “it is rare for a school to make this contradiction in a single sentence.” Q Some Republicans are blaming President Biden for Chick-fil-A’s new limit of one dipping-sauce packet per item. The fast-food chain blamed the sauce drought on temporary, “industry-wide shortages.” But Rep. Lauren Boebert reacted by asking, “Is there no limit to how awful Biden’s America can get?” while Sen. Ted Cruz cited the one-packet limit as proof that “Joe Biden is destroying America.” THE WEEK May 28, 2021
Good week for: National service, after a U.K. finance firm estimated that the
nation’s hospitality sector can recoup its pandemic losses if every citizen of legal drinking age performs “the basic duty of every British adult” and consumes 124 pints of beer this summer. Newark, N.J., which was named one of the top 10 barbecue cities in the U.S. by an Australian food blog that did not include any city in Georgia, Mississippi, or Texas. Ill-gotten gains, with the news that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo was paid $5.12 million for American Crisis, his memoir about the pandemic. The book stopped selling amid allegations that Cuomo sexually harassed female underlings, hid nursing-home deaths, and used staff on the state payroll for work on the book.
Bad week for: Lesser included offenses, after a Colorado man charged with murdering his wife was also charged with stealing her mail-in ballot and using it to vote for Donald Trump. “I figured all these other guys are cheating,” Barry Lee Morphew allegedly told FBI agents. Flashbacks, with reports of increasing neutron levels in radioactive waste at the abandoned Chernobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine. Ukraine’s Institute for Safety Problems of Nuclear Power Plants warned, “We can’t rule out the possibility of [another] accident.” Creative defenses, after Albert Watkins, lawyer for “QAnon Shaman” Jacob Chansley, said that most of those who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 are “short-bus people” with “brain damage” who were “subjected to four-plus years of goddamn propaganda the likes of which the world has not seen since f---ing Hitler.”
In other news U.S. to share more vaccine doses President Biden, facing pressure to address overseas coronavirus surges, said this week the U.S. would send 20 million more doses of Covid-19 vaccines to other countries in June. The U.S. last month promised to share 60 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which hasn’t been approved for domestic use. The additional 20 million doses will consist of approved vaccines made by Moderna, Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson. It is the first time Biden has agreed to share vaccines that could be used in the U.S., although it wasn’t clear which countries would get them. Longtime public health activist Gregg Gonsalves said donating 80 million doses without boosting global vaccine production was “like putting a Band-Aid on a machete wound.”
Getty
Only in America
The U.S. at a glance ...
AP (3), Brown family
Phoenix Audit mayhem: The Maricopa County, Ariz., Board of Supervisors urged the state Senate this week to stop A ‘sham’ recount its audit of 2020 election results, calling it a “sham.” The Republican-majority board sent state Senate President Karen Fann a letter saying the audit in the state’s most populous county was making Arizona a “laughingstock” and undermining trust in elections. The head of Cyber Ninjas, the Floridabased firm conducting the recount, has repeated former President Donald Trump’s false claim that the November election was stolen. Trump last weekend falsely claimed that the audit had revealed that Maricopa County’s election database was “DELETED!” Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer, a Republican, responded by tweeting that Trump’s claim was “unhinged,” adding, “We can’t indulge these insane lies any longer.’’ Three previous reviews found no election fraud. Fann insisted the audit would proceed nonetheless, saying it would improve future Arizona elections.
Alpharetta, Ga. Ransom paid: The Colonial Pipeline returned to normal operations this week after being shut down by a cyberattack, as company officials confirmed they paid a ransom of $4.4 million to hackers to unlock its systems. CEO Joseph Blunt said he felt he had no choice but to make the payment, in Bitcoin, to the Darkside hacker group given the risk to 45 percent of the East Coast’s gasoline supplies. Alpharettabased Colonial had shut its 5,500 Back in operation miles of pipes for six days. Fuel shortages continued at gas stations across the Southeast and midAtlantic even after the pipeline reopened, as refueling trucks struggled to catch up. Some stations reopened but ran out again or set purchase limits to stretch their supplies. The shutdown left panicked motorists flocking to fill up their tanks, raising prices across the Southeast and taking the nationwide average gas price to $3.05 a gallon, a seven-year high.
Washington, D.C. Testing Roe v, Wade: The Supreme Court announced this week that it would review a Mississippi law seeking to ban most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. A federal appeals court has blocked the legislation, citing precedents protecting abortion rights before fetal viability, at about 22 weeks. The Mississippi law could give the high court’s newly expanded conservative majority an opportunity to narrow abortion rights guaranteed under the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. Mississippi’s Republican attorney general, Lynn Fitch, said the law reflected the people’s will to “promote women’s health” and preserve the “sanctity of life.” Ten states currently have “trigger laws” that would automatically impose abortion bans if Roe is overturned. Legal experts said the court’s 6-3 conservative majority was signaling a willingness to reconsider Roe by accepting the case. The court will hear arguments in its next term, which starts in October.
Orlando Sex trafficking: Former Seminole County, Fla., tax collector Joel Greenberg, a close associate of Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), pleaded guilty this week to six criminal charges, including fraud and sex trafficking of a minor. Before reaching a plea deal, Greenberg told prosecutors that he and Gaetz paid for sex with women, reportedly including a 17-year-old girl. According to court documents, Greenberg paid more than $70,000 for “commercial sex acts” from December 2016 to December 2018, sometimes paying with Venmo and marking the transactions as “food,” “school,” and “ice cream.” Greenberg admitted in his written plea deal that he paid a minor for sex with him and other men. He didn’t name Gaetz, but Greenberg’s agreement to cooperate with investigators appeared to increase the congressman’s potential legal troubles. Gaetz, a conservative firebrand and staunch ally of former President Donald Trump, has denied he ever paid for sex, or had sexual contact with a minor.
NEWS 7
New York City Trump’s legal jeopardy: New York Attorney General Leticia James’ office announced this week that it is “now actively James: On Trump’s trail investigating the Trump Organization in a criminal capacity.” James’ office had been conducting a civil inquiry that could have resulted in fines or lawsuits, like the ones former President Donald Trump has faced over his charity and Trump University. The change suggests that James is working more closely with Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr.’s ongoing criminal fraud investigation. The inquiries focus on a range of potential financial crimes, including inflating the value of Trump properties to get better loan terms and undervaluing them to reduce taxes. In a statement, Trump attacked the New York probe, saying that James vowed to destroy him when she ran for the office and that her investigation is motivated by partisan hatred. “There is nothing more corrupt than an investigation that is in desperate search of a crime,” Trump said.
Elizabeth City, N.C. No charges: North Carolina prosecutors said this week that the fatal shooting of Andrew Brown Jr., an unarmed Black man, was “justified,” and the sheriff’s deputies involved would not be charged. Seven deputies went to Brown’s Elizabeth City, N.C., home on April 21 to serve him with an arrest warrant. Brown, who was in his car, turned it around, forcing one of the officers to jump clear. Three deputies opened fire as Brown, 42, tried to drive away, hitting him five times; one bullet entered the back of his head. Police have said that Brown’s car struck an officer, and the state’s investigation determined that Brown had “used his vehicle as a deadly weapon.” Brown’s death, “while tragic, was justified,” Pasquotank County District Attorney Andrew Womble said. Protesters in Elizabeth City denounced the decision, and Brown family lawyers said defending the shooting was “a slap in the face to Andrew’s family...and to rational Brown people everywhere.” THE WEEK May 28, 2021
8 NEWS
The world at a glance ...
Ottawa Yacht fight: The mother and girlfriend of Canadian billionaire Eugene Melnyk are suing a yacht charter company for $10 million, claiming that a ship’s captain intentionally subjected them to misery on the high Not smooth sailing seas. Melnyk, owner of the Ottawa Senators hockey team, chartered the $420,000-a-week M/Y Dream to cruise around the Bahamas last December. Once on board, he suggested that the captain take a scenic route close to shore. The lawsuits claim the “ill-tempered” captain was so insulted at having his course questioned that he sailed the yacht into the rough open ocean, causing vomiting and panic attacks among the passengers. A lawyer for the yacht company said the captain wasn’t responsible for the “nasty” weather and that “boats, unfortunately, are unstable platforms floating in an unstable medium.”
London Boris’ nurse bails: The nurse who tended Prime Minister Boris Johnson when he was in the ICU with Covid-19 last year has quit her job, citing low pay and a lack of respect for National Health Service workers. “I’m just sick of it,” said Jenny McGee, an intensive-care nurse for 11 years. “So I’ve handed in my resignation.” She said the 1 percent raise that Johnson’s government has proposed for health workers who put in arduous hours during the pandemic is an insult. She said Johnson’s staff tried to corral her into a “clap for the NHS” photo opportunity but she refused because she felt that his government “hadn’t led very effectively.” The U.K. jumped in and out of lockdown last year and has so far recorded 128,000 Covid deaths, the fifth-highest total in the world. McGee
Dublin Hackers target health care: Ireland’s national health-care service had to shut down all of its computers this week after a ransomware attack crippled the organization’s IT system. Thousands of doctor appointments, cancer treatments, and surgeries had to be canceled because records couldn’t be accessed, and authorities said it could be weeks before service returns to normal. Hospital phones were down, as was the payroll system for health-care workers, and patients were told not to come in except for life-threatening emergencies. Conti, a Russian-speaking hacker group, threatened to release private health data if the government didn’t fork over $20 million. “The government will not be paying any money,” said Justice Minister Heather Humphreys. “We will not be blackmailed.”
Galápagos Islands, Ecuador Darwin’s Arch collapses: The famed 140-foot-tall Galápagos rock formation known as Darwin’s Arch has crashed into the sea, a result of natural erosion. One of the many tour groups that visit the islands was nearby and saw the arch collapse. The tour operator called the sight a “once-in-a-lifetime event” and said that local environmentalists have already renamed the two remaining rock towers the Pillars of Evolution. Meanwhile, actor Leonardo DiCaprio has announced a $43 million pledge to “rewild” the Galápagos Islands, breeding and releasing rare species that once were found there but are now locally extinct. They include the Floreana mockingbird—the first mockingbird Now the ‘Pillars of Evolution’ described by biologist Charles Darwin. THE WEEK May 28, 2021
São Paulo Kids dying of Covid: Young children are dying of Covid-19 in Brazil at vastly higher rates than elsewhere in the world, and doctors are not sure why. An estimated 2,200 Brazilian children ages 5 and under have so far died of Covid, including more than 1,600 babies under a year old. In the U.S.—which has a larger population and has suffered a higher overall number of Covid fatalities—139 children ages 4 and under have died of the disease. “We are seeing a huge impact on children,” said epidemiologist Fatima Marinho. Scientists note that the Brazilian variant of the virus is more severe in pregnant women, and some are giving birth to premature babies infected with Covid. Brazilian kids are also likely dying in higher numbers because the country’s health-care system is completely overwhelmed, and because many impoverished children can’t get to a hospital at all.
Boat International, Getty, AP, Ecuador Ministry of Environment
Reynosa, Mexico Deportees at risk: Thousands of Central American migrants deported to Mexico by the Biden administration are stranded in makeshift tent camps in violent border cities, making them easy prey for human traffickers and other criminals. In April alone, the U.S. carried out nearly 112,000 expulsions. Many deportees end up in Inside a makeshift camp towns like Reynosa, which the State Department warns Americans to stay away from because of “murder, armed robbery, carjacking, kidnapping, forced disappearances, extortion, and sexual assault.” A Salvadoran migrant identified only as Maribel told NBC News that she was kidnapped with her son in Reynosa and locked up in a house with 90 other Central Americans. She was only freed after her family paid a ransom of $3,000. Because the U.S. is not expelling unaccompanied children, and conditions are so bad in the camps, some deported parents have begun sending their kids across the border alone to claim asylum.
The world at a glance ... Ceuta, Spain Migrants land en masse: Spain was scrambling to secure its borders this week after some 8,000 migrants poured into the tiny Spanish enclave of Ceuta, a chunk of land jutting out from Morocco into the Mediterranean. Most of the arrivals Swimming to Ceuta entered the territory by swimming around border fences that extend into the sea, while some used inflatable rafts to reach Ceuta’s beaches. Spanish forces quickly deported at least half of the migrants, but authorities were angered by footage that showed Moroccan border guards doing nothing to hold back the crowds. Some analysts suspect that Morocco allowed the exodus because it was upset that Madrid permitted Brahim Ghali, the leader of Western Sahara’s separatist Polisario Front, to be treated at a Spanish hospital last month. Ceuta, population 80,000, has been ruled by Spain since the 17th century.
NEWS 9
Beijing Mission to Mars: China has successfully landed a rover on Mars, a feat that only the U.S. had previously accomplished. The Zhurong rover touched down in a huge basin in the Red Planet’s northern hemisphere last week, unfurled its solar panels, and began transmitting images back to Earth. President Xi Jinping congratulated the Chinese space team for its achievement, saying, “Thanks to your courage in face of challenges and Zhurong’s selfie pursuit of excellence, China is now among the leading countries in planetary exploration.” Zhurong, about the same size as a small car, resembles Spirit, one of NASA’s Martian rovers from the early 2000s. It will operate for 90 Martian days—the latest U.S. rover, Perseverance, is on a 668-day mission—analyzing the chemistry of rocks and using its radar to hunt for subsurface ice. Tokyo Scrap the Olympics: With Covid cases spiking more than 500 percent in Japan since March, doctors there are demanding the cancellation of this summer’s Tokyo Olympics. Japan is now registering some 6,000 new infections a day, and hospitals “dealing with Covid-19 have their hands full and have almost no spare capacity,” said the Tokyo Medical Practitioners Association. Fewer than 4 percent of Japanese have received at least one vaccine dose, and health experts fear that the arrival of international visitors for the Games—which will run from July 23 to Aug. 8—will cause an explosion of Covid cases. Some 60 percent of Japanese support a cancellation, but Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga insists that the Olympics will go on as scheduled. No spectators will be allowed, and all athletes and coaches will remain confined to the Olympic Village. Not a fan
AP, Reuters (3), AP
Taipei New outbreak: Thanks to its quick adoption of lockdowns and mask mandates, Taiwan has been largely Covid-free for the past year. But the island nation is now battling a growing outbreak, a result of authorities drastically shortening the quarantine time for airline crews. Taiwan had forced all crew members and international travelers to isolate in hotels for 14 days upon arrival. But cargo companies complained that they couldn’t operate on that schedule, so last month Taiwan cut the quarantine to three days. Some crew members were carrying the highly transmissible British variant, and that strain began to circulate in brothels. Now Taiwan is registering more than 200 cases a day as the virus rips through a population that had relaxed all social distancing and is almost entirely unvaccinated. Disinfecting New Delhi Australians trapped: Australians, many of them of South Asian ethnicity, are dying of Covid-19 in India because their country delayed their return home. Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced a ban on all arrivals from India in April, citing the country’s high rate of coronavirus infections, but later backed down following a massive outcry in which he was accused of heartlessness and racism. Now his government is allowing repatriation flights, but more than 9,000 Australians remain stranded in India. Many of them are being barred from boarding after testing positive for Covid. Govind Kant, a 47-year-old Sydney businessman who had been trying to return for a month, died of the disease in New Delhi this week. In India, hospitals are overwhelmed, with short supplies of medicine and oxygen, while Australia, which has allowed very few international arrivals since March 2020, is nearly Covid-free.
Prayagraj, India Bodies litter riverbanks: The bloated corpses of hundreds of Covid victims are washing up on the shores of India’s Ganges River. Hindus traditionally cremate their dead, but poor people who can’t afford that option have long placed their dead in shallow riverbank graves or floated the bodies in the river. Now, with so many people dying of Covid, the price of a cremation with burial rites has tripled to more than $200—causing more families to opt for river burials. While India has officially recorded some 275,000 Covid deaths, experts believe the real toll could be well over a million. In the city of Kanpur, for example, only 196 Covid deaths were recorded from April 16 to May 5; the seven local crematoriums, however, said they had performed Graves near the Ganges nearly 8,000 cremations in that time. THE WEEK May 28, 2021
10 NEWS
People
Huston’s Hollywood heritage Danny Huston grew up feeling as if he were the son of God, said Hadley Freeman in The Guardian (U.K.). He was born in Rome after his parents, famed director John Huston and actress Zoe Sallis, had an affair while working together on the 1966 epic The Bible. His mother starred as Hagar, Abraham’s second wife, and his dad appeared on screen as Noah and also provided the voice of God. “That’s where the therapy starts,” says Huston, now an acclaimed actor and director himself. “I had a lot of difficulty separating truth from fiction with those characters.” As a youngster, Huston often visited his larger-than-life father on film sets, once trekking to North Africa’s Atlas Mountains for The Man Who Would Be King. “And there was Sean Connery and Michael Caine and Christopher Plummer. For a young boy, it felt like an absolute adventure.” Later, he became his father’s personal on-set bartender, mixing cocktails to match the location. While shooting 1984’s Under the Volcano in Mexico, his father decided to drink Cuba libres. “Normally he would complain and say, ‘No no, the Coke is only there to color it!’” During the making of that movie, “my father was having trouble with the title sequence. It was too slow. I’d been to film school, so I said, ‘You could do this...’ And he said, ‘You do it!’” Huston beams with obvious pride. “And it made the cut.”
