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PURGED FOR TELLING THE TRUTH

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Rep. Liz Cheney

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MAY 21, 2021 VOLUME 21 ISSUE 1028 ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT EVERYTHING THAT MATTERS

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Contents

3

Editor’s letter Nearly a century ago, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis wrote that the best remedy to “falsehood and fallacies” was not the “enforced silence” of censorship, but “more speech.” That foundational defense of free speech was based on an optimistic assumption that has served us well: In the marketplace of ideas, good thinking and truth will eventually triumph over bad thinking and lies. Can we be so confident of that today? Social media has deeply disrupted public discourse, eroding and bypassing filters, and turning every crank into a publisher with the potential for vast reach. On Facebook and Twitter, every day brings a new tsunami of hyper-partisan argument, tribal resentment, propaganda of all flavors, death threats, conspiracy theories, and some charming baby pictures and wonderful writing and thinking. The wonderful stuff—Brandeis’ “more speech”—isn’t necessarily triumphing over “falsehoods and fallacies.” That’s why Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg now faces fraught decisions about policing his

massive, privately owned platform. (See Controversy, p.6.)

Zuckerberg’s reluctance to serve as “an arbiter of truth” is understandable: How does Facebook screen the 4.7 billion posts that its 2.7 billion users share each day? It can’t. But its rage-reinforcing algorithm, allied with and fed by the Fox News media ecosystem, have enabled tens of millions of Americans to secede into an alternative reality that facts and evidence do not penetrate. In this bubble, massive voter fraud cost Donald Trump the 2020 election, Jan. 6 was a peaceful assembly of patriots, Rep. Liz Cheney is a traitor, Covid was not dangerous, masks offered no protection, and lifesaving vaccines are part of a sinister plot.

These lies have led to hundreds of thousands of avoidable deaths during the pandemic, and a violent attempt to overturn an election. They now threaten democracy itself. Truth and our better angels may prevail in the long run, but let’s be William Falk Editor-in-chief honest: The outcome is uncertain.

NEWS 4 Main stories A disappointing jobs report; the House GOP punishes Liz Cheney; FDA authorizes Covid vaccine for younger teens 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 Is it time for Facebook to let Donald Trump back on its platform?

7 The U.S. at a glance Gas shortages in the Southeast; NRA denied bankruptcy protection 8 The world at a glance The U.K. and France get in a fish fight; Israel and Gaza slide toward war

Getty (2)

10 People Billie Eilish’s body-image battles; Seth Rogen’s love of pot and pottery 11 Briefing What will it take to vaccinate the world against Covid-19?

14 Best U.S. columns Arizona’s bizarre election “audit”; was the coronavirus made in a lab?

17 Best international columns Vladimir Putin ramps up the authoritarianism 18 Talking points Fox News boosts Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis; the fight over subsidized day care; should the vaccinated take off their masks?

Israeli security forces clash with Palestinians in Jerusalem’s Old City (p.8)

ARTS 26 Books A deep dive into the new field of “mom science” 27 Author of the week Stacey Abrams on her side career as a romance and thriller novelist 28 Art & Stage Photographer Dawoud Bey’s magical visions 29 Film & Music Is this the end for the Golden Globes?

Billie Eilish (p.10)

LEISURE 31 Food & Drink A low-stress fish stew from Nigella Lawson; three Mexican corn whiskeys 32 Consumer Gear for outdoor adventures with kids; buying a vintage car online BUSINESS 36 News at a glance Investors spooked by inflation spike; companies plan big share buybacks 37 Making money Older workers say goodbye to the daily grind; the hunt for the next hit cryptocoin 38 Best columns Patent protections and Covid-19 vaccines; factories struggle with shortages

Chief sales and marketing officer: Adam Dub SVP, marketing: Lisa Boyars Executive account director: Sara Schiano West Coast executive director: Tony Imperato Account director: Meg Power President, Smyth Publishing Services, Inc.: Anthony Smyth Director, digital operations & advertising: Andy Price Manager, digital campaign operations: Andrea Crino North American CEO: Randy Siegel Director, financial reporting: Arielle Starkman VP consumer marketing: Yanna WilsonFischer 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 21, 2021

4 NEWS

The main stories...

Jobs report sparks debate over Biden’s policies What happened

working.” As a result of Biden’s largesse, “most lower-income workers can make more sitting on the couch.”

It wasn’t all bad

Q Fashion designer Linda Rowe Thomas is inspiring many through her life story and her perseverance.

Q One afternoon, 4-year-old Noah When she was 2, Thomas suffered third-degree burns Ruiz really wanted a SpongeBob when a kerosene heater exploded in her Texas home.

SquarePants popsicle. His mother, She had to get all the fingers on her left hand amJennifer Bryant, saw they only seemed putated and went through intensive surgeries and to be available by the case and decided therapy sessions. Her mother introduced sewing to not to order. The next day she got a call her as a way to help keep from her sister notifying her of three her hands nimble and 70-pound boxes. Turns out, Noah had heal. Now her creations ordered nearly 1,000 popsicles on Amgrace the runway and azon, worth $2,618.85, that could not red carpet, and she has a be returned. Fortunately, others pitched nonprofit helping other in to cover the costs—plus thousands burn survivors. “I’m proud more for Noah’s education—through a of who I am,” Thomas said.

GoFundMe account set up by Bryant’s “I’m hoping that the light former classmate. “You have new my mother gave me gives friends now,” Bryant told her son. someone else light.”

Thomas: Giving back

THE WEEK May 21, 2021

Q In 2016, Jess Wedel was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. After multiple cancer surgeries and months of chemotherapy she was finally cancer free—and ready for another achievement. This week Jess and her mother Valari Wedel reached the Everest base camp at 17,600 feet, hoping to become the first mother-daughter duo to get to the summit. The two have already gotten through 60 mile-per-hour winds and 43 hours of whiteout conditions. It’s a grueling effort for both; Valari is 61 and suffers from asthma.

“When we say we live everyday,” said Valari, “we really do because we have been in a place where we maybe didn’t have the next day.”

Illustration by Howard McWilliam.

Cover photos from AP, Alamy, AP

Getty (2)

Republicans and Democrats sparred over how to spark hiring and boost the economy this week, in the wake of a jobs The jobless benefits might have been report that fell drastically short of expectadefensible when we were “in the belly tions. Federal data showed the U.S. added of a once-in-a-century pandemic,” said 266,000 jobs in April, a steep drop from NationalReview.com. “But we are in a recent gains and a fraction of the 1 million much different place today,” with case jobs economists had anticipated. Republinumbers plummeting, lockdowns lifted, cans said the report showed the failure of and businesses clamoring for workers. It’s President Biden’s policies, in particular the time to cut off those $300 checks. $300 weekly unemployment supplements included in the last Covid stimulus bill.

What the columnists said Critics said the payments were deterring A store in Annapolis, Md. The problem isn’t unemployment payAmericans from returning to work, leaving ments, said Jacob Silverman in NewRepublic.com, it’s lousy jobs businesses desperate to fill vacancies. Labor Department figures that pay rotten wages. The equation is simple: If employers want showed a record 8.1 million job openings in March, despite a 6.1 people to risk their lives by flipping burgers, waiting tables, filling percent unemployment rate, and a survey by the National Federation of Independent Business showed 44 percent of small businesses shelves, or dealing with maskless customers amid “the greatest public health crisis in America’s history, then they should pay them couldn’t fill openings. Republican governors in Arkansas, South more.” We can’t let the Republican canard that workers “should be Carolina, and Montana moved to cut off the payments in their states. They’ve “turned into a dangerous federal entitlement, incen- grateful for whatever crummy, sub-subsistence job they manage to get” become “the prevailing economic wisdom once again.” tivizing and paying workers to stay at home,” said South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster.

Republicans see this one-month jobs report as “an opportunity,” said Paul Waldman in The Washington Post. They’re very worBiden and fellow Democrats dismissed the charge that the benefits ried that Biden’s Covid assistance plan has been so popular and have significantly dented hiring. They said a host of factors was his infrastructure proposal polls so well, and the job numbers give keeping workers at home, including continuing fears of Covid and them an opening to “discredit government spending by characterchild care problems caused by partially opened schools and dayizing its recipients as contemptible layabouts.” The same lawmakers care centers. Biden argued that the job numbers underscored the need to pass his American Jobs and American Families plans, which are “committed to making work as miserable and unremunerative as possible.” They fight family leave, workplace safety regulations, would create infrastructure and other jobs and expand child care access. He touted the 1.5 million jobs added since January and said collective bargaining, and a minimum-wage boost, then puzzle over why workers aren’t “rushing back to take any job they can find.” the effects of the $1.9 trillion aid bill passed in March have yet to be fully felt. “Our efforts are starting to work,” he said. “But the The jobs report fueled partisans “across the ideological spectrum climb is steep, and we’ve got a long way to go.” to declare that their policy ideas were vindicated,” said Ben White and Rebecca Rainey in Politico.com. But here’s another possibilWhat the editorials said ity: It “could mean nothing much at all.” Monthly numbers “can “Welcome to the supply-side jobs slowdown,” said The Wall be highly volatile,” and it’ll take several more of them before we Street Journal. The Keynesians on Biden’s team have followed the know if April’s was a blip or a sign of something deeper and lasting. standard demand-side strategy: “Bathe the country in government “People can bang the table and say they know exactly what hapcash, keep interest rates at zero, and the resulting rise in consumer pened,” said economist Ian Shepherdson, “but they don’t, and we demand will drive everything.” But employers have been saying won’t know for a while.” for months they can’t fill jobs, thanks to federal checks “for not

... and how they were covered

NEWS 5

House Republicans oust Cheney What happened

What the columnists said

House Republicans voted to purge Rep. Liz “It isn’t Cheney who is preventing Republicans Cheney of Wyoming from their leadership from moving on and repairing the wounds ranks this week, ousting their No. 3 leader from the 2020 election,” said NationalReview in retaliation for Cheney’s ongoing criti.com in an editorial. She is consistently consercism of former President Trump and his vative and voted with Trump on substantive claim that last year’s election was stolen. issues 93 percent of the time, compared with “If you want leaders who will enable and 78 percent for Stefanik. But Cheney will not spread his destructive lies, I’m not your repeat Trump’s stolen-election lie, which he person,” she said before the vote, drawing continues to press in TV appearances, blog boos from GOP colleagues. Cheney, the posts, and speeches at Mar-a-Lago. If we daughter of former Vice President Dick conservatives want to move forward, bowing Cheney, had survived an earlier challenge to Trump is “a funny way to show it.”