A Sex Pistol turned caregiver
Rossellini’s lockdown fling
John Lydon now leads a very quiet life as his wife’s caregiver, said Nick Rufford in The Times (U.K.). In the 1970s, he was known as Johnny Rotten, the front man of British punk band the Sex Pistols and a spokesperson for an angry generation. Lydon now lives in a beachside suburb of Los Angeles with his partner of 45 years, Nora Forster. She has Alzheimer’s disease, the first signs of which developed in 2010, following the death from breast cancer of her 48-year-old daughter. “A real sadness filled her,” says Lydon, 65. “From there on it was small issues like constantly losing keys.” Feeding, dressing, and caring for Forster, 78, has become a roundthe-clock job for Lydon. “Alzheimer’s is a wicked, debilitating process, but we’re going through that together. She doesn’t forget me. She forgets everything else but not me.” The strains of being a fulltime caregiver sometimes cause Lydon to sink into a deep despair. “I will have moments that are overwhelmingly sad and at the same time full of rage. But these are the cards you’re handed, and you play the game to the end to the best of your ability. God, you know, if Johnny bloody Rotten can do it, what’s your excuse?”
Isabella Rossellini never expected to find romance during the pandemic, said Angelica Jade Bastién in Harper’s Bazaar. The actress and model has had a string of high-profile relationships: She was married to Martin Scorsese from 1979 to 1982, dated David Lynch in the ’80s, and was engaged to Gary Oldman in the ’90s. But in the early 2000s, Rossellini decided to put off seeking love for a few years so she could focus on her two young children. “It became 20 years,” she says. “And do I regret it? No.” The daughter of movie royalty—her mother was Swedish actress Ingrid Bergman, her father the Italian director Roberto Rossellini—she enjoyed being able to live without a partner obsessing over her looks. But last year, she fell into an unexpected romance. “We were caught in the time of Covid, in those early months, in my house” on Long Island, N.Y. “I didn’t expect that at 68 you can have a fling. It was delightful. It wasn’t that he defined my beauty, but it was companionship. And that I miss.” The man has since returned to his West Coast home. “And so I always quote Casablanca”—in which her mother starred opposite Humphrey Bogart—“You know the line is, ‘We’ll always have Paris.’ I always say to this man, ‘We’ll always have Covid.’”
rekindling a relationship with Ben Affleck, after the onetime lovers vacationed together at a Montana resort last week, sources tell People. “It’s all been quick and intense, but Jennifer is happy,” a source said. “She wants to spend as much time with Ben as possible to see where this could go.” Known to tabloids as “Bennifer” when they were engaged in the early 2000s, the two reunited after Affleck, 48, reached out to Lopez, 51, following her breakup last month with Alex Rodriguez, who had hoped to woo her back. THE WEEK May 28, 2021
Q Ellen DeGeneres denied that she is end-
ing her long-running talk show next year because of persistent reports that her show is a toxic workplace, saying last week that the allegations seemed “orchestrated” and “misogynistic.” DeGeneres initially apologized after reports of sexual misconduct and harassment led to the firing of three of her top producers, but last week DeGeneres, 63, said, “I don’t know how I could have known [about the misconduct] when there’s 255 employees here and there are a lot of different buildings.” Some celebrities who appeared on the show said that DeGeneres’
own mistreatment of employees was “common knowledge.” The deluge of criticism was “devastating,” DeGeneres says. “I am a kind person. I am a person who likes to make people happy.” She said she had decided to end the show after one more season because it’s “just not a challenge anymore.” Q Macy’s pulled a cookware set hawked by
Chrissy Teigen last week after the model and social media personality apologized for past tweets berating reality TV star Courtney Stodden. “I was an insecure, attention-seeking troll,” Teigen, 35, said after tweets emerged from the past decade of her wishing that Stodden, 26, would take a “dirt nap,” and saying “I hate you.” Famous for marrying a 51-year-old at age 16, Stodden, who identifies as gender nonbinary, says they once received a private message from Teigen that said, “I can’t wait for you to die.”
Yossi Michaeli/The Licensing Project, AP, Newscom
Q Jennifer Lopez is open to
Affleck and Lopez had remained friendly over the years and spoke to each other periodically. Affleck and actress Ana de Armas broke up earlier this year. Affleck has three children with ex-wife Jennifer Garner, while Lopez has twins with ex-husband Marc Anthony.
Briefing
NEWS 11
Boycotting the 2022 Olympics Human rights activists are calling for the U.S. to boycott the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. Will that happen?
AP
Why is China hosting?
the Russians and beat them. But in the end, 65 nations boycotted, including the U.S. team. In retaliation, the Soviets sat out the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles.
In a controversial decision, the International Olympic Committee voted 44 to 40 in 2015 to award the 2022 Winter Olympics to China. China won partly because a number of cities had Who supports a boycott in 2022? withdrawn from the bidding, includMore than 180 human rights groups are ing Stockholm, Sweden, and Oslo, leading the calls to skip the event over Norway, citing the costs and lack of China’s aggressive actions against Tibet, interest by their citizens. Beijing views Taiwan, the Uighur community, and its selection as a major opportunity Hong Kong. A survey by the Chicago to promote China’s image as a world Council in March found that 49 percent power rivaling the U.S. But activists are of Americans support a boycott, with calling for the U.S. to lead a boycott 46 percent opposed. Sen. Mitt Romney of the competition. The outcry stems (R-Utah), who was president of the primarily from China’s treatment of Exiled Tibetans protesting China hosting the Games 2002 Salt Lake City Games, has called the Muslim Uighur minority, which the a boycott the “easy, but wrong, answer.” Romney said that “our Trump and Biden administrations have labeled as genocide. Since athletes have trained their entire lives for this competition” and they 2017, an estimated 1 million Uighurs in the western Xinjiang shouldn’t be the ones to “shoulder the burden of our disapproval.” region have been detained without trial in indoctrination camps. Men and women have been subjected to horrific abuses, including What is President Biden’s position? torture, rape, forced labor, sterilization, and political indoctrinaA State Department spokesman said last month that a boycott tion, with demands they abandon their Muslim religion. Human was “something that we certainly wish to discuss”—but the Rights Watch has denounced China’s treatment of the Uighurs department later walked back those remarks. White House press as “crimes against humanity.” Tensions have also ratcheted up over recent Chinese cyberattacks on the U.S., crackdowns on pro- secretary Jen Psaki said that “we are not discussing” a boycott democracy activists in Hong Kong, and aggression against Taiwan. with allies. The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee has also urged the U.S. not to hold out, saying “the more effective course The Chinese government has warned of a “robust response” if of action” would be to engage China directly on human rights Washington opts to boycott. issues. Not surprisingly, most athletes want to compete, and IOC President Thomas Bach said history shows that boycotts never Have there been previous Olympics boycotts? achieve anything. “Why would you punish the athletes from They are actually not that uncommon. In 1956, several nations your own country if you have a dispute with a government from skipped the games in response to the Soviet Union’s actions another country?” Bach said. But U.S. in Hungary, while Egypt, Iraq, and skiing star Mikaela Shiffrin criticized Lebanon boycotted the Summer Games Echoes of 1936 the IOC for giving China the opporin Melbourne, Australia, because of The present debate about China’s rising aggrestunity to host “an event that’s supBritish and French involvement in the sion is drawing comparisons to one of the posed to bring the world together and Suez Crisis. In 1958, six years after it darkest chapters in Olympic history. Three years create hope and peace.” sent its first Olympic delegation, the before the onset of World War II, Berlin hosted People’s Republic of China withdrew the 1936 Summer Olympics. There were some Are there alternatives? from the IOC following the committee’s calls for a boycott because of reports of the If the U.S. still decides to send its decision to let Chinese and Taiwanese Nazi government’s plan to ban German Jewish athletes, corporations that normally athletes compete under separate flags. athletes and its increasingly hostile treatment of sponsor the Olympics could pull their China continued to boycott the Games Jews. Ultimately, the U.S. Olympic Committee support. The top American sponsors, until 1980, the same year that the U.S. and 49 competing countries decided to send including Airbnb, Coca-Cola, General and 65 other countries boycotted the their athletes. The Games themselves featured Electric, and Visa, collectively pay Summer Games in Moscow. the spectacular success of Black track star over $1 billion for exclusive rights Jesse Owens, who won four gold medals in an to include the Olympic rings in their Why did the U.S. boycott in 1980? embarrassing rebuke of Hitler’s “master race” promotions. Some opponents of a President Jimmy Carter called for a theory. Nonetheless, Hitler used the Games as boycott argue that athletes could boycott of the Moscow Games in a platform to promote Nazi Germany as a world use the world stage to raise awareresponse to the Soviet Union’s invasion power. At the start of the Games, Hitler’s minness about China’s human rights of Afghanistan that winter. Public supister of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, stated, abuses. Sprinters John Carlos and port for the boycott eroded after the “We desire in these weeks to prove to the Tommie Smith created one of the U.S. hosted the 1980 Winter Games at world that it is simply a lie that Germans have most powerful images in Olympic Lake Placid, N.Y., and its men’s hockey systematically persecuted the Jews.” The IOC history by raising their fists in a team famously upset the Soviets on the subsequently awarded the 1940 Winter Games Black Power salute on the medal way to claiming the gold medal. That to Germany, but by then, Hitler had invaded stand in 1968. If American athletes victory buttressed the argument that Poland, World War II had begun, and the Games go to Beijing, it’s possible we could it would prove more embarrassing to were canceled. see something just as memorable. Moscow for the U.S. to compete against THE WEEK May 28, 2021
Saving lives helped the economy Noah Smith
Noahpinion.substack .com
The GOP’s road back to power Andrew Sullivan
AndrewSullivan .substack.com
Tolerating the cuckoo caucus Max Boot
The Washington Post
Viewpoint
Best columns: The U.S. Now that vaccination is finally liberating us from Covid, said Noah Smith, we should thank lockdowns for saving hundreds of thousands of American lives. Copious research shows that despite strong public resistance and spotty compliance, social distancing restrictions on bars, restaurants, and indoor gatherings cut transmission rates by about 50 percent. Had we all simply gone about business as usual, the death toll would have been far worse—more than 1 million. Research has also shown that sensible “fear of the virus”—not government restrictions—is what drove most people to avoid restaurants and other crowded spaces. A study found that store visits in Iowa, where there were no shutdowns, declined nearly as much as they did across the border in Illinois, where there were stay-at-home orders. “Nothing illustrates the benefit of lockdowns better than the case of Sweden,” which refused to impose restrictions. A year later, Sweden’s death rate has been more than triple that of Denmark and about seven times that of Norway—and Sweden suffered a greater decline in GDP. The choice “between human lives and dollars of GDP is a false one.” Reducing the number of infections and deaths “helped the economy.” “The GOP is flubbing one of its biggest political opportunities in years,” said Andrew Sullivan. In the U.K. and other Western countries, conservative parties are winning elections by combining populist economic policies with a strong defense of traditional values against a “radical left assault.” Instead, Republicans are aligning themselves with the “broadly toxic” figure of Donald Trump. To win back voters Trump alienated and Democrats are turning off with wokeism, Republicans should go “left on economics and right on culture.” On economics, that means limiting the power of monopolistic corporations and “spreading the wealth” to the working class. On culture, it means affirming love of our flawed but idealistic country, enforcing the nation’s borders “with firmness and compassion,” and embracing “color-blind policies on race” rather than Democrats’ demands for racial “equity.” Even now, the GOP stands poised to take back the House in 2022, and could claim the Senate too, and the White House in 2024, if it chooses leaders “less toxic to suburban moderates” than Trump and his acolytes. A Republican Party that stood for “hard work, traditional values, and individual opportunities” would be very popular—and could create “a genuine realignment.” “There are no Marjorie Taylor Greenes in the Democratic Party,” said Max Boot. Republicans often downplay their party’s “alarming turn to the hard right” by accusing Democrats of allying themselves with antifa and far-leftists who call for defunding the police. In reality, left-wing extremists and antifa “disdain the Democratic Party as too moderate.” But right-wing extremists who claim the 2020 election was stolen, refuse to get vaccinated, and embrace crackpot conspiracy theories “are very much in the mainstream” of the GOP. Take Republican Rep. Greene, a menacing nut who last week chased after Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as she exited the House chamber, yelling, “Why do you support terrorists and antifa?” Like a mature adult, AOC simply ignored her. An earlier video shows Greene taunting AOC through the mail slot of her office door, berating her for “bringing God’s judgment on our country.” Greene has plenty of “cuckoo” allies in the GOP caucus, including Reps. Matt Gaetz, Louie Gohmert, and Lauren Boebert—elected officials whose sole mission appears to be trolling the libs. Far too many Republicans have “left civility and reason far behind.”
“I remember the first time I saw a pool of blood after a terrorist bombing in my [Jerusalem] neighborhood, and the first time I saw torn pieces of what had been a person on a downtown storefront. Bombs did not liberate anyone. If you have looked on these things, and you now hear of the rockets hitting Israel and buildings bombed in Gaza, then it is impossible to bear hearing people far away talk with certainty about which missiles are evil and which are necessary. Weep, damn it, weep for us. Weep for this place in the season of wildflowers when it should be beautiful, weep for the dead and the living, weep for God who can’t get us to stop, weep for humanity.” Gershom Gorenberg in The Washington Post THE WEEK May 28, 2021
It must be true...
I read it in the tabloids Q Two small planes collided
in midair above Denver, leaving one nearly ripped in half—but somehow, nobody was hurt. Both were preparing to land at a small airport when they crashed. One pilot successfully landed his severely damaged plane, while the other deployed a parachute that brought the plane to rest in a nearby field. “Every one of these pilots needs to go buy a lottery ticket right now,” said Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Deputy John Bartmann. “I don’t remember anything like this.” Q A college
baseball pitcher from Sioux Falls, S.D., had his prosthetic arm stolen from his pickup truck but got it back after it was found at a local recycling plant. Parker Hanson took to social media to complain about the theft, and his story was widely shared. So when the arm appeared on a conveyer line, plant worker Tim Kachel “recognized it instantly,” he said. “I was jumping up and down and screaming ‘Stop!’” The arm was too damaged to use, but a Minnesota hospital is donating a replacement. “You never know what you’re going to see coming through this line,” said Kachel. Q A wealthy Northern California man had his Tesla impounded after police found him riding in the backseat on the highway with the autopilot engaged—so he went out and bought a new Tesla. Driver Param Sharma insisted that the illegal practice isn’t dangerous, even though Tesla advises against it and at least three people have been killed in autopiloted Teslas. Sharma vowed to continue sitting in the back seat of his new car. “I’m rich as f---,” he said. “Like, if you take my Tesla away, I will get another Tesla.”
Imagn
12 NEWS
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Best columns: International Israel: Hit by riots and rockets
There’s something suspicious about the The Israeli government has been timing of this conflict, said Adam Raz “caught completely off guard,” said in Haaretz. Having failed to muster Ron Ben-Yishai in Ynetnews.com. After a governing coalition after the March weeks of rising tension over attempts to election, Netanyahu was just a few evict Palestinian families from East Jerudays from being ousted from office. Did salem homes and clashes between police he instruct police to crack down hard and Arab protesters around Jerusalem’s on Palestinian protesters knowing that Al-Aqsa Mosque—the third-holiest Hamas would obligingly start lobbing shrine in Islam—it was inevitable that missiles, allowing Netanyahu to play Hamas would join the fray in the supthe role of a strong wartime leader? posed name of Palestinian solidarity. Hamas and Netanyahu have certainly The Islamist group did just that last had a long symbiotic relationship. The week, firing thousands of rockets from A home hit by a rocket in the Israeli city of Petah Tikva prime minister needs the jihadist group across Gaza toward Tel Aviv and cento undercut Abbas’ authority, “because with Hamas there’s no tral Israel. Those missiles were “accurate to a degree Israel had talk about a negotiated solution to the conflict.” Hamas, meannever imagined.” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should while, likes that Netanyahu has turned a blind eye to the “cashhave been prepared for this assault. But our leaders have spent filled suitcases” that keep arriving in Gaza from Qatar. “more than two years solely focused on themselves and their power”—we’ve had four inconclusive elections since 2019—and It’s absurd that much of the world views Israel as the bad guy have neglected the Palestinian issue and rising anger among in this showdown, said Ronn Torossian in Arutz Sheva. Hamas Israeli Arabs. Now “everything is blowing up in their faces.” hurls rockets indiscriminately at our cities, while Israel strikes judiciously, always warning first. Yet because we have the Iron The fighting is “coming to resemble an actual civil war,” said Dome anti-missile system, we incur far fewer casualties. Hamas, Ruthie Blum in The Jerusalem Post. Arab mobs in Israeli cities have set fire to synagogues and Jewish stores, while Jewish mobs meanwhile, hides its munitions in civilian buildings, so when Israel targets them, there are sometimes civilian casualties. The have pulled Arabs from their cars and beaten them. Palestinian result is that photographs of bleeding Palestinian children are Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who controls the West beamed around the globe, and the world sides with Hamas— Bank, helped fuel this violence. He spread the lie that Israel intended to take over the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Abbas’ aim was to spark effectively “attacking a democracy for protecting herself from a an uprising, giving him an excuse to cancel the upcoming Palestin- terrorist organization.” Evidently, the world would rather have more Jews die, because that would even the score. Too bad. ian elections that his Fatah party was sure to lose to Hamas. He Israel will not apologize for defending itself. succeeded in postponing the vote, but Hamas stole his thunder.
The Palestinians: An explosion of rage Israel is entirely to blame for its bloody new conflict with the Palestinians, said Baria Alamuddin in Arab News (Saudi Arabia). Israeli authorities chose the holy month of Ramadan to use their “fig leaf of a ‘justice’ system” to seek the eviction of six Palestinian families from their homes in East Jerusalem, where they have lived for some 70 years. It was yet another of the “racist land grabs” meant to “throttle Palestinians out of existence in their own capital.” Some 20,000 Palestinian homes throughout the city are currently under threat of demolition: This is “the very definition of ethnic cleansing and apartheid.” The evictions are only one source of anger, said Palestinian writer Muhammad Shehada in Haaretz (Israel). In recent weeks Arab-Israelis have been beaten by police for daring to protest against a far-right Jewish group that marched through Jerusalem chanting “Death to Arabs!” and attacking Palestinian passersby. When Israeli police raided the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem last week, because Palestinians were stockpiling stones there in anticipation of more clashes with authorities and far-right Jewish nationalists, Hamas had to respond with rockets or be judged “irrelevant by the Palestinian street.”
Israel cannot claim the moral high ground, said Palestinian journalist Marwan Bishara in AlJazeera.com (Qatar). Having driven Palestinians from their homes in 1948 and occupied more territory in subsequent wars, it bears “the sin of a state founded on the ruin of another people.” That means there can be no good outcome for Israel. “When the dust settles on another sadistic Israeli war,” Israelis will again find themselves faced with “millions of Palestinians ever more determined to regain their liberty.” AP
Where are our Arab brethren when we are under attack? asked Ghazi Abu Daqqa in Felesteen (Gaza). “There is no room for
any justification for those who refrain from jihad.” We are finally striking the Zionists in their cities, as they have long bombed ours, and our brave warriors in Gaza could destroy Israel once and for all if they were joined by forces from Lebanon and Syria in the north, from Iran and Iraq in the east, and Yemen in the south. Arab leaders won’t help, said Majid AlZibdeh, also in Felesteen. The United Arab Emirates, Sudan, Morocco, and Bahrain actually made peace with the Zionist occupiers last year under the U.S.-brokered Abraham Accords. We Palestinians are on our own. But Israeli Arabs, Gazans, and West Bank residents are united in supporting the armed resistance. The corrupt Palestinian Authority in the West Bank is a puppet of the Israelis. Hamas is “the undisputed legitimate leader of all the Palestinian people.”
THE WEEK May 28, 2021
Best columns: Europe GERMANY
Mideast fight awakens our anti-Semitism Jacques Schuster
Die Welt
NORWAY
Don’t toy with our national dress Barbro Tronhuus Storlien
Dagbladet
NEWS 15
Whenever violence erupts in the Middle East, the forces of anti-Semitism roar forth in Germany, said Jacques Schuster. The terrorist group Hamas began raining thousands of missiles onto Israel last week, and when Israel fought back, many protesters in Germany denounced not Hamas but “the Zionists.” Their anger went far beyond politics—it was not directed at Israel, but at Jews. In Gelsenkirchen, Bonn, and Münster, “howling mobs marched in front of synagogues and Jewish community centers to thunder out their hatred of Jews, to burn Stars of David, and to terrorize Germany’s Jewish citizens.” It boggles the mind that this country, which because of its Nazi past
has always rejected the notion of collective guilt, should see its Jews held responsible for the actions of Jews abroad. Many of these demonstrators are Muslim immigrants, from Turkey, Tunisia, the Palestinian territories, and elsewhere. “Raised on a diet of Jew hatred,” they exploit the freedom they enjoy here by “turning against our open society.” But many other protesters are leftist Germans, who defend Palestinian terrorism as justified and who pretend that taking up the Palestinian cause is not just a way to indulge their own latent antiSemitism. They call it “anti-Zionism,” but if the goal is the elimination of the state of Israel, it is a dangerous and hateful ideology.
The same thing happens every year on Norway’s national day, said Barbro Tronhuus Storlien. On May 17, people put on their bunad—traditional folk costumes with details that pay homage to the wearer’s hometown or region—and I, as an expert in bunad history and manufacture, am asked by various newscasters to weigh in. I am happy to discuss the typical costume, consisting of a white shirt with a colorful embroidered vest, with skirts for women and breeches for men. But if I dare to point out that “jazzing it up with a red silk shirt” is not traditional, I’m predictably denounced as the “costume police.” An article headlined “Bunad
police say NO” might portray me as “humorless and antiquated.” This is unfair. The real “bunad police” were the old ladies who used to show up at village festivals to tell us that “we had put the wrong brooch on, forgotten the proper headgear, or that our sock color was wrong.” I am speaking only as a scholar, not as a scold. For example, I can tell you that after World War II, it was common in the Hallingdal valley to see bunad with Disney motifs, made with printed cloth donated from America. But to sport Disney in another region would be incorrect. In other words, wear what you want: Just don’t expect me to endorse it.
Italy: No help from EU with migrant surge
AP
and France promised to help, but these The pandemic briefly slowed the flood of days, “when Italy asks, nothing hapmigrants landing on Europe’s southern pens.” Germany and France both have shores, said Filippo Santigliano in La elections next year, and their governGazzetta del Mezzogiorno (Italy). But ments fear that taking in migrants will desperate Africans and Middle Easterners bolster the far right. are once again piling into rickety boats in Libya and sailing across the MediterThe Italian government has considered ranean in search of a better life. So far proposing that the EU pay Libya to this year, at least 11,000 migrants have stop migrants from leaving, said Luca reached Italy’s coasts—up from 4,100 in Gambardella in Il Foglio (Italy). But the same period in 2020—and more than Libya is part of the problem. The num500 others have died while attempting ber of migrants held in detention centhe crossing. Many of those who survive Italian police watch over new arrivals on Lampedusa. ters there stays remarkably constant, land on the tiny island of Lampedusa, even though the Libyan coast guard regularly intercepts boats. where 2,100 migrants arrived in a single day last week. To curb Why? A Libyan diplomatic source told me that local authorities the spread of Covid-19, Italy has converted a ferry into a quar“resell the migrants to human traffickers,” who then send them antine ship, so new arrivals can be tested and held until they are back to sea. This racket also gives the corrupt government in virus-free. But with more migrants landing every day, that ship Tripoli a way “to subtly threaten Europe: Give us more political will soon run out of space. Why won’t the European Union help and economic aid or we’ll reopen the taps of migrant departures.” us? “Italy is a civilized country that does not let people die at sea,” but we should not shoulder this burden alone. In the meantime, Italy is waging a “guerrilla war” against the NGO ships that rescue migrants from sinking boats, said Matthias The EU is paralyzed, said Bernd Riegert in DeutscheWelle.com Rüb in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Germany). Former (Germany). A decades-old regulation requires refugees to claim asylum in their EU country of arrival, which puts a heavy burden far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini drew international conon frontline nations such as Italy, Greece, Spain, and Malta. Dur- demnation when he barred those ships from Italian ports. His ing the migrant crisis of 2015, when more than 1 million asylum successor, Luciana Lamorgese, has implemented a more palatable version of the same policy. She lets the NGO ships land and disseekers crossed the Mediterranean, the EU tried to amend the charge their migrant passengers, and then impounds the vessels policy so that migrants would be distributed equally across the and arrests the crews for violations ranging from safety infracbloc. But Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia tions to human trafficking. Punishing the rescuers is no way to refused to abide by any quota system, and only a tiny number deal with migration—but Italy has been left with few options. of migrants were relocated. Richer countries such as Germany THE WEEK May 28, 2021
16 NEWS
Talking points
Critical race theory: The culture war over schools If that all sounds panicky, said Michelle The Right has a new culture-war “obsesGoldberg in The New York Times, it’s sion,” said Adam Harris in TheAtlantic intentional. Republicans are having a hard .com. As conservatives tell it, American time generating fear and resentment of schoolchildren are in grave danger of President Biden, whose agenda is quite being brainwashed by Critical Race popular. “They need a more frightenTheory (CRT), a once obscure academic ing, enraging villain to keep their people framework conceived by a Harvard law engaged,” and “critical race theory fits the professor in the 1970s. CRT examines bill.” CRT has become a “catchall” on the how “the nation’s sordid history of slavery, Right for any history curriculum reform segregation, and discrimination is embedor attempts to make schools more included in our laws” and continues to affect sive. In conservative states, the political how people of color are treated by banks, Anti-CRT protesters in California backlash to CRT is ferocious. In 2018, police, employers, and schools. Conservathe affluent suburb of Southlake, Texas, got unwelcome national tive critics make it sound as if there is a specific CRT curriculum being forced on schools, but what they actually oppose are school attention when a group of white students were videoed laughing and shouting the N-word, and another student was videoed telldistricts choosing to re-examine “the role that slavery and seging a joke about lynching. Black students subsequently described regation have played in American history” and possible ways of experiencing “unambiguous racism,” so local officials created a redressing “those historical offenses.” Republicans have proposed plan to address these incidents and educate students about bigotry. legislation in at least a dozen states to bar public schools from teaching that the U.S. is “fundamentally racist” or addressing con- Conservative parents were so “furious” that the town elected a new mayor, two new school board members, and two new City cepts such as “social justice.” The alternative, said Brian Broome in WashingtonPost.com, is the “white-centric” view of U.S. history Council members who pledged to fight any teaching of CRT. I was taught growing up, in which Christopher Columbus “discovered” a largely empty America, slavery was a minor flaw fixed Good for Southlake parents for saying no to “woke education,” said The Wall Street Journal in an editorial. Voters overwhelmby Abraham Lincoln, and Martin Luther King Jr. was a nice man ingly rejected “a wholesale makeover of their children’s education” who preached racial unity. Opponents of CRT want kids to be that would have included “diversity and inclusion” training at told, as I was, “There is absolutely nothing wrong with America. every grade level and encouraged students “to report each other Nothing to examine.” for microaggressions.” Not surprisingly, Southlake voters were CRT is “more than just teaching kids to ‘think critically’ about the immediately labeled bigots in the national media, said Christopher Rufo in NYPost.com. That illustrates the CRT “mousetrap”: Any role that race has played in American history,” said the National objection to critical race theory “becomes irrefutable evidence” Review in an editorial. It’s a form of indoctrination, pushed by of a dissenter’s “white fragility, unconscious bias, or internalized far-left political activists “seeking to renovate the American social order from root to branch.” In CRT’s “dogma of division,” every- white supremacy.” thing is seen through the prism of race, and the only remedy for past discrimination is the pursuit of “equity” through racial quotas These “fevered narratives” oversimplify the CRT debate, said and race-based policies. As anti-racist activist Ibram X. Kendi puts Clarence Page in the Chicago Tribune. As a Black man, I don’t agree that the U.S. is an innately racist nation akin to “apartheidit, “the only remedy to past discrimination is present discriminaera South Africa.” Nor do I believe discussing CRT and white tion.” This toxic ideology “is going to destroy the country,” said Rod Dreher in TheAmericanConservative.com. The Biden admin- privilege is “divisive, anti-American propaganda,” as former President Trump said last year. Yes, CRT too often “devalues the racial istration wants to push CRT “on all public schools,” proposing a rule that would give priority to federal-grant applicants for history progress that Americans have made.” But at the same time, those and civics programs that emphasize CRT concepts. More than half who want students to focus on “the heroic and joyful side of our nation’s history” without being taught about its ugly racial past of Republican voters oppose teaching CRT in schools, so how is using taxpayer dollars to promote CRT “in any way” democratic? are engaging in a different kind of indoctrination.
Q Americans will eat 224 pounds of red meat and poultry per person this year, including 58 pounds of beef, according to USDA projections. Plant-based meat substitutes currently account for less than 3 percent of the nation’s packaged meat sales, and only about 5 percent of Americans identify as vegetarians. The Washington Post
Q San Francisco may be approaching herd immunity after 75 percent of eligible adults have gotten at least one vaccination shot. California now has the lowest infecTHE WEEK May 28, 2021
Q The Biden administration has approved the nation’s first large-scale offshore wind farm, with construction to begin as soon as later this year. The Vineyard Wind project will site 84 turbines 14 miles off the Massachusetts coast and create enough electricity to power 400,000 homes.
Q Just 12 people are responsible for 65 percent of false and misleading anti-vaccine posts on social media, according to a new study. The bogus claims, made through multiple Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter accounts, include denying Covid-19 exists, touting false cures, and charging that vaccine-caused deaths are being covered up, according to the Center for Countering Digital Hate.
Reuters.com
NPR.org
tion rate of any state. San Francisco Chronicle
Shutterstock, Getty
Noted
Talking points UFOs: What if they’re real? out.” Obviously, “all this Unidentified flying objects is a little weird,” said Ezra have “accomplished an Klein in The New York extraordinary feat,” said Times. But let’s say that we Marik von Rennenkampff do eventually get evidence in TheHill.com. They’ve that there is intelligent created agreement between extraterrestrial life, either former Trump administravia a UFO or an interstellar tion intelligence official communication. Conspiracy John Ratcliffe and former theorists would see it as Obama administration proof the government has CIA director John BrenA photo taken by a U.S. Navy officer been lying all along. Milinan. Both men say there taries across the world would see the existence of have been scores of credible sightings of UFOs— and that, in Brennan’s words, they may be piloted aliens as a threat justifying massive new military spending. Perhaps it might even unite mankind, by “a different form of life.” After years of dismissing UFO sightings as the delusions of “tinfoil- making our superficial differences seem trivial. One way or another, the knowledge we are not hat conspiracy theorists,” Pentagon officials are alone would “upend how humanity understands acknowledging that military pilots have repeatitself and our place in the cosmos.” edly seen flying objects shaped like “tic tacs,” “inverted pyramids,” and “an acorn” behaving in inexplicable ways—whizzing around at incredible Most scientists and academics remain skeptical that UFOs are alien craft, said Rizwan Virk in speeds, stopping and turning on a dime, diving NBCNews.com. But “now that the government into the ocean. In June, U.S. intelligence agencies is starting to take UFOs seriously,” it’s time for are finally expected to issue a report detailing scientists to join a concerted effort to figure out what the government knows about “unidentified what these objects are. After next month’s report, aerial phenomena.” the public may demand it, said C. Moon Reed in the Las Vegas Sun. “It’s maddening to learn that The government isn’t going to announce that UFOs exist without also learning what or who UFOs are filled with “little green men,” said they are.” Are they just visual illusions? ExtraterGideon Lewis-Kraus in The New Yorker. But it restrial? Friendly? Hostile? It’s time we made a is dropping “the taboo” on the topic and admitserious effort to find out. ting “there are things it simply cannot figure
Vaccination: Paying skeptics to get shots
Mystery Wire
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine is giving the state’s vaccine holdouts a million reasons to take a jab, said Hayes Brown in MSNBC.com. Last week, he announced the “Vax-a-Million” lottery, in which five randomly drawn state residents will win $1 million prizes—“so long as they’re vaccinated.” It’s not the first carrot dangled in front of the vaccine-hesitant. New Jersey is offering free beer to those who get a shot, Mainers can claim $20 L.L. Bean gift cards, and New York offers free Mets and Yankees tickets. It “may seem desperate,” but with vaccination rates steeply declining and endangering our chances of reaching herd immunity, it’s time to pull out “any and all efforts”—including cash incentives. In a UCLA study, a third of unvaccinated respondents said they’d roll their sleeves up for $100. “Bribing the masses” may work. We need to treat holdouts “like adults, not children,” said bioethics professor Nancy Jecker in the Journal of Medical Ethics. Inoculating people is an urgent goal, but manipulating the poor in particular with money they need is “coercive” and unethical. “There are better, less intrusive alternatives,” such as outreach efforts that approach the skeptical “with a willingness
to listen and try to understand their reasons,” rather than using a financial cudgel. Bribery is also unlikely to make much difference, said David von Drehle in The Washington Post. Years of data show “mixed results, at best, in programs offering cash incentives to improve health,” such as paying people to lose weight, give up smoking, or get tested for sexually transmitted diseases. Even limited success could make a big difference, said Colin Gabler in The Columbus Dispatch. While some holdouts are hard-core anti-vaxxers, others are just “apathetic” about getting a shot, whether because they don’t like needles, already had Covid, or “the CVS is too far a drive.” Such people “may be nudged by a $100 payout,” meaning that for $3 billion we could get another 30 million people vaccinated and “move the needle on herd immunity.” That would be “a bargain.” As a society, we “pay indirectly for each other’s poor health choices in the long run,” said Jacob Appel in The Baltimore Sun. Better to pay people now to acquire immunity to Covid to “save their lives and protect their neighbors.” If we don’t, “we may find ourselves soon paying the price of inaction.”