Cheney after the GOP vote after voting to impeach Trump following the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. But she continued to feud with House Cheney went too far, said Byron York in WashingtonExaminer.com.

Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who says he doesn’t want to The GOP stood by Cheney after she and nine House Republicans “relitigate the past” and has courted Trump’s support. voted to impeach Trump, but “she couldn’t seem to stop talking about Trump, and of course, many in the media” love her criticism “If no one is following you, you are only taking a walk,” Rep. Vir- of him and of the GOP. Constantly undermining the party’s messaging is not the job description of House Republican Conference chair. ginia Foxx of North Carolina said after filing the resolution to boot Cheney. “You, Liz, are only taking a walk.” House Republicans are expected to replace Cheney with Rep. Elise Stefanik, 36, The GOP is significantly more radical than it was last fall, said Mona of New York, a onetime moderate who became a fierce Trump Charen in TheBulwark.com, when most Republicans “held the line” loyalist and objected to certifying President Biden’s election victory. and rejected Trump’s pleas to decertify the election. Now, “if Cheney While her colleagues see Trump as vital to reclaiming a House ma- must be axed because she will not lie,” what will happen if the GOP jority, Cheney believes the party glosses over polling evidence that takes control of Congress next year? If Trump runs in 2024 and asks Trump is deeply unpopular in battleground districts. After losing Congress to override the Electoral College, will Republicans defer her post, Cheney said she is still committed to doing “everything to “the rule of law”—or to Trump? By purging truth tellers like I can to ensure that the former president never again gets near the Cheney, GOP leaders have aligned themselves with the Jan. 6 mob.

Oval Office.”

Beware: “The real steal is coming.”

Vaccines authorized for younger teens as Covid cases fall What happened The FDA authorized the use of Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine in children ages 12 to 15 this week, a decision that health experts hope will bring the U.S. closer to herd immunity. Vaccinating younger teens “could be a big game changer,” said Dr. Sean O’Leary of the American Academy of Pediatrics, because “adolescents tend to be both more likely to get infected and to spread the infection, relative to the younger kids.” Clinical trials found that Pfizer’s two-dose vaccine—already available to anyone over 16—is safe and 100 percent effective in 12- to 15-year-olds. Pfizer and other vaccine manufacturers are currently trialing their Covid shots on children younger than 12, and it’s hoped that a vaccine might be authorized for that age group as early as fall.

Getty

Nearly 60 percent of American adults have now received at least one dose of a vaccine, and 45 percent are fully inoculated.

As those numbers have increased, Covid infections and deaths have plummeted. The U.S. is now averaging 38,000 new cases a day—down 85 percent from January—and 600 deaths a day, the lowest level in 10 months. In more than half the states, daily fatality rates are in the single figures. “We have in effect tamed the virus,” said infectious disease specialist Dr. Amesh Adalja.

people who thought Covid was overblown “will feel more validated in their thinking.” The vaccination rate has already dropped 35 percent from mid-April, to about 2.2 million shots being administered a day. To achieve herd immunity—thought to require 80 percent of the population to have protection against a virus—and prevent future flareups of the disease, we will likely need schools and businesses to mandate vaccinations.

Don’t confuse herd immunity with “the complete eradication of the virus,” said Michael Hiltzik in the Los Angeles Times. In all history, we’ve only wiped out one virus: smallpox. Our goal with Covid is instead to drive down the number of new infections to the level where the few cases that do arise can be handled “by the health-care system as routinely as measles or mumps.”

And thanks to a combination of vaccines and natural immunity among those who’ve recovered from Covid, that point “may not be too far off.”

Yet because 30 percent of the U.S. population doesn’t see the urgency of getting inoculated, this disease might “linger, as a more manageable threat, for generations,” said David Brooks in The New York Times. “Could today’s version of America have been able to win World War II?” That victory required national cohesion, trust in institutions, and a willingness to sacrifice for What the columnists said “There’s a downside to this otherwise rosy picture,” said Dr. Leana the common good. All those are lacking today when we face an enemy that should be easier to defeat. “We’re not asking you to Wen in The Washington Post: “Those on the fence about vacstorm the beaches of Iwo Jima; we’re asking you to walk into a cination will have even less reason to get inoculated.” As case damn CVS.” numbers fall, schools reopen, and states drop mask mandates, THE WEEK May 21, 2021

6 NEWS

Controversy of the week

Social media: Facebook’s Trump problem servative voices makes this a “chilling time in “Over to you, Mark Zuckerberg,” said Eugene our nation’s history.” Trump’s lies and inciteRobinson in The Washington Post. In a muchment were indefensible, said The Wall Street anticipated ruling, Facebook’s independent Journal in an editorial. But an even “graver Oversight Board last week upheld the social threat to democracy” is letting unelected tech media giant’s indefinite suspension of former executives decide which political messages President Donald Trump for incendiary posts are fit for Americans to see. about the “stolen” election and the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, but set a six-month deadline for The claim that Facebook has a bias against Facebook either to reinstate Trump or make conservatives is laughable, said Adam his ban permanent. Even more irksome for Gabbatt in TheGuardian.com. In 2020, Zuckerberg—who set up the 20-member Trump’s old Facebook page: Gone for good? right-leaning Facebook posts averaged 9 bilOversight Board to relieve himself of these lion “interactions,” compared with only 5 billion for left-leaning thorny questions—the decision on Trump must be articulated in posts, and right-wing content from the Daily Wire, Fox News, a clear standard that applies equally to all of Facebook’s 2.8 biland Trumpist conspiracy theorist Dan Bongino still dominates lion users. Zuckerberg has said he doesn’t want to be “an arbiter Facebook’s daily rankings. Although Trump rages about Facebook of truth,” said Jon Healey in the Los Angeles Times, claiming now, said Michael Kruse in Politico.com, he wouldn’t “have Facebook is a neutral platform that merely hosts the free speech of become president without it.” In 2016, Trump’s campaign used its users and advertisers. But that’s just not true—witness the army Facebook’s databases and algorithms to tailor messages with highly of more than 15,000 “content moderators” he already employs to effective precision. In 2020, Trump was Mark Zuckerberg’s biggest remove a daily flood of offensive, misleading, and inflammatory advertiser—dropping more than $100 million on the presidential posts. Whether or not Trump’s account is reactivated, Facebook and other platforms must start policing their sites with “more con- race. So how again is the site biased against conservatives? sistency, transparency,” and genuine concern for our society.

Social media does have one indisputable bias, said Vivek Wadhwa in ForeignPolicy.com. These platforms make money from holding The decision to extend Trump’s ban was utterly predictable, said users’ attention, so their algorithms are designed to supply whatever Joe Concha in TheHill.com. As we saw during the 2020 election, material will elicit the strongest emotional response. That’s usually when Facebook and Twitter engaged in “outright censorship” of “the most dangerous, salacious, offensive, and generally destructive reports on Hunter Biden’s business dealings, these companies are content.” Facebook’s corrosive domination of the public square both “hopelessly biased” against conservatives. Liberals argue that these platforms are privately owned, and that the First Amendment “became untenable long ago,” said Will Oremus in The New York only protects speech from government censorship. But with 86 per- Times. If Zuckerberg can’t figure how to tame the Frankenstein cent of Americans now getting their news online—36 percent from monster he created, then our country must choose either to impose “stronger checks on its power” or break the company up.

Facebook specifically—Big Tech’s “Soviet-style squashing” of con-

Q Some anti-vaxxers are embracing social distancing— to protect themselves from the vaccinated. Their fear is based on a bogus theory that the coronavirus vaccines cause recipients to “shed” proteins that can cause infertility and miscarriages. One anti-vaxxer, New York pediatrician Larry Palevsky, is calling for vaccinated people to wear “a badge on their arms,” so anti-vaxxers can “not go near them.”

Q A Republican state lawmaker wants to make Louisiana a “fossil-fuel sanctuary state.”

The bill from Rep. Danny McCormick—an oil company executive—would prohibit state and local employees from enforcing any federal environmental law, directive, or tax that might hurt the oil industry. Asked if this were constitutional, McCormick said, “I don’t know who would have a problem with it, honestly.”

THE WEEK May 21, 2021

Good week for: Due diligence, after an Indian bride dumped her arranged-

marriage groom at the altar when she challenged him to recite the multiplication table for 2 and he failed. “The groom’s family had kept us in the dark about his education,” fumed the woman’s cousin.

Recycling, after Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez checked in to a Montana resort as they rekindled a romance that ended 17 years ago, when “Bennifer” broke off their engagement. “The chemistry is unreal,” a source close to Lopez told EOnline.com.

Small government, after the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in wildfire-prone Simi Valley, Calif., was given a protective firebreak by a team of 356 goats, which devoured the surrounding undergrowth. The goats do a “tremendous job,” said library spokeswoman Melissa Giller.

Bad week for: Cover-ups, after officials at the Hangzhou Safari Park in China hid the fact for weeks that three leopards had escaped, so as not to “cause panic.” One leopard remains at large, and officials are advising anyone who encounters it, “Don’t turn around and run.”

Kids, after the New York City Department of Education formally abolished the snow day. If school buildings are closed due to heavy snow or any other emergency, the department said, “students and families should plan on participating in remote learning.”