NEWS 17 Wit & Wisdom “Mother Nature, in her infinite wisdom, has instilled within each of us a powerful biological instinct to reproduce; this is her way of assuring that the human race, come what may, will never have any disposable income.” Humorist Dave Barry, quoted in Al.com
“The pedigree of honey / Does not concern the bee / A clover, any time, to him / Is aristocracy.” Emily Dickinson, quoted in the Santa Barbara, Calif., Independent
“Doubt grows with knowledge.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, quoted in ArtsJournal.com
“In order to rise from its own ashes, a phoenix first must burn.” Author Octavia Butler, quoted in Cultured Magazine
“You know you’re getting old when you get that one candle on the cake. It’s like, ‘See if you can blow this out.’” Jerry Seinfeld, quoted in the Montreal Gazette
“The desire to reach the stars is ambitious. The desire to reach hearts is wise and most possible.” Maya Angelou, quoted in the Williston, N.D., Herald
Poll watch Q 77% of Americans plan to travel this summer—a stark turnaround from last June, when just 29% planned a trip. Harris Poll
Q Unvaccinated Americans seem to be more comfortable with public activities than vaccinated Americans, including going on a cruise (37% vs. 17%), attending a concert (42% vs. 23%), traveling abroad (32% vs. 15%), going to the movies (46% vs. 33%), taking a train (43% vs. 30%), and dining out (63% vs. 56%). Morning Consult THE WEEK May 28, 2021
18 NEWS
THE WEEK May 28, 2021
Pick of the week’s cartoons
For more political cartoons, visit: www.theweek.com/cartoons.
Pick of the week’s cartoons
NEWS 19
THE WEEK May 28, 2021
Technology
20 NEWS
Environment: Bitcoin’s power problem 10 minutes. So competing miners must As digital currencies grow, so do worrun ever faster “simply to stand still”— ries about their real-world footprint, said the epitome of wastefulness. In the Finger Ryan Browne in CNBC.com. Last week, Lakes region of upstate New York, an one of Bitcoin’s biggest cheerleaders, Elon idled power plant is up and running again Musk, announced that Tesla would no just to “power Bitcoin mining,” said longer accept the digital coin as payment Elizabeth Kolbert in The New Yorker. for vehicles, because of concerns about The influx of miners in Plattsburgh, N.Y., “rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels “drove up the cost of electricity so drafor Bitcoin mining.” Tesla purchased matically” that the city needed to enact $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin in Februa moratorium on new operations. When ary, and Musk indicated no plans to sell. “the world desperately needs to cut carBut he alluded to data from researchers Long racks of Bitcoin mining rigs in Russia bon emissions,” does it makes sense to at Cambridge University showing what devote a country’s worth of electricity to a virtual currency? he considered an “insane” spike in Bitcoin’s electricity usage this year. Musk is hardly the first to express “wariness about its im“If you believe Bitcoin offers no utility beyond serving as a Ponzi pact on the environment.” New Bitcoins can only be created, or scheme,” then any consumption of energy would be considered “mined,” via an intensive computational effort that requires an “unfathomable amount of energy.” By Cambridge’s estimate, this wasteful, said Nic Carter in the Harvard Business Review. Leaving that aside, though, some of the conventional energy mining consumes as much energy annually as all of Argentina. and emissions assumptions that are used to estimate carbon And roughly 70 percent of the mining is done in China, “whose footprints don’t apply to Bitcoin. For instance, many of China’s economy is still heavily reliant on coal.” Bitcoin miners have set up shop in places with abundant and Miners are rewarded handsomely (6.25 Bitcoins, currently worth cheap hydropower, much of it under-utilized. As for Elon Musk, said Megan McArdle in The Washington Post, I’m skeptical he about $350,000) for cracking the mathematical problems that just realized “it takes boatloads of power to ‘mine’ digital gold.” unlock new coins, said The Economist. But the automatic stabiI suspect what he’s really noticed is Bitcoin’s weakness as a curlizers in the system “vary the difficulty of the puzzles” to ensure rency: “If you think your Bitcoin is going to quadruple in value that no matter how many miners are working on the problem, again, why would you trade it for a car today?” a new block of coins is generated, on average, only once every
New software allows anyone to create a deepfake clone of their own voice, said James Vincent in TheVerge.com. Last week, the technology firm Veritone introduced Marvel.AI, which can clone a voice and make the result sound “nearly indistinguishable from the real thing.” It’s aimed mainly at celebrities and influencers, who could allow “their voices to be out and about, recording radio spots, reading audiobooks,” at all times, 24/7. Traditional speech synthesis, used for voice assistants like Siri and Alexa, has been creating ever more realistic voices. But duplicating the sound of a particular voice, especially a well-known one, is a major advance. The AI-created voices are still “flatter and more clipped than the real thing.” Hypothetically, however, “you could have Walter Cronkite reading the nightly news again.” THE WEEK May 28, 2021
Bytes: What’s new in tech Parler bows to Apple’s demands Parler’s new app will have to curb hate speech after all—but only on iPhones, said Kevin Randall in The Washington Post. The rightleaning social platform that celebrated its “anti-moderation” stance “came back to life on Apple’s App Store” this week, months after it was taken down by Apple and Google following the U.S. Capitol attacks on Jan. 6. To get back in Apple’s good graces, Parler created a new artificial intelligence moderation system that will ensure that posts labeled “hate” “won’t be visible on iPhones.” The platform has contracted with a company called Hive, which already flags content that is considered “incitement” or includes threats of violence. “But Parler had to compromise on hate speech” for Apple to consider reinstatement. Parler’s own chief policy officer, Amy Peikoff, took a shot at Apple’s requirements, calling the app’s iOS version “Parler Lite or Parler PG.”
Sending chatter between devices Amazon and Apple are quietly building “vast wireless networks using your devices,” said Christopher Mims in The Wall Street Journal. Amazon announced last week that it would expand its Sidewalk network, which already includes some Ring devices, to cover its line
of Echo speakers. The Sidewalk network lets any of Amazon’s smart devices in range “send very small bits of data” to one another. Apple has been using similar technology for its Find My iPhone feature since 2011. The Sidewalk connection could be used to track deliveries or create an internet link if your “main connection goes down.” You can opt out of these socalled mesh networks, “but the tech giants are betting” that they create enough benefits “that for the most part we won’t.”
Visas for spouses of tech workers Tech giants are fighting to save a crucial visa for the spouses of skilled workers, said Joel Rosenblatt and Olivia Carville in Bloomberg .com. “Under the Obama-era ‘H-4 Rule,’ the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in 2015 issued visas to 90,000 spouses of highly skilled workers who live in the U.S. on H-1B visas,” about three-quarters of whom work in the tech sector. The Trump administration froze both H-1B and H-4 visas. Now the Trump ban has expired, but an advocacy group called Save Jobs USA is suing over the visas, arguing the H-4 program is illegal. “Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, and more than 20 other organizations” have urged a court to reject the claims.
Getty, Shutterstock
Innovation of the week
Health & Science
NEWS 21
NASA probe heads home with asteroid haul
NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona, Reuters, Getty
After spending more than two years circling and studying an ancient space rock, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft has fired its engines and begun its long journey home, reports CNN.com. The probe’s belly holds a precious cargo: possibly more than a pound of grit grabbed from the rubbly surface of the asteroid Bennu. “I can’t wait to see what we learn from the sample when it returns to Earth,” says Sandy Freund, operations manager of the Lockheed Martin Mission Support Area. Bennu is as big as the Empire State Building and some 4.5 billion years old. That’s about the same age as the solar
system, so the pristine rock samples could add to our understanding of how planets form. OSIRIS collected the grit by getting up close to Bennu, extending an 11-foot robotic arm fitted with a collection filter, and then shooting a burst of nitrogen gas to kick up rocks and dust into the filter. Although Bennu is about 200 million miles from Earth, OSIRIS will have to put another 1.4 billion miles on the clock before rendezvousing with our planet. The SUV-size craft will circle the sun twice and reach Earth in September 2023. When it’s within 6,000 miles, a small capsule containing the samples will separate from
OSIRIS fires its engines in an artist’s impression.
OSIRIS, enter Earth’s atmosphere, and—if all goes well—land in Utah’s Great Salt Lake Desert.
the risk of early-onset colorectal cancer than Covid-sniffing bees those who avoid the sweet stuff, reports Scientists have devised an innovative way to Insider.com. The rate of the disease has test for Covid-19, reports The Washington more than doubled among adults younger Post: getting bees to sniff it out. The idea than 50 in the past three decades. Many came from a Dutch startup that had been scientists suspect that increased consumption training the odor-sensitive insects to detect of sugary drinks may be to blame. The bev- mineral-rich ore and land mines. For the erages can suppress feelings of satiety, leadlatest project, researchers cooled down 150 ing to overeating, and can also cause spikes bees to make them less active, strapped in blood glucose and insulin secretion, which the insects into harnesses, and then used over the long term can induce inflammaa Pavlovian conditioning method to teach tion, obesity, and type 2 diabetes. In a new them the unique scent of the coronavirus. Laid to rest 78,000 years ago study, researchers looked at data from some Each time the bees were exposed to a virus95,000 women who tracked their consump- positive test sample they were also given Africa’s earliest burial Archaeologists have found the oldest known tion of various foods, including sugar-heavy a delicious sugar-water solution—which sodas, fruit drinks, and energy drinks. Over the bees drank by extending their tongues. human burial site in Africa—that of a 24 years of monitoring, 109 participants When they were given a negative sample, child, probably a boy, who died 78,000 developed bowel cancer. The researchers they received no reward. Within hours the years ago. The remains, so fragile they had calculated that the women who drank two bees were sticking out their tongues when to be encased in plaster to be removed, or more 8-ounce servings of such beverages presented with the virus, even when no were found in the Panga ya Saidi cave near a day were 2.2 times more likely to develop sugar water was offered. The researchers Kenya’s coast. The child, who was about colorectal cancer than those who drank less think the bees could be used in low-income 3 years old, appears to have been carefully countries with limited access to sophistiplaced in a pit and then covered up with sed- than one serving a week. Replacing sugary beverages with coffee, milk, or artificially cated testing technology. “If this is going to iment from the cave floor. The positioning sweetened drinks was linked to a 17 to work,” says lead researcher Wim van der of the bones indicate the child was buried 36 percent reduction in risk. Poel, “it can be very fast and very cheap.” on its side with its legs drawn up to its chest and that its head may have rested on some straight ahead. “It’s quite a difkind of pillow. The fact that the spine hadn’t A grumpy dog is a smart dog charge ficult task for a dog,” says study author collapsed during decomposition suggests the Dogs with “grumpy” charPeter Pongracz, from body may have been wrapped in a shroud. acteristics are better than Eotvos Lorand University “The burial takes us back to a very sad their cheerier peers at learnin Budapest. Neither the moment, one that despite the vast time sepaing tricks from strangers, a short-tempered dogs rating us, we can understand as humans,” new study suggests. The nor the more agreeable principal investigator Nicole Boivin, from researchers didn’t categorize pooches worked out how the Max Planck Institute in Germany, tells specific breeds as grumpy. to reach the treat on their The Guardian (U.K.). Older human burial Instead, they lumped in any own, and learned equally sites have been discovered outside Africa, of the dogs they studied well from their owners, that had a broad range of even though the continent was the birthplace reports The New York Brainier than a happy pooch? grumpy traits, such as being Times. But when a stranger of Homo sapiens. Researchers think this quick to bark, snapping or snarling when demonstrated how to get the object, the merely reflects where the most research has disturbed, and not coming when called. grumpy dogs did noticeably better. “They been done to date, and that older graves in For the study, the researchers put a treat were more attentive,” says Pongracz. It’s Africa are likely waiting to be discovered.
Sugary drinks and cancer risk Younger women who drink two or more sugary drinks a day have more than twice
behind a V-shaped wire fence, so the dogs would have to move further away from the food to access it—counterintuitive behavior for canines, who just want to
unclear what—if anything—is behind the link. But it suggests that dogs that are slow to warm to strangers may be good at learning from them.
THE WEEK May 28, 2021
ARTS Review of reviews: Books Book of the week
Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest by Suzanne Simard (Knopf, $29) “Finding the Mother Tree is certain to be one of this year’s most widely discussed books,” said Hamilton Cain in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Written by Suzanne Simard, “a real-life treewhisperer” whose discoveries have changed how we think about forests, the book is both “a literary revelation” and “that botany class you never knew you needed.” A forest ecologist who grew up in a Canadian logging family, Simard was 20 when she began wondering why seedlings planted in clear-cut areas often struggled to survive. Trees, she discovered, exist in cooperative communities that exchange nourishment and information through an underground fungal network. Her breakthrough findings, have been popularized by the movie Avatar, the book The Hidden Life of Trees, and Richard Powers’ novel The Overstory. Finally, she has shared her own account,
Novel of the week Second Place by Rachel Cusk
A mature beech forest: No tree is an island.
in “a luminous weave of memoir, scientific treatise, and Native-inflected meditation.” Simard’s logging roots run deep, said Jonathan Slaght in The New York Times. In her home province, there is a Simard Mountain named after her forebears, and she proudly enumerates the fingers and other parts the family sacrificed to the vocation. It thus hurt her to realize that clear-cutting was devastating to forest health: “One love of her life was destroying the other.” Still, she was thrilled to be able to prove that nutrients are passed between trees through fungi that attach to the roots. Eventually, she estab-
The Secret to Superhuman Strength by Alison Bechdel (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $24)
(Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $25)
“Readers love to hate female characters for causing momentary discomfort,” said Hillary Kelly in the Los Angeles Times. Rachel Cusk is beyond worrying over such matters, though. Her first novel since her radical and brilliant Outline trilogy is narrated by a woman named M, who is needy, pushy, and resentful. It’s “straight vinegar”—“delicious and good for the gut.” M has invited a once celebrated painter to stay in a cottage on her property but becomes enraged by his behavior. Second Place feels like a transition novel, yet “Cusk’s open experimentation is refreshing, as is her belief that a writer must keep moving forward.” To M’s dismay, the artist brings along a young girlfriend, asserting a freedom that M can’t imagine exercising, said Helen Shaw in NYMag.com. The book remains “a mood piece, a drug,” a bracing bath in M’s fevered thinking. M is desperate to have L paint her, but L claims he can’t truly see her. It’s a crushing blow. Above all else, Second Place is “an exploration of how dangerous it is to want to see yourself reflected in the artist’s eye.” THE WEEK May 28, 2021
Alison Bechdel’s “quietly astonishing” new graphic memoir has a deceivingly straightforward premise, said Rachel Cooke in TheGuardian.com. The pioneering comics artist and author of 2006’s Fun Home has been an exercise fanatic all her life, forever exchanging one obsession for another, and she wished to examine why. But while Bechdel “manages to be slyly funny” about an array of fitness activities, from martial arts to Nordic skiing to spin classes, she might be even better at addressing her deeper subject, which is self-improvement writ large. Yes, you have probably grown tired of advice about selfcare this year. “All I can tell you is that her thoughts on mortality, wonder, and transcendence will do you a lot more good, at this point in the pandemic, than your next yoga class.”
lished that a forest is a sentient, interacting community in which certain mature trees, or “mother trees,” act as hubs for the distribution of nutrients and lifesustaining information. Simard’s work “turned the tables on the view of trees as engaged in a fierce competition with one another,” said Richard Schiffman in CSMonitor.com. Her model of forest life, she notes, aligns closely with the understanding of indigenous people. “Still, not everyone is a fan.” Commercial loggers have resisted her recommendations, and some scientists criticize her language as overly anthropomorphic. Simard at times does push her metaphors too far, said Eugenia Bone in The Wall Street Journal. “I chafe when genetic adaptation is called ‘wisdom,’” for example. Still, the analogies do help readers understand the biology, and many are “surprisingly apt,” such as when Simard invokes brain cells and neural pathways to describe the hub-and-node system by which information is passed from mycorrhizal fungi to tree roots. In the end, this book “might even persuade you that organisms other than ourselves, even fungi, have agency.” Each chapter of the book covers roughly 10 years in the 60-year-old author’s life. Once the story puts childhood behind, said Elizabeth Weil in The New York Times, “Bechdel dabbles in nearly every exercise craze of the past four decades.” The litany of trend chasing “would feel dull, self-indulgent, and exhausting if Bechdel weren’t fully aware that it is essentially neurotic and nuts.” Besides, her work is always layered, and so we get drawings, captions, and annotation as we go, as well as minibiographies of Samuel Coleridge, Jack Kerouac, Adrienne Rich, and other authors and thinkers whose writing helps Bechdel work through her ideas. Always, exercise seems the answer to competing aims, said Katy Waldman in The New Yorker. On one hand, Bechdel, like any other fitness enthusiast, exercises to perfect the self. At the same time, she “seeks to lose herself, to leave herself behind,” often finding greatest fulfillment when the rush of an activity or the focus that it requires allows her to momentarily forget herself. This lends a “slightly tragic” air to the book, because the attempt to erase or outrun oneself is bound to fail. “Perhaps, as Bechdel writes near the end of her memoir, transcending her story was never the right goal” anyway. “Better to work it out.”
Media Bakery
22
The Book List Best books…chosen by Jake Tapper CNN anchor Jake Tapper is the author of two thrillers. His first, 2018’s The Hellfire Club, is being adapted into an HBO series. His new sequel, The Devil May Dance, follows Charlie and Margaret Marder as the couple infiltrates Frank Sinatra’s circle. Frank: The Voice by James Kaplan (2010). To best be able to submerge myself in the 1962 Rat Pack Hollywood to write my new thriller, I dove into some great books about that time. There are many fascinating biographies of Frank Sinatra, one of the main characters in my book, but James Kaplan’s two volumes may be the best. Volume one takes Sinatra’s life story to 1954. Sinatra: The Chairman by James Kaplan (2015). Now we reach the era of The Devil May Dance. I love writing about the 1950s and early 1960s because on its surface the time seems so glamorous but in reality was full of menace: McCarthyism, the rise of the military-industrial complex, conspiracies, Cold War tensions, racism, and misogyny. The inspiration for my book comes from a true story: Sinatra, who had worked his heart out to get John F. Kennedy elected, had his Rancho Mirage, Calif., compound built out in expectation of hosting the president in 1962. But Attorney General Robert Kennedy, investigating organized crime, became concerned about his brother staying in a home where mobsters had also slept.
The Manchurian Candidate by Greil Marcus (2002). In my thriller, our heroes Charlie and Margaret befriend Sinatra on the set of The Manchurian Candidate. Greil Marcus’ essays about the trippy 1962 film are a fascinating window into the era. Dino: Living High in the Dirty Business of Dreams by Nick Tosches (1992). For art, don’t miss Tosches’ literary rumination on Dean Martin. Poetry. Mr. S: My Life With Frank Sinatra by George Jacobs (2003). Jacobs was Sinatra’s personal assistant, and he’s another character in The Devil May Dance. His memoir provides an absorbing look at Sinatra and complicates the old saying, attributed to French wit Madame Cornuel, that no man is a hero to his valet. My Story by Judith Exner (1977). Exner, who knew Sinatra, Kennedy, and mobster Sam Giancana quite intimately, wrote a memoir that’s now out of print but still a dishy read. Even if only half of it is true, you’ll find yourself shaking your head in amazement.
AP, Ariana Velazquez
Also of interest...in the interwar years The Haunting of Alma Fielding
Billy Wilder on Assignment
by Kate Summerscale (Penguin, $28)
edited by Noah Isenberg (Princeton, $25)
Kate Summerscale’s latest nonfiction tale “reads like a novel you don’t want to put down,” said Ilana Masad in NPR.org. In 1938, a reallife housewife in suburban London claimed her home had been invaded by a poltergeist, attracting the attention of a Hungarian-born ghost hunter. But this book isn’t just about supernatural spirits. “It’s also a narrative about women and power, about the fear of looming war, about the choices people make in order to escape certain aspects of their lives.”
“Billy Wilder sweet-talked his way into his singular life,” said Marc Weingarten in The Washington Post. The future Hollywood director spent his 20s as a charismatic but cutting newspaper writer in Vienna and Berlin, and the profiles, reviews, and other stories collected here “read like precursors to the New Journalism–era reportage of Tom Wolfe.” In one piece, he’s working as a taxi dancer. In another, he mocks a mogul’s teeth. On political topics, he was “a Weimar version of H.L. Mencken.”
Midnight in Cairo
Maniac
by Raphael Cormack (Norton, $29)
by Harold Schechter (Little A, $25)
Jazz-age Cairo rivaled any other city for nightlife, said Moira Hodgson in The Wall Street Journal. Author Raphael Cormack offers a “riveting, lively” snapshot of the city by weaving together profiles of seven women who were key contributors to the efflorescence. Singer Oum Kalthoum remains a beloved national icon, but Cormack also includes forgotten figures such as a Coptic club owner, a vaudevillian, and an actress who drew comparisons to Sarah Bernhardt.
“In the 1920s, an attack on a school was a new and baffling crime,” said Katrina Gulliver in TheAmericanConservative.com. That may explain why few of us know that the deadliest-ever attack on a U.S. school was a 1927 bombing in Bath township, Michigan, that killed 45 people, including 38 children. Crime writer Harold Schechter makes the story “as nerve-wracking as a pageturning thriller.” The killer, in the worst ways, turns out to be “a man ahead of his time.”
ARTS 23 Author of the week Christina Hunger Christina Hunger is a real-life Dr. Dolittle, said Reed Tucker in the New York Post. Over the past three years, the young speech pathologist has trained her dog to communicate in English using a series of pawsize buttons that each play a pre-recorded word. Hunger’s new book, How Stella Learned to Talk, recounts the process and offers advice on how readers can do the same. “Outside” was Stella’s first word, followed closely by “water” and “play.” Today, Stella makes use of nearly 50 words or phrases, displaying a facility that has attracted a large Instagram following. She might, when being taken outside by Christina’s boyfriend, stop to assemble a complex thought: “Christina, come, play, love you.” Hunger learns from the experiment every day. “Dogs are thinking a lot,” she says. “They have opinions and are wanting to share them.” Stella’s accomplishments “raise questions about how we define speech,” said Nora Krug in The Washington Post. Some skeptics have questioned whether Stella has simply learned to press buttons that she knows will earn her rewards. But Hunger has never fed Stella treats during the training. She also rejects the idea that some harm is done by teaching a dog to communicate in a way that is unnatural. “Using the words is just one of the ways for her to express herself,” she says. Stella may also be on her way to greater feats, given that dogs, by some estimates, can understand upward of 1,000 words. Still, Stella will probably never understand that her story has already been published. “She has seen the book, as an object. But she’s a dog,” Hunger says. “She has no concept about the content.” THE WEEK May 28, 2021
Review of reviews: Art & Music
Exhibit of the week
ing, said Peter Plagens in The Wall Street Journal. Today, however, as the art establishment has belatedly begun recognizing the achievements of women working in the modernist era, the roughly 100 imagined landscapes Pelton painted have understandably drawn attention. In Orbits, from 1934, seven ideogrammatic stars float against a dark backdrop that suggests a soaring mountain with a cartoonish snow cap. “In anyone else’s hands, all of this would be insufferably corny; with Pelton, however, it’s genuinely and defiantly beautiful.”
Agnes Pelton: Desert Transcendentalist Palm Springs Art Museum, Palm Springs, Calif., through Sept. 6
Agnes Pelton was not a flashy painter, said Christopher Knight in the Los Angeles Times. When producing the mystical, semiabstract images for which she has become celebrated, the idiosyncratic modernist (1881–1961) “almost never let the action of her hand intrude.” Throughout her sixdecade career, “her work received scant notice beyond a small circle of like-minded admirers.” But Pelton’s star has risen over the past quarter century, and the opening of a touring retrospective at a Palm Springs museum only 7 miles away from her longtime home “secures her significant place among early American modern artists.” The exhibition has been pared to 35 works since its pandemic-interrupted stop at New York City’s Whitney Museum of American Art. Yet the core of her work remains. “For Agnes Pelton, painting was a profound means for contemplation. Hers and ours.” “Because of the cosmic reach of her landscapes, Pelton has often been compared to Georgia O’Keeffe,” said Ann Japenga in KCET.org. Both she and O’Keeffe studied under Arthur Wesley Dow at Pratt
Institute in Brooklyn, and both moved to the Southwest at the invitation of patron Mabel Dodge Luhan. But Pelton, who relocated to the Palm Springs area in the 1930s, had reached her 50s by the time she hit her stride with “quietly luminescent” imagined landscapes informed by astrology, Buddhism, and theosophy. Pelton spent more of her time creating conventional landscapes that earned her a modest liv-
Don’t be put off by her homespun mysticism, said Mario Naves in The New Criterion. Unlike Hilma af Klint, the 20th-century Swedish proto-modernist who was the subject of a blockbuster 2018 Guggenheim Museum exhibition, Pelton is a true find. Hers is “an art of bottomless, crystalline color, and spaces so nuanced in their transitions as to occasion double takes.” Despite the modernism of Pelton’s formal vocabulary, “the chromatic and spatial resonance of the pictures—their clarity, depth, and jewel-like sonorities— are pure Renaissance.” That’s lofty praise, “but name another 20th-century artist who created anything close to the infinite yellow of Prelude (1943) or the milky veils of unnameable color that filter through The Blest (1941).”
St. Vincent
J. Cole
The Black Keys
Daddy’s Home
The Off-Season
Delta Kream
++++
++++
++++
St. Vincent’s new album, upon first listen, “seems like it might impress her critics,” said Spencer Kornhaber in The Atlantic.com. The cold, robotic art rock of recent releases has been replaced by the sounds of early-’70s rock and soul: “the boogying synths of Stevie Wonder, the spacey noodling of Pink Floyd.” But the promise of a looser, more personal songwriting is never satisfied. “With repeated listens, a familiar hollowness sets in.” This talented artist, a guitar virtuoso who presents as a David Bowie heir, continues to withhold too much. “Do we ever want St. Vincent to sound ‘relatable,’ though? Maybe not!” said Rob Harvilla in TheRinger.com. As a musician who revels in creating highconcept fictional personas for every album cycle, “she is never, ever, ever boring.” The title track, as a piece of music, is “so odd, so swampy, so slow-eyed and sharp-elbowed” that we ought to just listen. Put aside thoughts about what St. Vincent should do, and “you can better appreciate this record as a triumphantly bizarre multimedia spectacle that earns its loopier affectations.”
“It hasn’t been the greatest year for major rap releases,” said Eric Skelton in Complex .com. J. Cole might turn the tide, though, because his sixth album will one day likely rank “among the strongest projects of his career.” Across 12 tracks, the 36-yearold North Carolina rapper and self-styled “middle child” on the genre’s generational time line “positions himself as an all-time great” and comes across as deserving of the title. He presents the album as an offseason workout in which he’s testing his stylistic range, yet he sounds “more musically compelling than ever” because there’s “a mixtape energy” to the entire project. “In its looseness, the album feels like a serrated jolt,” said Brandon Yu in Variety .com. Cole’s earnestness “has always been both the key to his success and his greatest artistic fault,” and The Off-Season shines because it avoids self-seriousness. Though he recently teasingly suggested that this album may be one or two removed from his last, J. Cole “appears far from ready to bow out, nor should he be.”
The Black Keys’ new tribute to the Mississippi juke-joint bluesmen who inspired their music “percolates with a respect for the source material,” said Matt Collar in AllMusic.com. The Ohio-bred garage rockers add “lo-fi swagger” to 12 classic tunes by such hill country legends as Junior Kimbrough, R.L. Burnside, and Mississippi Fred McDowell. “Swampy, yet vibrating with a dreamy psychedelic quality,” the opener, “Crawling Kingsnake,” exemplifies the album’s “laconic and acidly textured” sound. “Something feels off,” though, “since the renditions here rarely live up to the originals,” said Kory Grow in Rolling Stone. Delta Kream’s secret weapon is slide guitarist Kenny Brown, who worked with Kimbrough. “But even at its best,” this hastily recorded collection sounds like a compilation of bonus tracks. True, the album can’t replicate the “dangerous backwoods stomp” of hill country blues, but “it comes awfully close,” said Hal Horowitz in AmericanSongwriter.com. “If Keys fans are encouraged to explore the originals, this project will have accomplished its mission.”
THE WEEK May 28, 2021
Pelton’s Orbits (1934): An otherworldly wonder
Agnes Pelton/Oakland Museum of California
24 ARTS
Review of reviews: Film & Home Media
Bana: A suspect hero
The Dry ++++ Welcome home, Eric Bana, said Richard Kuipers in Variety.com. The Melbourneborn actor scored Australia’s biggest hit of the year with this smart, newly arrived thriller based on a best-selling novel, and he’s “perfectly cast” in the lead. Bana, 52, plays Aaron Falk, a big-city detective who returns to his drought-stricken hometown to attend the funeral of a friend who apparently killed himself in a murder-suicide. Something isn’t right, though, and the plot “crackles along nicely” as Falk questions various townsfolk with motives to kill. Falk also has questions to answer, because some locals still suspect him in the death years earlier of his high school crush, said Stephen Russell in TimeOut .com. Unfortunately, the story’s frequent use of flashbacks “sucks some of the oxy-
gen from the present-day drama,” and many secondary characters are too thinly sketched. “I sniffed out the villain a fair way off,” said Anthony Lane in The New Yorker. But despite its minor flaws, “the film has serious staying power,” heralding, perhaps, a new era of climate-change cinema. These troubled characters haven’t seen rain in nearly a year, and the camera lingers on sputtering faucets and parched riverbeds where children once swam. Even viewers who judge The Dry a mere B movie “will be left with raw throats and a sense of trouble in store.” (In theaters or $7 on demand) R
Other new movies Riders of Justice Mads Mikkelsen’s latest project is “one of the most fascinating films I’ve seen in a long while,” said Joe Morgenstern in The Wall Street Journal. The great Danish actor plays a stone-faced soldier who pursues a vendetta against the biker gang he believes killed his wife. This movie is no subtitled by-the-numbers thriller, though: It’s “a deliciously absurdist, fundamentally serious enterprise that uses a superheated revenge plot to address our common need for making sense out of life.” (In theaters or $7 on demand) Not rated
ARTS 25
reboot “weakens what was already there.” Chris Rock plays a wisecracking detective on the trail of a serial killer, and Rock’s humor “makes for a nice contrast to the grim goings-on.” But by reversing the franchise’s villain-centric formula, Spiral “winds up feeling like an ordinary serial-killer procedural.” (In theaters only) R
Those Who Wish Me Dead The “ludicrous but propulsive” new action film starring Angelina Jolie “does what Hollywood has always done to her: doubt her abilities,” said Shirley Li in TheAtlantic .com. The A-list actress plays a firefighter who parachutes into wildfires, yet even after her character pledges to protect a teenager from assassins, she “sees little action.” Instead, she runs, cowers, and becomes more motherly, reflecting an industrywide “lack of imagination” about how to deploy an older female action star. (In theaters or via HBO Max) R
The Perfect Candidate
“A reimagining of the Saw movies might have been intriguing,” said Bilge Ebiri in NYMag.com. After all, the 2004 splatterfest that spawned so many ridiculous sequels was “impossibly tense.” Unfortunately, this
The latest drama from Wadjda director Haifaa Al-Mansour shows “just how much more there is to be done before women can fully steer their destinies in Saudi Arabia,” said Robert Abele in the Los Angeles Times. When a young, niqab-clad doctor tires of the unpaved road that leads to the local hospital, she runs for a post in municipal government. Sexist indignities ensue, yet this “charm-zested” tale of an underdog “earns its hopeful conclusion.” (In select theaters only) Not rated
Death at the Wing
May I Elaborate?
Mission: Commission
(Three Uncanny Four)
(Team Coco)
(Miller Theatre)
Though hoops is the common thread in Adam McKay’s current podcast series, said Bryan Kalbrosky in USAToday.com, “you don’t need to be a basketball fan, even in the slightest, to become infatuated.” The Oscarwinning screenwriter of The Big Short and director of Anchorman examines the early deaths of several rising roundball stars to illustrate how the sport and the larger culture took a turn under President Ronald Reagan. “If you are someone who loves sports, you will be hooked by some of the fascinating details that McKay unearths about some of the game’s biggest legends.” But the focus of the series is on would-be stars, such as Boston Celtics draftee Len Bias, mercurial NBA guard Terry Furlow, and Chicago high schooler Benji Wilson. “Though the fits between the biographies and the historical trends McKay is describing can be messy,” said PodcastReview.org, “the show’s ambition—to identify what changed and was lost during Reagan’s economic revolution—is worthwhile.”
Meet your new favorite motivational guru, said Morgan McNaught in AVClub.com. Actor and comedian J.B. Smoove, best known for playing a confidante to Larry David on Curb Your Enthusiasm, takes the idea of a series built on daily affirmations and “turns it into highconcept art.” In each 15-minute episode, an entry from a quote-a-day calendar inspires oddball musings by Smoove and his sidekick Miles Grose: An Anaïs Nin aphorism about courage, for example, inspired consideration of the difference between a hero and a hoagie. Seekers of conventional life wisdom need not apply, but “if you are a person who wonders if the sun and moon work at the same factory, May I Elaborate? sees you, and offers a lot of inspiration couched in a gonzo sensibility.” Recent episodes have been “pure Smoove,” said Marc Hershon in NYMag.com. Want to break the ice at parties? Leave your fly open, he advises, because “Nothin’ starts a conversation faster than, ‘Hey, brother, your zipper’s down.’”
As quality podcasts about classical music finally begin to proliferate, one series is breaking new ground, said Joshua Barone in The New York Times. Music audiences usually hear only finished work, and “what often gets lost is the story of creation—the hiccups and dead ends, the thrill of discovery.” Columbia University’s Miller Theatre, an incubator of new classical music, has captured the drama in that process with a six-part series that follows three composers as they turn seedling notions into performance-ready work. The first episode feels “suspiciously optimistic,” but subsequent entries chart the natural ups and downs of composing and collaborating for three artists of different styles and temperaments. Demystifying the art of composition by means of interviews and the participants’ audio diaries was “a brilliant idea,” said Patricia Nicol in The Sunday Times (U.K.). As of this week, you can hear the fruit of the artists’ labors in a final episode that showcases the completed compositions.
Spiral: From the Book of Saw
IFC Films
New and notable podcasts
THE WEEK May 28, 2021
Streaming tips New nature documentaries...