Blogging, after Donald Trump’s new website generated only 212,000 likes and shares, compared with his Twitter following of 88 million and his Facebook following of 32 million. Trump nonetheless said blogging was “more elegant” than tweeting.

In other news Trump DOJ seized reporter phone records The Trump Justice Department secretly seized three Washington Post journalists’ phone records in an effort to find government officials who had talked to them about Russia’s 2016 election interference, the Post reported last week. The Justice Department confirmed that it sent the reporters, who had probed the Trump campaign’s contacts with Russia, letters informing them it had obtained their home, work, and mobile-phone records from April 15, 2017, to July 31, 2017. The subpoenas issued last year would have required the approval of then–Attorney General William Barr. The DOJ also sought access to the reporters’ email records.

A DOJ spokesman said such subpoenas can be obtained during investigations of leaks of classified information.

Getty

Only in America

The U.S. at a glance ...

Reuters (2), AP, Reuters

Louisville Racing on ’roids: Churchill Downs this week suspended trainer Bob Baffert after his horse, Medina Spirit, failed a drug test followMedina Spirit ing a Kentucky Derby victory. The horse’s postrace blood sample had more than double the permitted level of the steroid betamethasone, an anti-inflammatory used on horses.

Medina Spirit is Baffert’s fifth horse in a year to fail a drug test. Churchill Downs said if a second test confirms the result, it will strip Medina Spirit’s title and declare second-place finisher Mandaloun the winner. Baffert, winner of a record seven Kentucky Derby crowns, denied Medina Spirit had been given betamethasone, claiming that another horse he trained once failed a test after eating hay a groom urinated on after taking cough syrup. But then Baffert offered another explanation: Medina Spirit, he said, was treated for dermatitis with an ointment Baffert didn’t realize contained the steroid.

Austin Ballot bars: In a party-line 3 a.m. vote, the Texas House last week passed a Republican bill that would impose new restrictions on voting. The legislation would make it a felony to distribute mail-in ballots to voters who haven’t requested them. It also would expand access for polling-place “watchers” and prohibit the use of public money to help independent groups distribute voting materials.

House lawmakers rejected several tougher restrictions included in the Texas Senate– approved version.

The Senate bill Protesting changes would also ban drive-through voting, tighten limits on early voting, and redistribute polling places, potentially cutting sites in heavily Black and Hispanic areas. Members of a conference committee will work out the final version. Democrats called the legislation a “voter suppression bill” designed to prevent the kind of mail-in and earlyvoting surge that boosted Democrats in 2020. Republican state Rep. Jeff Leach said the legislation, which is similar to a bill Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed last week, would promote “election integrity.”

Minneapolis Federal charges: A federal grand jury last week indicted Derek Chauvin and three other former Minneapolis police officers on charges that they violated the civil rights of George Floyd, a Black resident whose death last year set off international protests. Chauvin was convicted on state murder and manslaughter charges last month. The federal indictment accuses Chauvin and fellow former officers Tou Thao, J. Alexander Kueng, and Thomas Lane of depriving Floyd of his right to be “free from the use of unreasonable force.”

Kueng and Lane helped Chauvin restrain Floyd, who was handcuffed and pleading for air. The indictment accused Thao and Kueng of failing to intervene to stop Chauvin. The grand jury also indicted Chauvin on civil rights charges over a 2017 incident in which he struck a teenage boy and held him by the throat. Last month, the Justice Department launched a broader investigation of the Minneapolis police department.

Houston Tiger on the loose: Police arrested a man in Houston this week after neighbors saw a Bengal tiger, wearing a collar, jump over a backyard fence and stroll across the front lawn of the man’s rented house.

An off-duty deputy pointed a pistol at the big cat and shouted, “Get your tiger back inside!” Before officers arrived, the man, Victor Hugo Cuevas, allegedly drove the animal away in a white Jeep Cherokee.

Houston police found Cuevas, 26, after a daylong search. Cuevas, who was out on bond awaiting trial on a 2017 murder charge, now faces a felony charge of evading arrest. Prosecutors filed a motion to revoke his murder-case bond. Cuevas’ attorney said the tiger, a 9-month-old male named India, belonged to somebody else, and that Cuevas didn’t move it. A Houston ordinance bans ownership of tigers and other wild animals. As The Week went to press, the whereabouts of the tiger remained unknown.

NEWS 7

New York City Closing in on the NRA: Efforts by New York state to shut down the National Rifle Association moved forward this week when a Dallas federal judge dismissed the NRA’s petition for bankruptcy protection.

LaPierre New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a civil suit last year accusing the gun-rights organization’s leader, Wayne LaPierre, of misusing charitable donations for lavish personal spending. LaPierre tried to move the NRA to Texas and sidestep the suit by filing for bankruptcy there in January. He said bankruptcy protection was necessary to survive a “barrage of litigation.”

Judge Harlin Hale in Dallas dismissed the NRA’s petition, saying the group was not acting in good faith, but using bankruptcy court to gain “unfair litigation advantage” against New York regulators. James’ lawyer in Texas, Gerrit Pronske, told the court there that LaPierre had “plenty of cash.” LaPierre had assured NRA members in a letter, “The NRA is not ‘bankrupt.’”

Southeastern U.S. Gasoline panic: Gas pumps ran dry at stations from Florida to Virginia this week after a ransomware attack forced the shutdown of the Colonial Pipeline, which supplies nearly half of the East Coast’s fuel. (See Technology, p.22.) The Biden administration eased environmental and labor rules to speed up fuel deliveries to areas facing shortages. “We have gasoline,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said. “We just have to get it to the right places.” Colonial Pipeline said it hoped to restart most operations by week’s end. Four states—Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida—declared a state of emergency. North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper urged people not to “top off your tanks.” Drivers lined up anyway, with panic buying exacerbating the supply shortage, and demand for gasoline across the region was up by 40 percent. “I don’t know when (more gas) is coming,” Glenda Wendt said, waiting to fill up in Duplin County, North Carolina.

“Nobody else has any.”

Out of gas THE WEEK May 21, 2021

8 NEWS

The world at a glance ...

Sarnia, Ontario Pipeline fight: Canada’s Enbridge energy company this week rejected an order from Michigan to shut down Line 5, a pipeline that runs under the Great Lakes and supplies nearly half the oil needs of Ontario and Quebec as well as propane for Michigan. Canadian Minister of Natural Resources Seamus O’Regan said the continued operation of the pipeline was “non-negotiable,” warning that a shutdown would cost thousands of Canadian jobs and require 800 tanker rail cars and 2,000 trucks each day to move the oil. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has called the 67-year-old pipeline, which has been repeatedly struck by boat anchors and cables, a “ticking time bomb” that could cause an environmental catastrophe. The dispute may move to the courts: Canada says the 1977 treaty governing cross-border pipelines is between the U.S. and Canada, and that Michigan has no right to dictate how the oil flows.

Berlin Blessing gay marriages: In defiance of Pope Francis, Catholic priests from more than 100 German parishes offered blessings for gay marriages this week. A Vatican decree issued in March prohibits Defying the Vatican priests from officiating same-sex unions on the grounds that “God cannot bless sin.” The document was seen as a rebuke to the many German priests who for years have quietly blessed same-sex marriages, often in venues other than churches. Instead of being chastened, German churches began flying rainbow flags, and then organized the mass blessing. Conservative bishops warned that the rebellion could split the German church from Rome. “It is an enormous scandal,” said retired German Cardinal Walter Brandmüller. It’s “a terrifying sign of heresy.”

Paris Agent Orange suit: A French court has thrown out a lawsuit by a French-Vietnamese woman seeking damages from 14 companies—including U.S. multinationals Dow Chemical and Monsanto—that produced the highly toxic herbicide Agent Orange during the Vietnam War. Tran To Nga said she was a member of the Viet Cong in 1966 when a U.S. plane dropped the defoliant on her unit’s jungle hideout. Two years later, her daughter was born with Tran: Poisoned? a heart defect and died at 17 months. Her two surviving daughters have skin and blood disorders, and Tran, now 79, has type 2 diabetes and cancer. Both diseases have been linked to Agent Orange. The court ruled that it did not have jurisdiction over U.S. wartime actions. Tran vowed to file an appeal. “We are going to carry on,” she said, “because our cause is just.”

Rio de Janeiro Deadly raid: Protests erupted in Cali, Colombia Rio de Janeiro last week after a Bloody protests: After two weeks of viopolice raid on a favela turned into lent anti-government demonstrations that a massacre. Police said they were have paralyzed Colombia’s major cities, pursuing Red Command, a drug gang that was President Iván Duque has begun holdreportedly recruiting children in the Jacarezinho ing talks with protest leaders. Colombians neighborhood. At least 28 people were killed in started taking to the streets in late April, when the shoot-out, including one officer, the largest Duque announced tax hikes to try to balance the Rio police single loss of life in any Rio police operation. Two country’s books after a year of pandemic-related subway passengers were wounded when their train car was caught stagnation. His government quickly backtracked Demanding change on the tax plan, but protests have continued in the crossfire. Police Chief Allan Turnowski said that “intelligence confirmed” that all the dead besides the officer were drug dealover growing poverty and a brutal police crackdown on demonstraers. But civil rights activists said they saw no such evidence, and tors that has left more than 30 people dead and 800 wounded. In witnesses said some suspects who surrendered were executed by the city of Cali, local residents opened fire on indigenous demonpolice. Hundreds of Jacarezinho residents later marched on police strators who were blocking a road and preventing the delivery of headquarters, chanting “Stop killing us!” food and fuel. At least 10 protesters were wounded.