Secrets of the Whales Four episodes deliver the most gorgeous footage of orcas, humpbacks, belugas, and sperm whales as narrator Sigourney Weaver reveals stunning discoveries about whale intelligence and culture. Awe is the only possible response. Disney+
The Year Earth Changed 2020 was the year animals got a break from the normal frenzy of human activity. Around the globe, wildlife roamed empty city streets, and at-risk species made incredible comebacks. This David Attenborough– narrated special surveys the untamed party we all missed, and accumulates lessons in living that we can take from it. Apple TV+
Life in Color The honeyed voice of Attenborough also elevates this visually dazzling series, as the great naturalist examines the myriad ways that animals use color. Netflix
Elephant Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex, proves to be a soothing narrator in an outstanding kid-friendly documentary about a family of elephants on a 1,000-mile trek across the Kalahari Desert. Disney+
Cher & the Loneliest Elephant Cher hasn’t had as unlikely a scene partner since Sonny Bono, but the pop diva is as magnetic as ever in a special in which she travels to Pakistan to rescue an elephant scarred by 35 years of lonely captivity. Paramount+
Television The Week’s guide to what’s worth watching Between Black and Blue This twisty, four-part true-crime series begins with a 1975 murder in Denver. Two former New York City police partners are convicted as conspirators in the crime. But Mike Borrelli and Bob Davis maintained their innocence as Davis, who is Black, sat in prison for more than a decade. To crack the case, filmmaker Sheldon Wilson had to sort out how Elvis Presley figured in. And he had to track down a gunman who’d been in hiding for 40 years. Available Tuesday, May 25, AMC+ High on the Hog: How African American Cuisine Transformed America For centuries now, African-American cooking has been a link to an ancestral past, a celebration of available ingredients and flavors, and an evolving, wholly satiating cuisine. In this roaming, four-part docuseries, Whetstone magazine founder Stephen Satterfield enjoys countless mouthwatering meals while tapping into the insights of culinary historian Jessica B. Harris and various chefs who’ve become experts on African-American foodways. Available Wednesday, May 26, Netflix Friends Maybe they actually were good friends. Seventeen years after Friends aired its final episode, the six co-stars of the beloved sitcom have finally reconvened to laugh and reminisce about their decade-long run. Little about the special has been revealed other than that Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matthew Perry, David Schwimmer, and Matt LeBlanc will all be there, and the extensive guest list runs from Justin Bieber to Cindy Crawford to Lady Gaga. Available Thursday, May 27, HBO Max Oslo As violence between Israelis and Palestinians flares again, the unlikelihood of the 1993 Oslo Peace Accords becomes even clearer. J.T. Rogers’ Tony Award–winning play about the secret talks that led to a fragile peace agreement has been given a handsome screen adaptation, with Ruth Wilson and Andrew Scott co-starring as the married Norwegian diplomats who dared
THE WEEK May 28, 2021
to bring the divided parties together. Saturday, May 29, at 8 p.m., HBO The Kominsky Method Sandy Kominsky is flying solo in The Kominsky Method’s final season. The departure of Alan Arkin, who played Sandy’s best friend, leaves Michael Douglas’ aging acting coach burdened with carrying out his pal’s odd final wishes while trying to meet the challenge of a surprise major screen role. Arkin is missed, but Kathleen Turner is back in a full-time role as Sandy’s ex-wife, while Morgan Freeman joins as a guest star. Available Friday, May 28, Netflix Other highlights Rugrats Nickelodeon’s classic animated series goes 3D in a reboot that reunites the gang of adventurous toddlers. Available Thursday, May 27, Paramount+ Cruella Emma Stone plays the villainess of 101 Dalmatians in an origins tale that debuts in theaters on the same day it becomes available as a $30 home stream. Available Friday, May 28, Disney+ Plan B In a movie that puts a spin on the classic stonercomedy road trip, two high school girls in South Dakota must track down a Plan B pill within 24 hours. Kuhoo Verma and Victoria Moroles co-star. Available Friday, May 28, Hulu
Show of the week Mr. Inbetween
Kiss the Ground This somewhat disjointed documentary offers a message worth hearing: One of the secrets to fighting global warming may lie in the soil beneath our feet and the role that farmland can play in carbon sequestration. Woody Harrelson narrates. Netflix
The Friends cast in their prime
Ryan as Shoesmith: A pretty nice guy at home
It’s hard to find a proper work/life balance when your main gig is contract killing. Ray Shoesmith has done admirably well across two seasons of this award-winning Australian crime dramedy series, carrying out brutal hits while holding things together as a father to a daughter approaching her teen years. Creator and star Scott Ryan has given himself a new set of challenges in the show’s final season, as Ray carries on his grisly work, tries to keep it from burying him, and watches Brittany connect with a first boyfriend while beginning to figure out who Dad really is. Tuesday, May 25, at 10 p.m., FX
• All listings are Eastern Time.
NBC, FX
26 ARTS
LEISURE Food & Drink
27
Mushroom kebabs: Meaty grilled flavor without the meat Lovage puree 2 cups loosely packed lovage leaves 4 cups packed spinach leaves 2-inch piece fresh turmeric, peeled, grated with a Microplane 1 garlic clove, grated with a Microplane 1 tsp kosher salt 1⁄ cup crème fraîche 3 ½ cup yogurt whey (see note below) 1 tsp ground cardamom
When I first tasted this recipe for grilled mushrooms, said Ori Menashe in Bavel: Modern Recipes Inspired by the Middle East (Ten Speed Press), it “reminded me a lot of the meaty smokiness of Argentinian barbecue.” When cooked slowly 6 inches over a charcoal fire, the seasoned mushrooms end up juicy, smoky, and tender. At Bavel, the Los Angeles restaurant that my wife and I created, I serve them atop a bright puree of spinach and lovage, “a minerally, almost salty green that tastes like a mix between overgrown parsley and celery leaves.” Recipe of the week Grilled oyster mushroom kebabs with lovage puree 1 lb oyster mushrooms Grapeseed oil for coating Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper 1 tsp ground sumac, plus more for dusting 2 tbsp lovage puree (recipe below)
Nicole Franzen
Slice mushrooms off the cluster, leaving a very small amount of stem intact. Using a metal or soaked wooden skewer, thread mushrooms through stem, gill-side down, alternating the tops of the mushrooms from left to right so they cook evenly. You should have two skewers with about 14 mushrooms on each.
Pureed greens round out a satisfying dish.
Brush mushrooms with a generous amount of oil to coat, making sure to oil the gills. Lightly season with salt, pepper, and ½ tsp sumac per skewer. Preheat a charcoal grill to medium heat. Place mushrooms on grill 6 inches above coals and cook, flipping skewers every 2 minutes, for 8 to 14 minutes total, until edges start to curl and brown and mushrooms have shrunk significantly. Moisture will drip from mushrooms to the coals, creating smoke that adds flavor. To serve, spread lovage puree evenly over center of a plate. Lightly dust puree with sumac and place mushroom skewers on top. Serves 4.
Bring 8 cups of water to a boil in a large pot and fill a large bowl with ice water. Blanch lovage in boiling water for 2 minutes, then add spinach and blanch for an additional 2 minutes. Using tongs, remove greens from pot and place in ice water for 2 to 3 minutes. Using a colander or fine-mesh sieve, drain greens. Using your hands, form greens into a ball and squeeze out most of the water. Place greens in a kitchen towel. Wring towel to remove as much liquid as possible until greens are almost dry. Place greens in a blender and add turmeric, garlic, salt, crème fraîche, whey, cardamom, and 3 tbsp water. Mix on high speed, stopping to scrape down the sides when necessary, until mixture is smooth. If mixture won’t fully blend, add a little more water. Makes about ½ cup. Note: Yogurt whey is the liquid obtained from yogurt when it’s drained.
Wine clubs: How to identify the ones worth joining
Ranked: Top pasta sauces
Too often, popular wine clubs “have little to do with wine,” said Eric Asimov in The New York Times. If wine is arriving at your doorstep via subscription services associated with NPR, The Wall Street Journal, Turner Classic Movies, or yes, The New York Times, you are really paying to associate yourself with a lifestyle brand while the company doing the actual choosing and shipping of the wine is a licensee that serves several of those corporate clients. “Nothing is necessarily wrong with these wines. They might be tasty and satisfying.” But “from a wine lover’s view,” the problem with such A selection of wines from Plonk clubs is “an almost complete lack of transparency about the wines.” Often, the provider buys unsold lots of wine and slaps a new proprietary label on each bottle. The consumer, in many cases, can’t even tell who made the wine or where the grapes were grown. Fortunately, there are other options, and “the range of good wine clubs is vast.” If you love a particular wine shop or wine producer, look into its club offerings. Wine importers also run solid clubs. Always, the “great dividing line” separating worthy from unworthy clubs is whether the wines can be traced to a specific place and producer. Many fine independent wine clubs have popped up over the past decade, including these standouts: Plonk Sommelier Etty Klein seeks unusual bottles from around the world and focuses particularly on organic and biodynamic wines. Winestyr Chicago-based Winestyr features artisanal offerings from “an excellent array of American producers,” with the majority in California. Natural Action This nonprofit startup combines a love of California natural wines with an emphasis on supporting racial justice. It directs proceeds to diversifying the industry.
If Prego’s marinara sauce were any worse, said Lucas Kwan Peterson in the Los Angeles Times, “the SEC would have to get involved.” Other big names, such as Classico and Barilla, aren’t much better. But I sampled 30 jarred marina sauces, and there are many solid options, starting with this ranked top 4. Rao’s “A bulletproof choice for any pasta,” Rao’s is simple and balanced, “generous with the olive oil” but with “a strong tomato flavor.” Mezzetta Mezzetta’s entry “has a bright, strong tomato flavor and is quite onion-forward.” Silver Palate Salty, tangy, and “slightly peppery,” this sauce gets added flavor dimension from carrots and pear concentrate. Victoria This is another good sauce, but Victoria’s now-hard-to-find premium White Linen brand is even better—“as close to perfect as a jarred sauce can get.” THE WEEK May 28, 2021
28 LEISURE
Coping
Brain fog: Why so many feel it and why it may pass function, says neuroscientist Catherine “If your brain feels foggy and you’re Loveday, but returning to socializing as tired all the time, you’re not alone,” said Covid restrictions are lifted will be espeRhitu Chatterjee in NPR.org. Mental cially important. “Our brains wake up in health–care providers across the U.S. the presence of other people,” Loveday report that they’re hearing such comsays. Jon Simons, another British neuroplaints from many people who were scientist, agrees. “Simons’ advice to us never infected with Covid-19, and very all is to get out into the world, to have few of those experts are surprised. “This as rich and varied experiences and interkind of mental fog is real.” And though actions as we can.” it can be traced to an array of causes, “at the root of it are the stress and trauma of It’s not crazy to wonder if we will the past year.” You didn’t need to conever be the same, said Ellen Cushing tract the virus to have spent months at a in TheAtlantic.com. Personally, “I feel time gripped with anxiety, and that state The mind wasn’t built for long shutdowns. like I have spent the past year being of mind takes a toll. Anxiety is a fight-orpushed through a pasta extruder,” and by the tail end of winter, flight response that triggers the release of the hormone cortisol, I was forgetting names, forgetting words, even forgetting why which elevates heart rate, tires us out, and has been shown to impair attention, concentration, and memory. Brain fog, in other I walked into my kitchen. “The sunniest optimist would point out that all this forgetting is evidence of the resilience of our words, is “a normal response to an abnormal year.” species,” that humans forget many things surprisingly quickly, Boredom alone may explain some people’s fogginess, said Moya and we will quickly forget this trying past year too. I know of the counterevidence, that survivors of major catastrophes show Sarner in TheGuardian.com. “The brain is stimulated by the elevated rates of mental-health problems long after the event. new, the different,” and it’s effectively engineered to shut down when nothing changes. In a scenario in which there is “a blend- But I aspire to escape that fate. “Some Saturday not too long from now, I will go to a party or a bar or even a wedding. I’ll ing of one day into the next, with no commute, no change of kiss my friends and try their drinks. My synapses will be made scene, no change of cast,” the mind is also robbed of context plastic by the complicated, strange, utterly novel experience of that helps it to encode and store memories. Any break in such being alive again, human again. I can’t wait.” a repetitive routine will help in restoring normal cognitive
Learning to love the cicada swarm Don’t let yourself become a cicada hater, said Isabella Isaacs-Thomas in PBS.org. Very soon, parts of 15 states in the East and Midwest will be inundated by the harmless but noisy bugs that emerge only once every 17 years. Between now and early July, billions will climb out of burrows as nymphs, shed their exoskeletons, mate, and then die. But don’t cower. Make the 2021 emergence more memorable by participating. Using the app Cicada Safari, adults and children can log their sightings to aid researchers. You can learn to distinguish the songs of the three active species at the website Cicada Mania. Cicadas are also edible, and brave eaters can find cooking instructions online. Later, the intricately patterned wings of the carcasses invite craft projects, such as preserving them in resin to make earrings.
Finally need a travel agent? Even for the vaccinated, “travel remains far from simple,” said Lauren Sloss in The New York Times. That has led many people to consider working with a travel agent for the first time. Travel agents can reduce the stress of planning and usually provide their services for free, or charge just a modest booking fee. They make their money through commissions from THE WEEK May 28, 2021
hotels, airlines, and the like. To find one you’ll like, start by asking friends for recommendations. If that fails, look for a local agent first and try to find one who specializes in the destination or type of trip you’re targeting. When you first chat, ask about fees and be up front about your budget. Most importantly, “make sure your adviser understands your travel style.” Ask about his or her travel preferences and favorite places; if the agent isn’t asking as many questions about you, that’s a red flag.
How to work from home forever It’s time to speak up if you want your employer to let you keep working remotely, “because policies are being crafted right now,” said Rachel Schnalzer in the Los Angeles Times. You have to make your wishes known to have a chance that they’ll be granted, but back up your request with a detailed proposal that highlights past successes, shows how you’ll continue being effective, and addresses concerns such as how you’ll handle meetings. Don’t just make a personal case; show how your working remotely can help the business. You may be turned down, so “be prepared to hear no.” At that point, you can suggest parttime remote as a compromise, or just keep performing and ask again in a few months.
A reopening story... Linda Melton was one of the first two people offered a job when a customer of almost three decades decided to save the Elliston Place Soda Shop, said Margaret Littman in the Nashville Scene. At Nashville’s longestoperating restaurant, “Miss Linda” is more than a server. Thanks to family recipes, she has also been “the face behind the chess pies, the meringue pies (the taller the better), and banana pudding.” She was back at work last week when a meticulous recreation of the 82-year-old soda shop, all red tiles and tableside jukeboxes, opened next door to its old location. Owner Tony Giarratana had listened when Melton fought menu changes and the introduction of “uppity, fancy words” to the descriptions. In order to keep its place in locals’ hearts, the restaurant even still offers a “meatand-three” for just $9.99.
Getty, Eric England
Transition season: Making the most of it
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30
Best properties on the market
This week: Homes in Washington, D.C. X Dupont Circle The architect
of the Woodrow Wilson House and the Department of the Interior’s Main Building designed this three-bedroom Italian Renaissance Revival as his private home. The 1910 townhouse features three marble fireplaces; grand staircase and new elevator; balcony; chef’s kitchen; parlor and dining and living rooms; primary bedroom with fireplace and skylit spa bathroom; and lower-level recreation room and second kitchen. Outside are a front garden, patio, back deck, and roof deck with panoramic city views. $3,450,000. Michael Rankin, TTR Sotheby’s International Realty, (202) 271-3344 W Tenleytown The Rest is one of
the oldest houses in Washington, dating to the 1700s. The fivebedroom home on the city’s highest point has views of the Washington Monument; tradition says Dolley Madison watched from its tower as the White House burned in the War of 1812. Among its historic details are eight fireplaces, blown-glass windows, original floors and cabinetry, and hand-hewn chestnut beams. The 0.4-acre lot includes a guesthouse, pond, pergola, and grape arbor. $3,679,500. Wicca Davidson, Long & Foster/Luxury Portfolio International, (301) 980-5596 X Capitol Hill The 1903 Deer House is iconic
for its gala parties held indoors and out. Built by Antonio Malnati, a stonecutter who worked on the Executive Office Building, the sevenbedroom home features stone and wood carving; four fireplaces; a chef’s kitchen, wine cellar, and beamed, chestnut-paneled dining room; a generous living room; and a large in-law suite. The double lot has a landscaped front, a side porch, a garden courtyard with hand-painted mural, and a garage. $3,850,000. The Gary & Michael Team, Coldwell Banker Realty, (202) 439-6009 THE WEEK May 28, 2021
Best properties on the market
31
X Logan Circle This 1885
five-bedroom Victorian stands just off historic Logan Circle. The house has crown moldings, arched doorways, three fireplaces, and a four-story stairwell skylight; a gourmet kitchen with floor-to-ceiling cabinets, leading to a separate entertaining area with butler’s pantry, wine cooler, and fireplace; a second-floor owner’s suite with custom closets, bathroom with steam shower, and library with fireplace; and two lower-level rental studio apartments. Outdoor space includes a front garden and roof deck. $2,850,000. Carrie Mann, Compass, (301) 792-3135
Maryland
Washington, D.C.