THE WEEK May 21, 2021

Getty (2), AP, Reuters (2)

Jersey, Channel Islands Fish and ships: France and the U.K. deployed warships to the English Channel last week in an argument over French fishing boats’ access A British naval vessel on patrol to the waters off Jersey. A self-governing British crown dependency, the island had abruptly imposed strict new requirements for French fishing crews as part of a post-Brexit trade deal between the U.K. and the European Union.

Jersey officials demanded the French use specialized gear and provide proof that they had been fishing those waters for centuries. An outraged French government threatened to cut the undersea cables that provide the island with electricity, and French fishing boats began blockading Jersey’s main harbor. After France and Britain each deployed two ships to the scene, Jersey said the new rules would be suspended until the sides worked out an agreement.

The world at a glance ...

Kazan, Russia School massacre: A teenage gunman killed seven eighth-grade students and two school employees this week in a rare mass shooting in Russia. Another 18 students and three adults were hospitalized with injuries; some students jumped from third-story windows to escape the shooter. After being arrested, the suspected gunman, 19-year-old Ilnaz Galyaviev, told police that a “monster has started to grow inside of me” and that he hated everyone. He had registered a semiautomatic shotgun just weeks before the attack; the same type of weapon was used in a 2018 mass shooting in Russian-occupied Crimea. Russia already has strict gun laws, but in response to the attack, President Vladimir Putin instructed the head of the Russian National Guard to “urgently” draft new regulations.

Flowers for the dead

NEWS 9

Mount Everest Covid precautions: China said this week that it was putting up a “line of separation” at the summit of Mount Everest to keep climbers scaling the Covid-ravaged Nepalese side from mingling with and infecting climbers from the Chinese side. Nepal has issued a record High-altitude infections 408 expedition permits to climb Everest this year, even as coronavirus cases have surged in the Himalayan nation, with some 9,000 new infections being registered every day.

That’s likely a severe undercount, because many sick people simply can’t travel to get a test. Several climbers on the more heavily trafficked Nepal side were evacuated from base camp last month with symptoms of Covid-19. China has approved only 21 summiting permits for this season, and climbers returning on the Chinese side will have to undergo temperature checks and likely quarantine. The summit was closed off last year because of the pandemic.

Shwebo, Myanmar Organ harvesting? The body of a poet who was killed by Myanmar’s security forces was returned to his family this week— with his heart removed. The grim revelation has led to speculation that the country’s cash-short military regime is harvesting dissidents’ organs. Khet Thi, 45, had spoken out against the February coup that deposed Myanmar’s elected government, and criticized the military’s slaughter of protesters, writing, “They shoot in the head, but they don’t know the revolution is in the heart.” Last week, he and his wife, Chaw Su, were taken in for interrogation; she was released, he wasn’t. Rights groups said Khet Thi was tortured to death. The junta claimed he died of a heart attack, but when Chaw Su recovered his body, she found it stitched up and apparently missing the heart. At least 800 civilians have been killed by the junta.

AP, Wikipedia, AP, Reuters

Kabul Girls’ school bombed: A deadly bombing outside a girls’ school in a minority Hazara neighborhood of Kabul killed more than 85 people last week, most of them teenage students. At least 147 people were wounded.

“It was like a doomsday that I saw with my own eyes,” said the school’s principal, Aqila Tawakoli. The Afghan government blamed Victims of the attack the Taliban for the attack. But analysts said it bore the hallmarks of ISIS, particularly because a second explosion occurred as ambulances arrived to treat the victims. The Hazara— a mostly Shiite Muslim people frequently targeted by the Sunni Taliban—saw the U.S.-led coalition as their protectors and fear more violence now that American troops are leaving the country. complete quiet for the long term,” while Hamas leader Ismail Jerusalem Haniyeh said his group would fight as long as Israel did.

Open warfare: Weeks of rising tensions between Israel and the The latest eruption of violence began last month in East Palestinians exploded into open conflict this week, with the miliJerusalem, where Palestinians have been protesting efforts to evict tant group Hamas launching hundreds of rockets from Gaza and six Palestinian families from homes claimed by Jewish settlers.

Israel responding with airstrikes. At least six Israelis were killed Hundreds of Palestinians holed up in the Al-Aqsa Mosque—one by rockets, which reached central Israel and the coastal city of of the holiest sites in Islam—during Ramadan, Tel Aviv. Israel retaliated with more than stockpiling stones in expectation of a confron100 airstrikes, leveling two Gaza apartment tation with Jewish far-right groups who had towers it said were used by Hamas officials scheduled a parade to mark the anniversary of and destroying multiple security installations.

Israel’s capture of East Jerusalem in the 1967 At least 65 Palestinians were killed in the air war. After a police raid on the mosque, in which raids, including 16 children and several Hamas more than 330 Palestinians and some 20 police commanders. U.S. Secretary of State Antony were injured, Hamas began its rocket barrage.

Blinken called on all sides “to de-escalate.”

“Tampering with Jerusalem will burn the heads But Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz Israeli airstrikes hit Gaza. of the occupiers,” said a Hamas official. said Israel would “continue to strike to bring THE WEEK May 21, 2021

10 NEWS

People

Rogen, stoned and hard at work Seth Rogen smokes a phenomenal amount of marijuana, said Alex Williams in The New York Times, but don’t call him a slacker. Despite being stoned for his every waking moment—his mornings start with a coffee and a joint, he says, and “I continue smoking weed until I go to sleep”— Rogen is an incredibly productive actor, screenwriter, director, and producer. Weed provides “functionality,” he explains, helping him overcome the fact that “the world is not a comfortable place for me at times.” Smoking marijuana “is no different to me than wearing shoes or glasses.

Could I walk around in bare feet all day? Maybe. But why?”

During the pandemic, Rogen’s productivity extended to ceramics.

His West Hollywood garage studio has three pottery wheels and two kilns, which he uses to fashion colorfully whimsical vases, soap dispensers, and yes, ashtrays. “It’s meditative. It forces you to be very present.” Rogen, 39, gets a material satisfaction from pottery that he can’t achieve in his Hollywood career. “One of the things about films is that they occupy no mass or physical space.

What is so nice about making things like ashtrays is they are incredibly tangible, and they are useful. I love films, but they are not useful in the sense that I interact with them dozens of times throughout my day, in a casual sense, as I’m just smoking weed.”

John Swartzwelder is a near-mythical figure in the comedy world, said Mike Sacks in NewYorker.com. It’s been 18 years since Swartzwelder left The Simpsons, but to this day one of the greatest compliments a comedy writer can receive is to have a joke praised as “Swartzweldian.” A former advertising copywriter, he wrote 59 episodes of the cartoon—more than anyone else—and many of its finest one-liners. Among them, a toast Homer Simpson delivers to a beer-chugging crowd: “To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems.” The reclusive Swartzwelder, 72, now writes humor novels, working from two diner booths that he installed in his home. “Diner booths are a great place to write,” he says. “Try it.” He has more advice. “Since writing is very hard and rewriting is easy, I always write my scripts all the way through as fast as I can, putting in crap jokes and pattern dialogue: ‘Homer, I don’t want you to do that.’ ‘Then I won’t do it.’ It’s lousy, but it’s a script.” When Swartzwelder wakes up the next day, he says, “It’s like a little elf has snuck into my office and badly done all my work for me. All I have to do is fix it. I advise all writers to [work] this way. And be sure to send me a small royalty every time you do it.”

Q Tesla CEO Elon Musk began his

controversial gig hosting Saturday Night Live last week by revealing he has Asperger’s syndrome.

“Look, I know sometimes I say or post strange things,” said the 49-year-old Musk, “but that’s just how my brain works.” He joked that he would avoid eye contact with the show’s cast, but added, “But don’t worry, I’m pretty good at running ‘human’ in emulation mode.” Several SNL cast members openly complained about the decision to let Musk host, after the $165 billion man spent last year THE WEEK May 21, 2021

Eilish’s body-image battles Billie Eilish wants people to stop obsessing over her body, said Laura Snapes in Vogue (U.K.). When the angsty singer rocketed to fame at age 17 with her debut album, much was made of her formhiding wardrobe of oversize hoodies and track suits. Some critics hailed her as an icon of body positivity and a good role model compared with female pop stars who wear less. Eilish, now 19, hadn’t intended to send any such message. In fact, she wore oversize clothes because of insecurities about her figure. My body “was the initial reason for my depression when I was younger,” she says.

Last October, a paparazzo snapped a rare photo of the singer wearing a tight vest, sparking an online debate about her curves. “It made me really offended when people were like, ‘Good for her for feeling comfortable in her bigger skin.’ Jesus Christ! Good for me?”

Eilish has now ditched the baggy clothes for more form-fitting outfits and has dyed her signature green-and-black shock of hair platinum blond. “I feel more like a woman, somehow.” Some fans feel betrayed, not that Eilish cares. “Don’t make me not a role model because you’re turned on by me. Showing your body and showing your skin—or not—should not take any respect away from you.”

downplaying the risk of Covid-19 and attacking “fascist” pandemic safety restrictions.

“To anyone I’ve offended,” Musk said, “I just want to say: I reinvented electric cars and I’m sending people to Mars on a rocket ship.

Did you think I was also going to be a chill, normal dude?”

discuss philanthropy and now “recognizes it was an error to do so.” The Gateses reportedly also had heated disagreements about her role in their foundation. The youngest of the Gateses’ three children is graduating high school, and some speculated that was the trigger for the divorce.

Q Melinda Gates had been consulting with

Q Even wellness mogul Gwyneth Paltrow

divorce lawyers for roughly two years before she filed for divorce from former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates this month, telling them that the 25-year marriage was “irretrievably broken,” The Wall Street Journal reported this week. Melinda, 56, was reportedly concerned about Bill’s repeated contacts with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, which included a late-night meeting at Epstein’s infamous Manhattan mansion. A spokesperson for Bill, 65, said he met with Epstein to

lost her self-discipline during the pandemic, confessing last week that she drank every night of her nine-month quarantine and gained 14 pounds. “I felt like my wine and my pasta and biscuits and crackers and cheese were getting me through,” says Paltrow, 48, who has shifted her focus in recent years from acting to her lifestyle empire, Goop. She says she also had two or three glasses of a quinoa whiskey cocktail every night. “I went totally off the rails,” she said.

Instagram, Newscom, Getty

Advice from a Simpsons legend

Briefing

NEWS 11

Vaccinating the world To beat Covid-19, the world needs about 7 billion doses of vaccine. How do we get there?

Reuters

How is vaccination going?

send 60 million unused AstraZeneca doses primarily to India, but like other Western countries, it has prioritized its own population.

Complicating things is that the twodose AstraZeneca and one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccines have had problems with production and a rare side effect of deadly blood clots.

Meanwhile, Pfizer and Moderna say every lab that can make their cutting-edge mRNA vaccines is already running at full capacity.

Very unevenly. Wealthy countries are well on their way to vaccinating a majority of their populations against Covid-19, while poor countries are scrambling to get any doses at all. Of the more than 1.25 billion doses that have made it into arms, only 0.3 percent of those were administered in poor countries. Among countries of more than 2 million people, Israel leads the world with more than 60 percent having received at least Will waiving patents help? one dose, followed by the U.K. In the long term, yes, but in the with 53 percent and the U.S. with Vaccine doses supplied by Covax arriving in Ghana last week short term, no. The Biden adminroughly 45 percent. Countries such istration endorsed waiving patents last week (see Business, p.38), as Syria and Cameroon are well under 1 percent. There are still but the European Union is opposed, so the World Trade Organinearly 7 billion people waiting, and while vaccination is already zation will continue debating the issue for months. And knowing dramatically reducing new infections and deaths in the U.S. and the recipe is only the first step toward actually producing these Europe, the coronavirus is ravaging the poorer countries of Asia extremely complicated vaccines. Labs must be purpose-built using and Latin America and beginning to move across Africa. By next highly specialized equipment, and there is a shortage of the necesmonth, the world Covid death toll for 2021 will already exceed sary cell lines and other raw materials. Technicians must be trained the 1.8 million who died of the disease in 2020. in the proprietary techniques. All that could take a year, although developing countries say they could ramp up sooner.

Why is the West so far ahead?

Western governments had the money to strike early deals with top vaccine makers headquartered in their countries, preordering many What can be done in the meantime?

For the more traditional adenovirus vaccines, which are easier different vaccines. By January 2021, rich countries had already to make than the mRNA vaccines, governments can pressure bought up 96 percent of the doses Pfizer is scheduled to make for this year, and 100 percent of Moderna’s. The world’s richest coun- companies into “technology transfer” agreements that would see patent holders license rival companies to produce their vaccines tries, representing 16 percent of the global population, have colfor a small cut of the revenues. AstraZeneca has already made lectively bought 1 billion more doses than they need. Anticipating such deals to facilitate large-scale production in India and Japan. such a grab, last year the World Health Organization set up an Governments can also lift export curbs international effort known as Covax on raw ingredients and other materito try to ensure vaccine access for all.

India’s missed opportunity als, such as glass vials, filters, bioreacCovax has delivered nearly 50 million Before the pandemic, India was by far the tor bags, and cold-storage devices. doses and aims for 2 billion by the end world’s biggest manufacturer of vaccines, of the year. But it has a funding shortfall through world leader Serum Institute of India How else can the U.S. help? of some $40 billion, and even if it makes (SII) and myriad smaller companies. The SII Because the U.S. government contribits goal, that rate of vaccination would struck an early deal last year to manufacuted some $2.5 billion toward the ture AstraZeneca’s vaccine under the name mean the world would not be covered Covishield and took $300 million from the development of the Moderna vaccine, until late 2023 or 2024.

Gates Foundation and other donors to provide it has a great deal of leverage over how 200 million doses for the global Covax effort. the vaccine is made and distributed. The Who is exporting vaccines?

But production has been inexplicably slow, nonprofit PrEP4All has recommended Russia and China are leading the way and SII has so far delivered just 60 million that the U.S. shift to a public producin “vaccine diplomacy,” providing milshots. The Indian government, meanwhile, tion model for Moderna, to rapidly lions of doses to other countries. Russia’s failed to preorder its own supply, and as late scale up vaccine-manufacturing capacity Sputnik V is made using a deactivated as February had asked SII for a mere 21 milhere in the U.S. for subsidized export adenovirus—a cold virus—to which a lion doses for a population of 1.4 billion. When to the rest of the world. Aside from bit of modified Covid-19 DNA has been India’s devastating Covid surge began in late the moral imperative to save millions added, and is reportedly 92 percent effecMarch, Delhi abruptly ordered a freeze on of human lives, it is in the interest of tive. Russia has already signed contracts all vaccine exports, reserving SII’s output for rich countries like the U.S. to prevent to provide 100 million doses to some 50 Indian hospitals and depriving waiting African uncontrolled spread of the virus in poor countries. China has also been exporting nations. Given the scale of India’s outbreak, countries, so that vaccine-resistant variits two vaccines, made by Sinovac and though, Africans have been forgiving. “You’d ants do not evolve and boomerang back Sinopharm, having shipped 240 million have to be very inhuman, very unreasonable to their own populations. “No one will doses and committed to another 500 milto say anything against India,” said Kenyan ever be truly safe,” says U.N. Deputy lion this year. But there’s no published, analyst Herman Manyora, “even if they stop Secretary-General Amina Mohammed, peer-reviewed studies on their effectivesupplying you.” “until everyone is safe.” ness. The U.S., meanwhile, just agreed to THE WEEK May 21, 2021

The bizarre Arizona election ‘audit’ David Graham

TheAtlantic.com

Did a lab create the coronavirus?

Nicholas Wade

New York Post

America’s declining birth rate Noah Smith

Bloomberg.com

Viewpoint

Best columns: The U.S. The ongoing audit by a shady private company of 2020 election results in Arizona’s Maricopa County “is certain to end badly,” said David Graham. Although an official hand recount of Maricopa ballots and three separate audits found no fraud, the Republican-controlled state senate insisted on hiring a Florida-based firm, Cyber Ninjas, to conduct its own audit. The firm’s only qualification is that its CEO, Doug Logan, “was a noisy proponent of ‘Stop the Steal’ theories of fraud in the election.” The audit thus far “is exactly what one might expect”: a circus. Auditors for the firm have reportedly examined ballots for bamboo fibers to verify a conspiracy theory that China flew in 40,000 absentee ballots. Cyber Ninjas is also using UV lights to examine ballots for watermarks, based on a QAnon rumor that fraudulent ballots carried a telltale mark. A variety of “misfits and oddballs” are reviewing the ballots, including Anthony Kern, a former state representative who lost his seat in the election and went to Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6 for Donald Trump’s rally to overturn the results. The so-called audit may take months to complete—and to what end? “If Cyber Ninjas claims it has evidence of widespread fraud,” it will have zero credibility.

The theory that the coronavirus was created in and accidentally escaped from a lab in Wuhan, China, is “not so far-fetched,” said Nicholas Wade. The U.S. National Institutes of Health has denied this possibility, but it funded some of the virology research at that Wuhan lab and has an obvious conflict of interest. It’s been well-established that scientists in Wuhan were deliberately experimenting with bat viruses. Dr. Zheng-Li Shi, known as “the Bat Lady” in China, inserted spike proteins from different viruses into bat coronaviruses to make them more infectious. She then tested these altered viruses in human cell cultures and genetically altered mice, ostensibly to better understand how they work and head off the next SARS-like pandemic.

Her Wuhan lab, U.S. biosafety experts say, lacked proper controls to prevent viral escape. “The rival scenario” is that the virus evolved to infect humans in the wild, but no one has found any evidence of SARS-CoV-2, as the novel coronavirus is called, in bats, civets, or any other creature. It may be hard to accept, but it’s quite possible that a mutated virus that has killed 3 million people, including nearly 600,000 Americans, was created in an experiment gone bad.

A “baby bust” points to “a grim economic future” for America, said Noah Smith. U.S. births fell 4 percent in 2020 to their lowest rate since World War II, the federal government reported last week. “This puts an increasing financial and physical burden on the young,” who must pay the soaring costs of Social Security, Medicare, and caring for their own aging family members. “In 2010, the number of working-age adults per older adult was 4.8; by 2060, it’s projected to be only half that”—meaning that the tax burden on workers will need to double.

The graying of the population will also lead to lower productivity and economic stagnation. And it will put the U.S. at a marked disadvantage in our competition with China, which has four times our population.

Increased immigration would help, but it’s not enough to keep our population growing. “Americans need to have more children,” and surveys show they want to—but are held back by the high costs of housing, education, and child care. America has a choice to make: to be a graying nation in decline or a great nation, “confident enough in ourselves to believe that there should be more of us.”

“Hypocrisy is a cheap, tiresome line of political attack—an empty way for critics to broadcast pious indignation without having to seriously engage with the specifics of the underlying behavior. It’s not the misbehavior being denounced; it’s the discrepancy between what someone professes to believe and his behavior. By these rules, the safest political course would seem to be to avoid championing any kind of standards and admit you’re an amoral shark driven solely by personal ambition. For all their professed loathing of hypocrisy, most voters will forgive a boatload of it if they like what their elected officials are getting done.”

Michelle Cottle in The New York Times THE WEEK May 21, 2021

It must be true...

I read it in the tabloids Q A 19-year-old drawn by an ad for an inexpensive twobedroom apartment unwittingly moved into an Arkansas retirement community.

After finding an apartment online for $350 a month, Madison Kohout signed the lease sight unseen. It was only a week after moving in that she noticed something unusual. “I thought it was a bit weird that all of my neighbors were significantly older than me,” she said. She reports numerous benefits to living with seniors, including friendly neighbors offering home-cooked meals and the freedom to “play music whenever I want to, because some of them can’t hear.”