W Capitol Hill The Doolittle-Tullock
House, a Richardsonian Victorian designed by Robert Stead in 1887, has hosted many political receptions. Currently owned by noted biographer James Swanson, the five-bedroom home includes nine fireplaces, an arched stained-glass window, a balcony with views of Capitol Hill, two parlors, a library with a bay window, a dining room with walnut coffered ceilings, and a fourth-floor garret that may have been the studio of Lincoln Memorial sculptor Daniel Chester French. $3,599,000. Maggie Daley, Coldwell Banker Realty, (202) 550-0972
Steal of the week
X Petworth In 1929, architects James E. Cooper
and George T. Santmyers created Hampshire Gardens, the first fully developed garden apartment complex in the city. This top-floor unit has hardwood floors, arched doorways, high ceilings, large windows, a modern kitchen with dining area, an ample living room, an updated bathroom, and a large, bright bedroom. The building is pet-friendly and includes extra storage space, a laundry, and access to expansive landscaped grounds. $224,900. David Bediz, Keller Williams, (202) 642-1616 THE WEEK May 28, 2021
BUSINESS The news at a glance
The bottom line Q The World Health Organization reported that 745,000 people died in 2016 from stroke and heart disease caused by working long hours. The research found that working 55 hours or more a week was associated with a 35 percent higher risk of stroke and a 17 percent higher risk of dying from heart disease.
BBC.com Q Five high-profile electricvehicle startups that went public through mergers with special-purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) have lost $40 billion in value. At their peaks, Nikola, Fisker, Lordstown, Canoo, and Arrival were worth a combined $60 billion.
Bloomberg.com Q Twenty
companies were responsible for producing 55 percent of the 130 million tons of single-use plastic waste in the world in 2019. ExxonMobil led all global plastic-waste polluters with 5.9 million tons; Dow Chemical (5.5 million) and China’s Sinopec (5.3 million) were just behind. TheGuardian.com Q Digital currency scammers impersonating Elon Musk have stolen more than $2 million in the past six months alone, according to regulators. Scammers seeking Bitcoin often claim that celebrities will match any money they are sent.
Insider.com Q Macy’s said its first-quarter sales jumped 56 percent from last year, when the start of the pandemic crushed retailers.
The New York Times Q Bank of America said it
would raise its lowest wage to $26 an hour by 2025. The bank brought its minimum pay to $15 an hour in 2017, then to $20 an hour in 2020. McDonald’s also said it is raising hourly pay, by an average of 10 percent. Yahoo.com THE WEEK May 28, 2021
Entertainment: AT&T calls it quits on media All that wasted time and money In a stunning “about-face from is tough to swallow, said Tara its $85 billion purchase of Time Lachapelle in Bloomberg.com. Warner in 2018,” AT&T said AT&T “fought tooth and nail” this week it would spin off its against the Justice Department media assets and merge them with to complete the Time Warner Discovery, said Edmund Lee and merger and create the scale it John Koblin in The New York believed it needed “to be able to Times. The combination of HBO, Spinning off a media powerhouse compete with Google, Amazon, Warner Bros. studios, CNN, and and Apple.” It was so proud of the accomplishseveral other cable networks with reality-based ment that it gave executive John Stankey a special Discovery channels such as HGTV and the Food Network will create the second-largest media com- bonus for completing the deal—and later made pany in the United States. The new company, trail- him CEO. Yet ever since, AT&T has struggled to explain its rationale for “a remarkable strategic ing only Disney in size, plans to spend $20 billion a year developing content to compete with Disney shift that launched the ultra-profitable wireless carrier into the ultra-unprofitable world of streamand Netflix. Discovery’s chief, David Zaslav, will oversee the new venture, while AT&T goes “back ing TV.” Now it’s stuck with unwinding a merger that’s a textbook example of corporate overreach. to being a purely telecommunications business.”
Bitcoin: Investors whipsawed by digital currencies The price of Bitcoin plunged more than 30 percent in a single day this week, then rebounded in a surprise rally, said Vildana Hajric in Bloomberg.com. Other cryptocurrencies also plummeted, including Ether and Dogecoin. The intense volatility, which at one point brought the total value of Bitcoin down $500 billion from its peak, shocked investors. “Nothing could explain the frantic rout” as Bitcoin “dropped thousands of dollars in price in a matter of minutes,” though a hint of restrictions from China’s central bank may have exacerbated the sell-off.
Streaming: Amazon seeks to buy MGM studio Amazon is negotiating a deal to acquire MGM, said Brooks Barnes in The New York Times. “It was unclear how much Amazon might be willing to spend,” but $9 billion is being floated as MGM’s asking price. The studio that was once “home to ‘more stars than the heavens’” owns a film collection that includes the James Bond, Hobbit, and Rocky franchises. Amazon recently brought back a top executive who helped build the company’s Prime streaming service, “underscoring Amazon’s growing ambition in Hollywood.”
Climate: International call to end new fossil-fuel search The International Energy Agency warned this week that new fossil fuel exploration projects must stop immediately if the world is to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050, said Leslie Hook and Anjli Raval in the Financial Times. The IEA’s report spelled out “how challenging it will be to get” to net zero emissions and “meet the Paris climate accord goal” of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. As part of an “overhaul of energy supply and demand,” the agency called for a quadrupling of the annual growth of solar and wind power by the end of the decade.
Microsoft: Board investigated Gates relationship Bill Gates stepped down from Microsoft’s board last year while it was investigating his romantic relationship with a female employee, said Emily Glazer in The Wall Street Journal. The investigation started after an engineer reported the relationship in a letter to the board. A spokeswoman for Gates confirmed “an affair almost 20 years ago which ended amicably,” but said his exit from the board was unrelated. The New York Times also reported last week that the Microsoft co-founder had “developed a reputation for questionable conduct in work settings,” pursuing several women who worked for him. Gates and his wife, Melinda, announced their divorce earlier this month after 27 years of marriage.
Choosing red or blue equals less green Aligning your portfolio with your political beliefs is costly, said Liam Denning and Nir Kaissar in Bloomberg .com. October saw the launch of the American Conservative Values ETF, which excludes companies that are “funding the ‘liberal agenda.’” Out go Facebook, Apple, Alphabet, and—since their executives criticized a new Georgia voting law—Delta and Coca-Cola. The rest of the portfolio looks “very much like the S&P 500 but with a rightward lean.” The difference is the price compared with investing in a regular S&P index tracker: ACVF’s expense ratio is 75 basis points, or .75 percent of your money every year, versus just 3 basis points for an inexpensive S&P 500 fund. Conservatives aren’t the only ones trying to “cash in on political tribalism.” There is also the Democratic Large Cap Core ETF “with a blue tinge,” which charges a somewhat less onerous 45 basis points.
Reuters, Alamy
32
Making money
BUSINESS 33
Reopening: The post-pandemic office takes shape to “inflate a translucent, cellophane “The future looks hybrid,” said Emma balloon wall.” Jacobs in the Financial Times. As companies develop plans to reopen offices, Australia might offer a more immedimore are envisioning the workplace as a ate and grounded “taste of what the “destination for innovation, collaboration, post-pandemic office might look like,” networking, coaching, and socializing,” said Krithika Varagur in The Wall rather than solitary tasks. For some busiStreet Journal. The country had strict nesses, this has meant a complete reimagearly lockdowns and aggressive quarining of the office. That means goodbye to antine protocols, and firms like Adobe, long rows of desks. WeTransfer, a cloud Facebook, and Dell returned to offices software business, “has removed half the last June. Still, it has been a long path desks in its offices” in favor of “workshop from “quarantine to unmasked meetrooms” and meeting spaces. One major ings.” Facebook ditched the buffet, and international bank, HSBC, is getting rid A badge swipe can adjust Google’s ‘hot desks’ “there are no more cookie jars in the of the executive suite. “I won’t be in the break room” at Dell. But office occupancy in Canberra is back office five days a week,” chief executive Noel Quinn said. to 65 percent, from around 30 percent last July. Sydney’s central Google’s amenity-filled campus was designed to keep workers at business district has begun to pick up again with workers who “stick around for happy hour.” the office as long as possible, said Daisuke Wakabayashi in The New York Times. The company began rethinking the “future “A hybrid future seems ideal,” said Bryan Walsh in Axios.com— of work” several years ago to accommodate a growing global employees get more flexibility, and “companies save on real esworkforce. But the pandemic has accelerated that realignment. Google’s famed cafeterias “will move from buffet style to boxed, tate.” But “no one actually knows how this will work.” Ideally, grab-and-go meals.” The massage rooms and fitness centers have the future will offer “the best of both worlds: the connections and experiences of in-person with the flexibility and freedom of closed. Instead of rows of desks, Google is designing “Team remote.” The risk is that hybrid work will “resemble the subpar Pods” on casters that can “be wheeled into various arrangements.” A circular meeting-room concept called Campfire is “in- hybrid schooling too many students have endured, with overterspersed with displays” for virtual participants. And those who worked teachers struggling to simultaneously handle in-person want more privacy at their desk can summon a robot on wheels and remote students.”
What the experts say An IRS refund logjam Taxpayers are encountering unprecedented delays getting refunds, said Laura Saunders in The Wall Street Journal. “A host of problems rooted in the Covid-19 pandemic” has led to a severe backlog at the Internal Revenue Service. The agency is “reviewing about 16 million 2020 returns, mostly because of tax changes last year and in March,” while simultaneously gearing up “to send checks to millions of families” who qualify for upfront child tax credits this summer. Having to delay two annual filing deadlines last year, apply new tax-law changes, and “coordinate 470 million stimulus payments” hasn’t made the IRS’s job easier. Fortunately, the agency will pay 3 percent interest on “most tax refunds issued after April 15,” as long as the return was filed by May 17.
Cayce Clifford/The New York Times/Redux
Measuring housing-cost inflation “If someone were to rent your home today, how much do you think it would go for monthly, unfurnished and without utilities?” asked Brian Chappatta in Bloomberg.com. It’s not an easy question, but it’s exactly the one asked by the Labor Department in its Consumer Expenditure Survey. Economists call the answer “owners’ equivalent rent,” and it makes up one-fourth of the U.S. Consumer
Charity of the week Price Index on its own. This “could have significant consequences for reported inflation statistics and monetary policy.” Homeowners can be slow “to adjust their expectations for a hypothetical rental price of their home” as the housing market rises. Last month, owners reported their equivalent rent increased 2 percent from a year earlier. The median price for a single-family home, on the other hand, rose 16.5 percent.
The unwanted GoFundMe “Setting up a GoFundMe without the knowledge or permission of a friend or neighbor or co-worker should be avoided in most, if not all, instances,” said Quentin Fottrell in MarketWatch.com. Consider this story of a person who was in a terrible accident that left them comatose in the intensive-care unit: Friends started a GoFundMe to pay the expenses, and soon “it was up to $15,000 and over 300 friends, even strangers, had contributed.” Unknown to the donors, however, “most of the expenses” from the hospitalization were covered by insurance. The patient had also recently inherited almost $1 million from a relative. If something like this happens to you, tell your friends you appreciate what they did for you, but refund the money.
The Academy of American Poets (poets.org), founded in 1934, exists to foster the appreciation of poetry and to support poets. Twentyfive years ago, the Academy launched National Poetry Month to remind the public of the part poetry plays in our culture, and it has now become one of the world’s premier literary celebrations. The Academy’s website provides multiple resources, including daily poetry readings, some from previously unpublished authors. It offers teachers educational resources and poetry lesson plans, and organizes regular poetry events. The Academy provides funds to poets, and offers a number of nationally recognized fellowships and prizes. Throughout the pandemic, the Academy has been offering $5,000 emergency grants to artists facing financial constraints. Each charity we feature has earned a four-star overall rating from Charity Navigator, which rates not-for-profit organizations on the strength of their finances, their governance practices, and the transparency of their operations. Four stars is the group’s highest rating. THE WEEK May 28, 2021
Best columns: Business
34
Inflation: Is an ancient specter returning?
How Apple lets China have its way Jack Nicas
The New York Times
The perfect currency for criminals Gina Chon
BreakingViews.com
THE WEEK May 28, 2021
Apple CEO Tim Cook often talks about the company’s commitment to civil liberties and privacy. “But to stay on the right side of Chinese regulators,” said Jack Nicas, his company has become “a powerful tool” of Beijing’s vast censorship operation. China has been essential to Apple’s growth as the world’s most valuable business. The Chinese government spent billions to “pave roads, recruit workers, and construct factories” for Apple’s massive supply chain. In return, China has aggressively sought concessions. In 2016, the government approved a law requiring that personal data “that is collected in China be kept in China.” Warned that Beijing could shut down
iCloud in China if Apple did not comply, Cook agreed to move Chinese customers’ personal data to the servers of a state-owned company in Guizhou province: Guizhou-Cloud Big Data, or GCBD. Then the digital keys that can unlock customer data were moved there, too—into the very “data centers they’re meant to secure.” In addition to compromising on data protections, Apple has “helped China spread its view of the world,” blocking and flagging apps that Apple managers “worry could run afoul of Chinese officials.” Indeed, “just as Cook figured out how to make China work for Apple, China is making Apple work for the Chinese government.”
It used to be that criminals could do no better than “a suitcase full of unmarked U.S. dollar bills,” said Gina Chon. But the Colonial Pipeline hack “shows the global currency of crime has a rival.” Last week, the fuel transport company paid $4.4 million in Bitcoin to the Russian cybercrime group DarkSide to regain access to their computer systems and get oil pumping again to the East Coast. The hackers’ demand was neither unprecedented nor surprising. Because “no personal information is needed to transfer or convert cryptocurrencies,” Bitcoin has long been the “go-to for ransom demands.” But in the past year, its rapid acceptance has made it even
more enticing for illicit activity, and “the market value of all Bitcoin in circulation” sits at nearly $900 billion today. More home sellers, yacht dealers, auction houses, luxury carmakers, and even the Dallas Mavericks have begun accepting cryptocurrency. Bitcoin’s move “from the fringe to the conventional” gives regulators even more reason to step in. The new Securities and Exchange Commission chairman, Gary Gensler—who taught a course called “Blockchain and Money” at MIT—has signaled the need for “more regulations around crypto activities.” The latest ransom payment should add to the watchdogs’ sense of urgency.
AP
cinated Americans to get out of their “Inflation is here,” said Neil Irwin in houses. Hotels and flights are packed The New York Times. The question is again, but car lots have been further how long it will stay. The Consumer emptied by a global shortage in semiPrice Index in April made its “steepest conductors. “This is not what durable, year-over-year jump in 13 years,” puteconomy-wide inflation is made of.” ting data behind the warnings that many economists and businesses have been isYet it is exactly how a wage-price spiral suing for weeks. “What is unusual about can begin, said Connel Fullenkamp this moment is that prices for so many in Newsweek.com. The stagflation of things are rising at once, albeit for differthe 1970s “also featured ‘temporary’ ent reasons.” Some costs, such as airfare, supply shocks—at the time, to energy are simply returning to pre-pandemic Rising airfares: Warning sign or just back to normal? and food—and easy monetary policy.” levels. In other cases, the causes of price increases—for instance, the spike in East Coast oil prices set off by The clearest sign of an impending crisis is that “businesses have a cyberattack—“are truly random events.” And supply shortages lost all fear of raising prices.” They are justifying it “by saying in everything from lumber to semiconductor chips could just be a that customers can afford it and everyone else is doing it, too.” symptom of “an economy rebooting itself.” But inflation watchers This creates a dangerous self-perpetuating cycle. Indeed, the Fed may have to raise interest rates “much higher than investors are on high alert, fretting that all these factors (and more) could anticipate,” said former New York Fed president Bill Dudley in unleash “price dynamics unseen since the early 1980s.” Bloomberg.com. Markets are expecting short-term rates to stay below 2 percent. But if inflation runs higher than its target, “one “Inflation hawks” said the same thing in 2011, said Paul Krugcould imagine a federal funds rate of 4.5 percent.” man, also in The New York Times. A similar surge in consumer prices caused mainly by rising oil prices arrived as the world There is both risk and opportunity for President Biden, said recovered from the 2008 financial crisis. But the Federal ReMatthew Yglesias, also in Bloomberg.com. “Rising prices for serve rightly stayed “focused on ‘core’ inflation, a measure food and energy may not matter to economists, but they do to that excludes volatile food and energy prices.” This time, core consumers.” Biden can “let Powell stay focused on the long-term inflation is temporarily up, but if you correct for the effects of health of the labor market.” But the White House should look “simply getting back to normal,” the data looks much tamer. at “unwinding the Trump-era U.S.-European tariff war on food Five categories—used cars, rental cars, airfare, and lodging and products,” and at expanding visa programs to stem the shortfood away from home—contributed nearly 60 percent of the age in agricultural labor. Prices at the supermarket “matter to increase in prices, said Eric Levitz in New York magazine. These people’s lives and to politicians’ futures.” are “artifacts of the pandemic economy” and the rush by vac-
Obituaries The brash architect who aimed to dazzle Whether it’s love or loathing, Helmut Jahn’s buildings 1940–2021 always inspire a strong reaction. The German-born architect achieved rock-star status in the 1980s and ’90s with brash and playful designs that commanded eyeballs and dominated skylines. His modernist works include the neo-Deco Liberty Place skyscraper in Philadelphia—a steroid-pumped take on New York’s elegant Chrysler Building—and the spaceship-like Sony Center in Berlin. But he left his biggest stamp on Chicago, where his numerous creations include the James R. Thompson Center, a gleaming government office complex with a conical atrium framed in turquoise glass and pink steel, and the swaggering United Airlines terminal at O’Hare Airport, with its exposed steel framework and curving, neon-lit underground tunnel. Partial to Porsches and racing yachts, the handsome architect shrugged off critics who derided his designs as ugly and impractical. “Controversy is good,” said Jahn, who died in a cycling accident. “I’d rather have people talk about buildings than say, ‘Well, that’s just another building that I didn’t see.’” Helmut Jahn
He was born in Nuremberg, to a specialeducation teacher father and a homemaker mother, said The New York Times. As a boy
Jahn “aspired to be an airline pilot,” but a love of drawing ultimately attracted him to architecture. He graduated from the Technical University of Munich, then in 1966 went to Chicago to study at the Illinois Institute of Technology under the modernist master Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Refusing to follow his tutors’ briefs, he quit after a year and joined the venerable architectural firm C.F. Murphy Associates. Though fresh out of school, he played a major role in the 1971 design of Chicago’s McCormick Place convention center, an “epic structure of black steel and glass” by Lake Michigan, said the Chicago Tribune. Nine years later, he “designed his first official Chicago skyscraper,” the curved, glass-and-aluminum Xerox Center. In 1981, the firm was renamed Murphy/Jahn, and eventually just Jahn. “By the late 2000s, Jahn’s popularity had waned,” said The Guardian (U.K.). Linked to the “excesses of the previous decades,” his practice shrank to a third of its previous size. In a 2018 interview, Jahn bemoaned the “banality” that had overtaken architecture, dictated by profit-minded corporate clients. “There is no emotion, no imagination, no invention,” he said. “I prefer when form follows force rather than function.”