Q A bottle of French wine that was “matured in a unique environment”— outer space—is expected to sell for as much as $1 million. The auction house Christie’s is asking for bids on one of 12 bottles of Pétrus 2000 that were sent into orbit for a year aboard the International Space Station, as part of a project to learn how plants respond to space conditions. The fine Bordeaux—which usually sells for $10,000 a bottle—came back with subtle flavor changes, according to wine experts.

“It was delicious on return to Earth,” said Christie’s wine director Tim Tiptree, who said the wine is at its peak now but “will last at least another two or three decades.”

Q A woman who didn’t realize she was pregnant gave birth to a son on a flight to Honolulu. “This guy just came out of nowhere,” said Lavinia “Lavi” Mounga of her son, who arrived prematurely at 29 weeks. The surprise birth was assisted by a family-medicine physician and three neonatal intensivecare nurses who happened to be on board. Mounga said it was “overwhelming” to have such skilled help present.

AP

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Where your body belongs to the state Katharina Fontana

Neue Zürcher Zeitung

FRANCE

A bluntly honest homage to the emperor Laurent Bodin

L’Alsace

Best columns: Europe The Swiss state wants to lay claim to the bodies of its citizens, said Katharina Fontana. The legislature is considering a bill that would turn all Swiss into default organ donors unless they explicitly declare otherwise. If your relatives don’t refuse permission, your organs will be harvested upon your death. During the legislative debate surrounding this “shocking” proposal, “arguments were almost exclusively focused on the fate of the seriously ill people who could be saved” by donor organs. And yes, it is indisputable that between 50 and 100 Swiss patients die each year because of a shortage of transplantable hearts, kidneys,

and livers. But what about bodily autonomy? By forcing citizens to opt out of donation, rather than opt in, Switzerland will redefine the relationship between the individual and the state. Your body will no longer be presumed to be yours, but rather a “public asset” to be used as the community decides. There are surely other ways to address the lack of donor organs. Why not ask people about their donor status during routine checkups? If we enact a compulsory system, dismemberment will soon be seen as a “moral imperative,” and those of us who wish to remain “unharmed after death” will be shunned as selfish.

Ever the consummate politician, President Emmanuel Macron has successfully navigated the minefield of France’s contradictory feelings about Napoleon Bonaparte, said Laurent Bodin.

While previous French leaders shied away from acknowledging Napoleonic anniversaries, Macron marked last week’s bicentenary of the emperor’s death with a speech to high school students. He had to tread carefully: Napoleon is adored by the Right for leading France to greatness in the early 19th century, conquering much of Europe and bequeathing us grand universities and the Civil Code. But he is equally despised by the Left for his legacy of slaughter and for resubjugating

women after the French Revolution’s movement toward equality. Worst of all, to modern sensibilities, was Napoleon’s reimposition of slavery in the French Caribbean in 1802, eight years after its abolition. Macron chose what he called an “enlightened commemoration,” highlighting the good and bad in equal measure. Quite right: Just as nobody can deny Napoleon’s greatness or underestimate his impact on our nation, neither should they “fall into hero worship” of someone who was ultimately a bloodthirsty authoritarian.

“The world is neither white nor black.” That’s a lesson that all French people in this polarized age would do well to remember.

Northern Ireland. Scotland’s insistence The Scottish people have spoken, and on a referendum may well end up at they want another vote on independence, the Supreme Court, which is likely to said Kirsty Strickland in The Scotsman. deny any such vote given the Scottish In last week’s regional elections, the rulparliament’s “limited powers.” But a ing Scottish National Party won a clear judicial ban would only further inflame victory, coming just one seat short of an the nationalists. And Johnson has no absolute majority in the Scottish Parliaplausible arguments for his opposition. ment. First Minister Nicola Sturgeon had “His stand against independence rings campaigned on a promise to call a sechollow when he made similar claims ond independence referendum, recognizagainst Brussels” as a leader of the proing that the world has radically changed Brexit campaign. Back then, he was since 2014, when 55 percent of Scots all for local control. Johnson should voted that their nation should remain educate Scots about the true cost of inpart of the U.K. Since then, the U.K. has Sturgeon: Wants to break free from London dependence, said William Hague in The left the European Union—a break most Times. Scotland pays about $400 less tax per head than the rest Scots opposed—and the mismanaged response to the pandemic of us, while government expenditures there are more than $2,200 has exposed the perils of being governed from London. Scots higher. So, “does the SNP see higher taxes or spending cuts as the have now “signed, sealed, and delivered a democratic mandate to the next Scottish government to pursue a referendum on inde- answer,” and will it level with the people? And if Scotland joins pendence.” But British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has rejected the EU, will it have a hard border with England? the idea of a new vote, and the law says he must give his consent.

Most Scots “don’t want to be forced to make the choice between Sturgeon won’t hold a “wildcat” referendum without London’s OK, because she wants a binding vote that’s legal and legitimate. being Scottish and British,” said former Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown in The Guardian. They love the National Health The two leaders must engage in good-faith talks; for Johnson to block the SNP from honoring its “manifesto commitments would Service, “a living symbol of unity,” but resent Johnson’s embrace of English nationalism and his badging of “Scottish bridges and be an act of vandalism on our democratic processes.” roads as gifts that come courtesy of the U.K.” Scots would welThere’s little unity in the modern United Kingdom, said Ian Birrell come “better cooperation” with London—but as equals. No independence vote will be held immediately, said Ian Swanson in The in INews.co.uk. Each part of the country is governed by a different party: Johnson’s increasingly nationalist Conservatives control Scotsman. The election result “confirms a nation split down the middle,” and Sturgeon knows she could well lose a referendum.

England, the SNP holds Scotland, the center-left “Labour clings on in Wales,” while the Democratic Unionist Party is in charge in But the fire has been lit, and now “the arguments will rage.”

THE WEEK May 21, 2021

Reuters

United Kingdom: A new push for Scottish independence

Best columns: International

NEWS 17

Russia: Demolishing the final vestiges of democracy and his allies were determined to avoid President Vladimir Putin is no longer a repeat of the crisis in neighboring Behiding his authoritarianism, said Ruslarus, where a mass uprising “triggered sian journalist Alexey Kovalev in Forby the especially blatant rigging” of last eign Policy (U.S.). For 20 years, the summer’s election led the Belarusian Russian leader ran a “hybrid” autocregime to engage in “open war with racy, disguising his gangster-like regime the people.” Given Navalny’s success in with a façade of democracy. Repression persuading people to vote against the was meted out carefully. But now “the Kremlin, Putin may have decided that Kremlin has decided to dispense with “some repression now would forestall this pretense and go full autocracy.” The the need for a lot of repression later.” shift in strategy began in April after tens of thousands of Russians took to the Putin is not necessarily the center of streets in support of Alexei Navalny, the power anymore, said Yulia Latynina imprisoned opposition leader who was Hauling away a pro-Navalny protester in Novaya Gazeta (Russia). His popupoisoned by suspected Kremlin agents larity has plummeted—fewer than 30 percent of Russians now last year. The crackdown “has been extensive and brutal.” say they trust him. His televised state propaganda is no longer Our already limited freedoms—of the press, civil society, and effective with the young, many of whom watch Navalny’s enterassembly—have been erased. Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation was branded an extremist group and its top members ar- taining YouTube exposés of Kremlin corruption. And the inrested. The news site that I work for, Meduza.io—which is based creasingly impoverished Russian population is getting angry and restless. Faced with such an unstable situation, state terror is the in Latvia but staffed mostly by Russians in Moscow—was officially labeled a foreign agent and effectively shut down. Dozens only response. And that means true power lies with the FSB—the KGB successor agency that is charged with keeping the populace of activists and journalists have been arrested, their homes and in check. A Belarus-like scenario may be inevitable, said Leonid offices ransacked, some for merely posting about a protest on Gozman, also in Novaya Gazeta. Authorities are placing surveilsocial media. The Kremlin “will no longer tolerate even token lance cameras with facial recognition technology in our cities, opposition or the hint of any threat to its rule.” so they can identify and arrest anyone who dares protest in the street. Most people will stop attending rallies, and those few who The decision to poison Navalny was the “tipping point,” said keep demonstrating will become ever more radicalized. This is Mark Galeotti in The Moscow Times (Russia). Since then, the need for ever more repression has snowballed: Navalny had to be the Kremlin’s plan: They want to turn peaceful protesters into violent revolutionaries. “Blood and explosions” will give the relocked away, then the protests to free him had to be squelched, gime yet another excuse to curtail our freedoms. and finally media covering the protests had to be silenced. Putin

INDIA

How can we endure this nightmare?

Avijit Ghosh

The Times of India

GUINEA-BISSAU

Exiling mothers for protecting their babies Alejandra Agudo

Getty

El País (Spain)

India’s collective trauma is unfathomable, said Avijit Ghosh. The coronavirus is killing more than 4,000 of us every day, each death a brutal blow to a whole community. We’ve all lost “relatives, friends, colleagues, neighbors,” and many families have endured double or triple losses, often within days or even hours. A wealth of talent is disappearing, as Covid-19 ravages our nation’s leading writers, academics, actors, and composers. There are too many deaths to mourn, even to acknowledge. “Can you recall how many times recently you have typed ‘Sorry for your loss’ or ‘Heartfelt condolences’ on your phone?”

The words lose all meaning. But we aren’t numb, far from it. We are paralyzed with horror. Nobody can erase the image of a loved one gasping for air. With the Indian hospital system in utter collapse, overwhelmed by the sheer number of critically ill coronavirus patients, it is now a message of good news rather than bad when you hear that a friend is in the ICU—thank heavens, you think, he got a bed, maybe he will get some oxygen. This crisis has brought out the venal in some, the heroic in others, but one thing is universal: It “is scarring us emotionally in ways that are yet to be fully grasped.”

Infanticide is widespread in Guinea-Bissau, said Alejandra Agudo. In this Portuguese-speaking country in West Africa, many mothers of disabled infants are pressured into drowning their babies.

If they refuse, their families cast them out, saying that the child is an irã, which means spirit or demon in the local Creole. The animist religions followed by about half of the population hold that such babies “are not human and must return to the place from which they came, the afterlife.” The result is a country where about 2 percent of the population has any type of disability—and almost nobody is blind or deaf—compared with a global

average of some 15 percent. Disabled babies aren’t registered at birth, so their deaths remain hidden.

A few mothers, though, manage to flee with their children. Isemene Henriqueta Quintino, 23, whose daughter was born with cerebral palsy, said her relatives told her to take the baby to the sea, just as her aunt had done with her own son. Instead, Quintino escaped to a shelter, where she is raising her little girl with other banished mothers and children. Activists are beginning to raise awareness of treatments for epilepsy and other conditions.

But most such children who survive “live in hiding and without access to the care they need.”

THE WEEK May 21, 2021

Talking points

Noted

DeSantis: Fox News’ ‘golden child’

Q As Americans return to air travel, the Federal Aviation Administration has received more than 1,300 reports of passenger disturbances since February— about the same number of passengers subject to enforcement action over the previous 10 years. The incidents have “overwhelmingly” involved passengers who refused to wear masks, some of whom attacked flight attendants and other passengers.

showered the governor The journalists who gathered with “hysteria and hostillast week to cover Florida ity.” As a successful conGov. Ron DeSantis’ signing servative and a rising star of a controversial voting law in the party, “he must be met with a rude surprise, said treated as Public Enemy Philip Bump in The WashNo. 1,” subject to “nonington Post. Fox News “was stop bashing” until “the the only network allowed threat has been successto cover the signing.” The fully neutralized.” exclusive coverage of DeSanDeSantis in his safe space tis’ bill signing, complete The unholy alliance between Fox and DeSantis with breathless live coverage by the sycophantic goes well beyond a bill signing, said the Orlando hosts of Fox & Friends, made for a “bizarre” Sentinel in an editorial. He’s become the netscene, but a “fitting one.” For months, Fox has work’s “golden child,” a constant guest whose fueled the Big Lie that the November election “middling record at managing the pandemic”— was riddled with voter fraud—the same lie the Florida’s per capita death rate is higher than disingenuous Florida bill supposedly addresses, much denser California’s—is repeatedly cast as by adding stricter ID requirements, limiting drop “the most brilliant campaign against an enemy boxes, and making it harder to vote by mail. For since Patton’s Third Army swept across France.”

2024 presidential hopeful DeSantis, “it made As he serves up the “right wing–policy catnip” perfect sense to restrict his bill signing to just that Fox feasts on, said the South Florida Sunthe media outlet that had indirectly championed Sentinel in an editorial, DeSantis “acts increasit,” turning an official act of governance into a ingly like his role model”—the authoritarian “nationally televised campaign event.”

Donald Trump, who trolled liberals, cherrypicked questioners, and treated the press as Fox claims it never asked for “exclusive” covenemies of the state. DeSantis’ stage-managed, erage, said Steve Contorno in the Tampa Bay closed-door bill signing in his safe space on Fox Times, while DeSantis defended boxing out offered a “revealing glimpse” of his “iron-fisted other media by pointing out that the event was rule” in Florida, “where the doors are shut tight “broadcast to millions of people.” Besides, the liberal media has made clear it despises DeSantis, to anyone who might question his wisdom or said Kyle Smith in NationalReview.com. They’ve challenge his authority.”

The New York Times

Q The U.S. deported 2,962 immigrants in April, the lowest monthly number of deportations on record, after the Biden administration directed Immigration and Customs Enforcement to focus on criminals who pose a public safety threat.

During Trump’s first three years in office, deportations averaged around 20,000 per month.

The Washington Post

Q China’s greenhouse gas emissions are now higher than all other developed nations’ combined, according to a new analysis. In 2019 China’s share rose to 27 percent of the world’s total emissions—largely due to its heavy use of coal—compared with 11 percent for the U.S., 6.6 percent for India, and 6.4 percent for the 27 nations of the European Union.

CNBC.com

Q Nearly a million Americans signed up for Obamacare coverage during an open enrollment period that began in February— more than double the number in the same period in the previous two years. The recent stimulus package brought average monthly premiums down by more than 40 percent.

CNN.com THE WEEK May 21, 2021

Subsidized day care: Good for parents and kids?

Overhauling the U.S. child-care system to benefit millions of families “sounds great, right?” said Arwa Mahdawi in TheGuardian.com. Not to conservatives, who’ve launched an “unhinged” culture-war battle over President Biden’s proposal to invest $425 billion in child-care funding and universal pre-kindergarten. Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) says Washington wants to control kids’ lives “from the cradle to college,” while other Republicans accuse Democrats of emulating socialist Western Europe or even the Soviet Union.

In the real world, said Paul Krugman in The New York Times, the Leave It to Beaver model, with a working father and stay-at-home mother in their first marriage, is the reality for just 14 percent of American children. And the pandemic has forced more than 10 percent of moms with young kids to leave their jobs to tend to child care. Helping those families isn’t some “liberal plot to force mothers to leave home and take jobs.”

Government-subsidized child care is “a bad deal for children,” said J.D. Vance and Jenet Erickson in The Wall Street Journal. Research has shown that kids sent to day care from two-parent homes show significant increases in “anxiety, aggression, and hyperactivity.” Many families put kids in day

care “because they have to, but the clear majority of Americans say they want to spend more time with their kids.” The value of close-up parenting is miraculous, said Mary Szoch in TheFederalist .com. A mother’s heartbeat and voice help a baby grow. “A mother’s smell and touch help a child deal with stress.” A “one-size-fits-all” plan that outsources parenting is not what most mothers, fathers, and kids want.

Of course many parents “would rather care for their own children,” said Christine Emba in WashingtonPost.com. But many mothers work because they have no spouse, or because “their families could not survive on their spouse’s income.” Some Republicans, including Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Mitt Romney of Utah, have proposed giving “generous cash benefits” directly to parents. Democrats should take them up on it, letting families decide whether to have a parent stay home or pay for day care.

Democrats should also push for reforms, such as a higher minimum wage and an improved medical safety net, “that would make it possible for a family to survive on a single worker’s income.” If Republicans want parents to be able to afford to stay home, make them “walk their talk.”

Fox, Getty

18 NEWS

Talking points Meat eating: The latest culture war raise than beans, according Meat eating is America’s to Epicurious editors—“but “new culture war,” said beef tastes more than 20 Andrew Freedman in Axios times better.” Eating chicken .com. In recent weeks, food and seafood also has enviwebsite Epicurious.com ronmental costs. Meat lovers announced it would publish like me might accept eating no new beef recipes and the less beef, or more sustaincelebrated New York City able beef, but going vegan restaurant Eleven Madison is not on our menu. Instead, Park announced its switch let’s focus on limiting methto a meat-free menu. These They vote for veganism. ane and carbon dioxide by developments only added to reducing use of fossil fuels. In Africa and China, “baseless conservative media panic” that Presipoor people’s health and life expectancy improved dent Joe Biden’s climate plan calls for cutting when meat was introduced to their diets, said meat from Americans’ diets. Biden isn’t banning Grant Addison in WashingtonExaminer.com. So meat, said Zack Beauchamp in Vox.com, but the while there can be “good and noble reasons not “grain of truth” in that right-wing rumor is that to eat meat,” spare us the “pompous and shalany plan to combat climate change must address meat consumption. “There is no way for humans low” virtue signaling by restaurants and foodie magazines that cater to wealthy urban elites. to consume meat in the way we do without abetting catastrophic warming.” Raising beef cattle is energy-intensive and, combined with the methane Fine—let’s keep fancy restaurants and the federal gas released by the digestive processes of hundreds government out of this, said Jennifer Barckley in TheHill.com. Animal agriculture causes mass of millions of farm animals, creates more than deforestation, uses a quarter of the world’s scarce 15 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. freshwater supply, and produces billions of galIn future years, we may look back at this pivotal lons of polluting animal waste a year. As planttime “as the meat wars’ Fort Sumter.” based meats become more common and sales Americans will never accept “canceling beef,” said increase, “a viable alternative to the all-American beef burger is increasingly within reach.” The James Hohmann in The Washington Post. Yes, reasons for reducing meat consumption are clear. producing plant-based foods leaves a smaller car“It’s up to us.” bon footprint—cows are 20 times less efficient to

Masks: Why the vaccinated still wear them

Getty

Here we are with more than half of U.S. adults vaccinated, said Alyssa Rosenberg in Washington Post.com, and yet “the debate over mask wearing seems to have become more vitriolic.” In progressive areas like Brookline, Mass., and Brooklyn, N.Y., many vaccinated residents continue to wear masks outdoors even though the Centers for Disease Control says the risk of transmission outside is minuscule. Conservatives, meanwhile, are now even more triggered by the sight of masks, with the unmasked screaming insults like “You idiot!” and worse. You’d think nearly everyone would have “ripped those things” off their faces at the first opportunity, said Beth Teitell in The Boston Globe. But after a year of fear, some view masks as a “security blanket” and are confused by evolving advice about what is and isn’t safe. Some of the masked even admit they don’t want to be mistaken for “a Trump supporter.”

The pandemic has “rewired our brains,” said Michael Brendan Dougherty in NationalReview .com. For many, avoiding getting or spreading Covid “became an unshakable moral purpose.”

Over long months, the “actual weighing of risks went out the window” and obsessive vigilance— securing your double mask before helping your

kids put on their Covid goggles—became fused with these people’s political identity. From President Biden on down, vaccinated liberals insist that wearing a mask is their “patriotic duty,” said Marc Siegel in The Wall Street Journal. Such excessive caution actually sends a harmful message, suggesting “if you get vaccinated, you’ll be afforded virtually no relief” from the burden of wearing a mask, even on a hot day.