The chemist who made Post-it Notes sticky Spencer Silver’s most famous creation at first seemed utterly 1941–2021 useless. In 1968, he was working as a research chemist at a 3M lab, tasked with devising an adhesive so strong that it could be used in aircraft construction. The product he came up with was heat resistant, clear, and could be removed from a surface without losing stickiness or leaving a residue. But it was too weak to affix anything heavier than a piece of paper. Still, Silver patented his invention, saying he was certain he’d found “a solution waiting for a problem to solve.” That problem arrived in 1974, when 3M scientist Arthur Fry was at church choir practice and fuming about how the pieces of paper he used to bookmark songs in his hymnal kept falling out. Fry wondered if he could create a sticky bookmark. “Then I thought of Spence’s adhesive,” he said. Fry’s experiments led to the Post-it Note, introduced by 3M in 1980. The company now sells 50 billion Postits a year, blanketing offices and homes with reminders, messages, and to-do lists.
Amin Akhtar/laif/Redux, 3M
Spencer Silver
Silver was born in San Antonio to an accountant father and secretary mother, said The Wall Street
Journal. After studying chemistry in college, Silver joined 3M, known for giving employees freedom “to pursue ideas in the company’s vast laboratories.” He immediately knew the adhesive he’d created was special— even if it couldn’t hold together airplane parts. Under magnification, it had “beautiful, bright, clear, crystalline spheres,” he said, “like little glass balls.” Told to shelve his invention, Silver instead began giving seminars for 3M’s product developers, said The New York Times, promoting the adhesive “so assiduously” that he earned the nickname Mr. Persistent. Originally named Press ’n Peel pads, the product took off when 3M gave free samples to offices in Boise, said The Washington Post. “First produced in canary yellow,” Post-it Notes are now sold in virtually every shape and color imaginable. “In an irony that brings Silver’s chemical experimentation full circle, the product is also available in a ‘Super Sticky’ incarnation.” Silver, who received 36 other patents and retired in 1996, drew “almost cosmic meaning” from his unique adhesive. “It doesn’t break down,” he said. “The paper will eventually deteriorate, but the stickiness will always remain.”
35 The outdoorsman who turned Orvis into a lifestyle powerhouse Leigh H. Perkins turned his love of the outdoors into a multimillion-dollar business. In 1965, the former mining and metals executive took out a Leigh H. $200,000 loan to buy Orvis, Perkins a 109-year1927–2021 old mailorder fishing-tackle shop in Manchester, Vt. An Orvis customer since college, Perkins transformed the firm from a purveyor of niche fishing gear into an upscale outdoors brand, selling everything from graphite fly rods to engraved drinking glasses, linen dresses, and polyester dog beds. Perkins spent more than 250 days a year hunting and fishing, often testing the company’s kit himself. Orvis “sold a way of life,” he said, “and it made sense to me that the boss was living that life.” When Perkins handed Orvis over to his sons in 1992, it had grown into a $90 million–ayear business; that number has since quadrupled. The scion of a wealthy Cleveland family, Perkins “inherited an abiding interest in the outdoors from his mother,” who took him fishing and alligator-hunting, said The Washington Post. After graduating from Williams College in Massachusetts, he spent 15 years working in industry, rising to become the vice president of a gas welding and equipment firm. He “quit after he learned that the president’s son was taking over the business,” and bought Orvis. “Shortly after, Perkins opened the Orvis fly-fishing school in Vermont, thought to be the first of its kind in the U.S.,” said The New York Times. The idea was to democratize the world of fly-fishing, traditionally the domain of the upper crust, and to build the company’s customer base. There was only one reason to go fishing, Perkins explained: “To enjoy yourself. Anything that detracts from enjoying yourself is to be avoided.” THE WEEK May 28, 2021
The last word
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A stowaway at 35,000 feet Climbing into an airplane’s wheel well is a feat of almost unimaginable desperation, said Sirin Kale in The Guardian. It leads to freezing and oxygen deprivation—yet incredibly, some stowaways survive.
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June 30, 2019, a balmy summer’s afternoon, and Wil, a 31-year-old software engineer, was lounging on an inflatable air bed outside his house in southwest London. He wore pajamas and drank Polish beer. As he chatted to his housemate in the sunshine, planes on their way to Heathrow Airport made their final approach overhead. On his phone, Wil showed his housemate an app that tells users the route and model of any passing plane. He tested the app on one plane, and then held his phone up again, shielding his eyes from the sun and squinting into the sky.
the body, which can cause heart attacks and brain death.
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And yet what is truly extraordinary, given the risks involved, is that some stowaways do survive. “Something happens that we don’t fully understand,” said Paulo Alves of the U.K.’s Aerospace Medical Association. Their best guess about how some stowaways cheat death? They hibernate.
Stephen Veronneau, the world’s leading expert on wheelwell stowaways, In a jetliner’s wheel well, the noise is relentless, and the temperature is minus 35 degrees. outlined this theory Then he saw something in a 1996 paper for the Federal Aviation falling. “At first I thought it was a bag,” rucksack didn’t contain any significant Administration. “The person’s core body he said. “But after a few seconds it turned clues: just some bread, a bottle of Fanta, a temperature can fall to 27 Celsius (about into quite a large object, and it was fallbottle of water, and a pair of trainers. 81 degrees Fahrenheit), or even lower. ing fast.” Maybe a piece of machinery had TOWING AWAY IN the wheel well of When the plane lands, a gradual rewarming fallen from the landing gear, he thought, a passenger jet is a suicidally dangeroccurs, along with reoxygenation.” To be or a suitcase from the cargo hold. But then ous thing to do. According to the U.S. frozen, and come back to life. It is fantastihe half-remembered an article he had read Federal Aviation Administration, from 1947 cal. And yet, it seems to be true. years before, about people stowing away on to February 2020, 128 people around the planes. He didn’t want to believe it, but as HE KENYA AIRWAYS stowaway case world attempted to stow away in this manthe object got nearer and nearer, it became would normally have been one for ner. More than 75 percent of them died. impossible to deny. “In the last second or the London police’s missing persons This is not surprising. At every stage, immitwo of it falling, I saw limbs,” said Wil. “I unit, but the team was swamped. So Det. nent death is all but assured. was convinced that it was a human body.” Sgt. Paul Graves of the specialist crime The stowaway may fall out of the plane unit volunteered. In his three-decade career Wil took a screenshot of the flight app notias it is taking off. If he survives takeoff, as a police officer, Graves had worked on fication, and his housemate called the police he can be crushed by the landing gear as stabbings, shootings, kidnappings, and to give them the details: Kenya Airways it retracts into the wheel well. If he avoids attempted murders. Graves hoped to idenflight KQ 100, a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner that too, he will probably die shortly after. tify the fallen man and repatriate his body, that had left Nairobi’s Jomo Kenyatta Within about 25 minutes of takeoff, most but he wasn’t optimistic. International Airport eight hours and six passenger planes reach a cruising altitude minutes earlier, at 9:35 a.m. local time. Wil of 35,000 feet. The temperature outside In September 2019 Graves flew to Kenya, turned out to be right. It was a body. It— the plane is approximately minus 65 hoping to uncover any information that he—had plummeted 3,500 feet, half-frozen, Fahrenheit, although the hydraulic lines might help identify the stowaway. He visited hitting the ground at 3:38 p.m. He was the used to extend and retract the landing gear slums around the airport, and mortuaries, man who fell from the sky. emit heat, raising the temperature by as which were full of unclaimed bodies. The The body landed on Offerton Road, 1,000 much as 35 degrees. Still, minus 30 is cold airport’s CCTV recordings of the deparfeet from Wil’s house. Police contacted enough to induce fatal hypothermia. The ture gate and runway show that nobody Heathrow, which dispatched staff to exam- air pressure at cruising altitude is around jumped on the plane as it was taking off ine the Kenya Airways plane’s wheel wells, four times lower than sea level, which and nobody climbed into the undercarthe unpressurized area into which the means that a person’s lungs cannot draw riage while it was at Gate 17. That means plane’s landing gear retracts after takeoff. sufficient oxygen from the air. This will the stowaway almost certainly boarded the Inside, staff found a grubby khaki rucksack lead to hypoxia, when the blood is not able plane earlier, as the plane waited in an area with the initials MCA written on it. The to supply enough oxygen to the tissues of where CCTV coverage was less clear.
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The last word From a physical perspective, getting on the plane wouldn’t have been difficult. To access the wheel well, you have to shimmy about 6 feet up the landing gear—it is covered in struts, making it easy to get a foothold—and crawl into the cavity that the wheels retract into after takeoff. The hard part would have been gaining access to the aircraft before takeoff. Security at Jomo Kenyatta International was tight. “There was no evidence of any obvious security breaches,” said Graves. “All the staff had to use passes to go through secure gates.” For the people who run airports, stowaways are embarrassing, dangerous, and often lead to demands for expensive security upgrades. For Kenyan authorities, there may have been an additional concern. In 2017, Jomo Kenyatta International Airport received a category 1 security classification, permitting direct flights to the U.S. By the end of 2019, Kenyan officials had wrapped up their investigation, and no breach had been found at Jomo Kenyatta International. It retained its category 1 security status. For Graves, though, the story was always bigger than how the stowaway made it on to the plane. The question was why. “We saw the aftermath of someone falling from an aeroplane,” said Graves. “But for me, the interesting part was, where did the story start?”
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INCE THE EARLIEST days of aviation, there have been stowaways. People from countries such as Cuba, South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, and China have secretly climbed onto planes in the hope of leaving their old life behind. They abscond for all kinds of reasons: poverty, unhappiness, boredom, despair. Bas Wie, the 12-year-old who stowed away in a Douglas DC-3 from Indonesia to Australia in 1946, was an orphan who worked for food in the kitchens of Kupang Airport in West Timor. A teenager who flew in the wheel well of a Boeing 767 from California to Hawaii said he was trying to get back to his mother in Somalia. Every known wheel-well stowaway has been male. The youngest documented was a boy of 9.
Cuba is the most common country of origin for wheel-well stowaways, with nine cases since 1947. Armando Socarras Ramirez was the first. In June 1969, when he was 17, Ramirez hid in the right wheel well of a Douglas DC-8 that was due to make the eight-hour flight from Havana to Madrid. Upon landing, the pilot found Ramirez lying under the plane, covered in ice, not breathing. “The doctors in Spain called me the Popsicle!” Ramirez told me recently. He is now 69, a father of four and grandfather of 12, and lives in Virginia.
Ramirez got the idea to stow away from his friend Jorge Pérez Blanco, who was a year younger. Together, they staked out Havana Airport. “The only airline suitable was Iberia,” Ramirez said, “because the rest were going to communist countries. If we’d landed there, they’d have sent us right back—maybe in the same wheel well!” The Iberia Airlines flight from Madrid landed on a Tuesday morning, refueled, and departed on Tuesday evening. On June 3, 1969, Ramirez and Pérez waited outside the perimeter fence. Ramirez carried a rope, a flashlight, and cotton wool to stuff into his ears. As the plane began to taxi toward the runway, they jumped
37 Then he came to. “I saw people around me and the room was moving around, like I was dizzy,” he says. “Everything was moving, the walls were moving, and the lights were moving from side to side.” Ramirez spent the next 52 days recovering in the hospital. At first, he was unable to hear anything, and staff had to communicate with him using a chalkboard, but after a month, his hearing returned. Incredibly, he says, he has suffered no long-term health consequences. “My blood pressure is normal, my heartbeat is normal,” he said. He worked as a firefighter for 11 years. Ramirez has only one regret. “After me, in Cuba, a lot of youngsters tried to do what I did,” he said, “and most of them died.”
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Ramirez survived a Havana-to-Madrid flight.
the fence. Pérez started to have second thoughts, and Ramirez half-dragged him to the plane. The engines were roaring madly. They approached from the rear. Pérez, who shortly after fell out of the plane and was found alive on the runway, entered the left wheel well, and Ramirez the right. The plane took off. “When the plane got up in the air,” Ramirez says, “the compartment started opening up to let the wheels come inside. I was hanging on with my fingertips to the edge of the compartment and being blown sideways by the wind.” Inside the wheel well, it was black and deafening. “You became part of the noise. It made me shake. I put some cotton wool in my ears, but it didn’t work. When you become the noise, it’s beyond comprehension,” he said. But, wedged into the corner of the compartment, Ramirez felt overjoyed. “I was content,” he said, “because I made it.” He leaned against the tires, which were hot to the touch but cooled down quickly as the temperature in the wheel well plunged. “It was very, very freezing,” he said, “and I was shivering and shaking.” He passed out, and his next memory is of waking up underneath the plane in Madrid, before he blacked out again. Paramedics were called. Staff carried him into the airport and left him on the ground, thinking he was dead.
E STILL DO not know the identity of the man who fell to the earth on June 30, 2019. All we know— or think we know—are the last things he would have seen and heard. The grunt and hiss of hydraulics inside the wheel well, as flight KQ 100 waited on the runway in Nairobi. The clattering footsteps on metal stairs as passengers boarded the plane. The plane taxiing toward the runway. A pause, and then the drone of Rolls-Royce engines attacking asphalt at 180 mph. The plane picking up speed, the noise intensifying into the pneumatic whine of a thousand dentist’s drills. Liftoff. A whip of wind, an icy chill, and up to 10,000 feet, 20,000 feet, 35,000 feet. Colder and colder. Unconsciousness. Oblivion.
He was buried in Lambeth cemetery on Feb. 26, 2020. It was a beautiful morning, clear and freezing cold. As workers prepared to lower the body into the ground, a solitary mourner panted into view. An official from the Kenyan embassy, dressed in a black suit and leather shoes, barely making it in time. The workmen lowered the coffin into the ground, and inclined their heads for a few seconds. On the coffin was a metal plaque, reading “Unknown (Male), Died 30th June 2019, Aged 30.” When the body was in the ground, the embassy worker spun on his heels and hurried away. I looked at the grave. A nameless man lay before me in a little plot of southwest London, in an unmarked grave, identifiable only by a simple wooden cross and a numeric code. There are so many people like him. The horror of the Kenya Airways stowaway’s death made for newspaper headlines, but many more migrants die, in equally horrific circumstances, every week. They keep quiet counsel in unvisited graves, and their stories vanish with them. Adapted from a story first published in The Guardian. Used with permission. THE WEEK May 28, 2021
The Puzzle Page
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The Week Contest This week’s question: The U.S. government will soon release a report acknowledging that military pilots and other credible sources have seen numerous unidentified flying objects performing maneuvers beyond the capabilities of any earthly aircraft. Given that the government downplayed UFO sightings for decades, what should the title of this report be? Last week’s contest: A 19-year-old drawn by an ad for an inexpensive apartment unwittingly moved into an Arkansas retirement community. Madison Kohout says her elderly neighbors bring her meals and don’t mind if she plays loud music “because some of them can’t hear.” If a TV network were to make a sitcom about Kohout’s unusual living situation, what should it be titled? THE WINNER: “That 70+ Show” Ziva Berkowitz Kimmel, Anchorage SECOND PLACE: “When Zoomer met Boomer” Steve Green, Peoria, Ariz. THIRD PLACE: “The Young and the Rest Home” George Strong, Plano, Texas For runners-up and complete contest rules, please go to theweek.com/contest. How to enter: Submissions should be emailed to contest @theweek.com. Please include your name, address, and daytime telephone number for verification; this week, type “UFO report” in the subject line. Entries are due by noon, Eastern Time, Tuesday, May 25. Winners will appear on the Puzzle Page next issue and at theweek.com/puzzles on Friday, May 28. In the case of identical or similar entries, the first one received gets credit. W The winner gets a one-year subscription to The Week.
Sudoku Fill in all the boxes so that each row, column, and outlined square includes all the numbers from 1 through 9. Difficulty: super-hard
Find the solutions to all The Week’s puzzles online: www.theweek.com/puzzle.
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