As vaccinated people ease back into the world in this awkward “in-between” phase, said Dr. Leana Wen in The Washington Post, “there is no one-sizefits-all answer.” People who have “severely immunocompromised” relatives—who are being treated for cancer or who’ve had organ transplants—may still want to wear masks, as might people who see unvaccinated relatives. Risk tolerance varies: Some see “the 0.008 percent chance of infection and 0.0001 percent chance of death” once we’re vaccinated as a green light for ditching masks, while others fear the rare “breakthrough” case. “We shouldn’t mock the cautious for taking things at their own pace, nor should we condemn those who engage in activities we might not dare ourselves.”

As long as vaccinations continue, we’re all on the “pathway back to normalcy.”

NEWS 19 Wit & Wisdom “I can’t be a pessimist, because I’m alive. To be a pessimist means that you have agreed that human life is an academic matter.”

James Baldwin, quoted in NPR.org

“They sicken of the calm, who knew the storm.”

Dorothy Parker, quoted in TheBrowser.com

“The more I love humanity in general, the less I love man in particular.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quoted in The Economist

“The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter. ’Tis the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.”

Mark Twain, quoted in The New York Times

“A fool bolts pleasure, then complains of moral indigestion.”

Writer Minna Thomas Antrim, quoted in Forbes.com

“Hope is a tightrope across a ravine between a here and a there, and that tightrope’s as sharp as a knife blade.”

Author Ali Smith, quoted in The Guardian (U.K.)

“A day can really slip by when you’re deliberately avoiding what you’re supposed to do.”

Cartoonist Bill Watterson, quoted in GoodReads.com

Poll watch Q 63% of Americans think that proof of vaccination should be required for domestic air travel, 61% for hotels, cruise ships, and resorts, 57% for attending a sports event, and 55% for returning to work.

Axios/Ipsos

Q 63% approve of President Biden’s overall performance. 71% approve of his pandemic response, including 47% of Republicans. 54% think the country is heading in the right direction.

AP News/NORC THE WEEK May 21, 2021

20 NEWS

THE WEEK May 21, 2021

Pick of the week’s cartoons

For more political cartoons, visit: www.theweek.com/cartoons.

Pick of the week’s cartoons

NEWS 21

THE WEEK May 21, 2021

22 NEWS

Technology

Cybercrime: A tightening web of threats and attacks The New Yorker. In a country where “few The crippling of a major oil pipeline by families own computers,” North Korea hackers represents “a new extreme” in has trained cybercriminal talent “the way the global ransomware epidemic, said Olympians were once cultivated in the Andy Greenberg in Wired.com. Last week, former Soviet bloc,” placing the most Colonial Pipeline, which supplies nearly promising pupils in specialized schools. half the fuel consumed on the East Coast, It’s estimated that 7,000 North Koreans announced that hackers had attacked its now work in the country’s “hacker internal computer network, and “shut army.” Some of their operations involve down parts of the pipeline’s operations months of planning and sophisticated “soto contain the threat.” Though the atcial engineering.” For one attack in Chile, tack does not appear to have reached key a “Spanish-speaking actor” was hired to control systems for the 5,500-mile conduit impersonate a real banking executive to running from Texas to New Jersey, it is still A critical threat to fuel supplies gain access to the company’s network. “one of the largest disruptions of American critical infrastructure by hackers in history.” The Russian cybercrime group known as DarkSide claimed responsibility, said These “attacks are getting nastier,” said Paul Sisson in The San Diego Union-Tribune. Hackers last week “paralyzed the digital Eamon Javers in CNBC.com. The DarkSide hackers are known resources” at Scripps Health. Survivors of the smuggling boat that for “double extortion,” simultaneously locking up networks and threatening to leak stolen data unless a ransom is paid. The group capsized off Point Loma could not be sent to the closest trauma claims it is “apolitical,” but its activity reflects a pattern of Russia center, Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla, because its computer systems were down. We can ill afford another wake-up call, said taking an indulgent approach to cybercrime targeting the West.

Timothy O’Brien in Bloomberg.com. The vulnerability, in particular, of our energy infrastructure “is one of the top-drawer issues Nation states can easily hide behind criminal groups in this of the 21st century.” Companies and the government have to start new form of cyberwarfare, said Danny Palmer in ZDNet.com. acting now to insulate our networks. Part of that is “being transAttackers can simply use “modified variants of ransomware parent” after attacks, rather than holding on to information out commonly used by cybercriminals,” keeping the real motives of embarrassment or competitiveness. That only makes it “harder behind an attack hidden. One state that barely bothers to conto prepare for and surmount the next one.” ceal its cybercrime ambitions is North Korea, said Ed Caesar in

Tracking devices are getting far more sophisticated, said Shelby Brown in CNET.com. The little Bluetooth tags popularized by Tile “that help you find your keys” and other items have been around for years. But new devices from Apple and Samsung incorporate so-called “ultrawideband” technology, which can pinpoint locations within half an inch “by measuring how long it takes supershort radio pulses to travel between devices.” Apple’s AirTags then use “the phone’s camera, accelerometer, and gyroscope to guide you to your AirTag using sound and haptic and visual feedback.” Samsung’s new SmartTag Plus allows you to use augmented reality, directing you with a gauge that gets bigger as you move toward your lost item. If a device is really lost, SmartTags can also enlist other Samsung devices to scan their surroundings, anonymously find your tag, and report its location to your app.

THE WEEK May 21, 2021

Bytes: What’s new in tech The end of an infamous live feed LiveLeak, a video site called “a sinister doppelgänger” to YouTube, suddenly shut down last week after 15 years in operation, said James Vincent in TheVerge.com. The shock site was “known for hosting gruesome footage that mainstream rivals wouldn’t touch,” such as the video of the beheading of U.S. journalist James Foley by terror group ISIS. Despite the grisly content—or perhaps because of it—LiveLeak attracted between 16 million and 20 million unique visitors per month. In a blog post, founder Hayden Hewitt did not give an explicit reason for the site’s closure, only saying that “the world has changed a lot” in recent years.

Pushing back on campus surveillance Accusations of cheating on remote exams have created an uproar at Dartmouth’s medical school, said Natasha Singer and Aaron Krolik in The New York Times. Like many schools during the past year, Dartmouth “requires students to turn on ExamSoft—a tool that prevents them from looking up study materials during tests—on the computer on which they take exams.” But a faculty member grew concerned that some students were using Canvas, the school’s remote platform, to

cheat on a backup device. Dartmouth accused 17 students based on an analysis showing “they have been active on relevant Canvas pages” during exams. But it later emerged that “automated activity” may have been mistaken for cheating. Seven of the 17 have since had their cases dismissed, and on-campus protests have turned the school into “a national battleground over escalating school surveillance.”

Ancient problem, modern solution Orthodox women are taking to social media for help in obtaining a divorce, said Liana Satenstein in Vogue. In Orthodox Jewish tradition, “it is the husband who initiates the process” of a divorce, or what religious law calls a get. But some refuse, making their wives agunah, or “chained.” Chava Herman Sharabani had been an agunah for 10½ years until she messaged a popular Jerusalem-based singer on Instagram with “an image of her ex-husband’s face paired with the phrase ‘Get Refusal Is Abuse’ on it.” The singer shared it, and #FreeChava took off—drawing comparisons with #MeToo in the Orthodox community. One advocate who works on getrefusal cases said at least “17 women have been freed from their agunah status” since the #FreeChava movement began.

AP, Reuters

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Health & Science

A psychedelic drug to cure PTSD?

Ruan with a sample of the hyper-reflective paint

The whitest white paint Scientists at Purdue University have developed a super-white paint that could help cut our reliance on air-conditioning and fight climate change, reports ABCNews.com.

Regular commercial white paint reflects about 80 to 90 percent of sunlight. It can keep buildings cooler than if they were painted black but can’t make walls cooler than the ambient temperature. The new paint is made from barium sulfate, a lowcost compound used to whiten photo paper and cosmetics, and reflects up to 98.1 percent of sunlight and does not absorb ultraviolet light. Outdoor tests found that this ultra-white paint kept surfaces 19 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than nearby surfaces at night, and 8 degrees cooler in peak sunlight. The Purdue team estimates that if 1,000 square feet of roof were covered with the paint, it would provide a cooling power of 10 kilowatts—more than the central air-conditioning units used in most houses.

Reassuringly, the paint isn’t so bright it’ll hurt people’s eyes. “It just looks bright white,” says lead researcher Xiulin Ruan.

“A bit whiter than snow.”

Our disappearing glaciers The world’s mountain glaciers are melting at such a rapid pace that many could vanish entirely by the middle of this century.

An international team of researchers that THE WEEK May 21, 2021

Marine vet who had suffered debilitating nightmares since returning from Iraq in 2007. The final barrier before MDMA can be approved for therapeutic use by the FDA—a second Phase 3 trial—is already underway. Mental health researchers say approval would pave the way for research on how the drug could treat other psychological issues, including substance abuse, eating disorders, and depression. What makes MDMA so promising is that unlike traditional pharmaceuticals that simply blunt the symptoms of PTSD, the psychedelic when combined with talk therapy can help the brain process painful memories and heal itself. Neuroscientists aren’t sure

analyzed 20 years of recently declassified images taken by the NASA satellite Terra found that our planet’s 220,000 mountain glaciers have together been losing 328 billion tons of ice and snow a year since 2015. That’s 78 billion more tons than the annual rate from 2000 to 2004. Almost all of the world’s glaciers—including Tibet’s, which used to be stable—are melting, reports the Associated Press. And apart from a few exceptions in Iceland and Scandinavia, melt rates are speeding up everywhere. Alaska’s melt rates are among the fastest in the world, with the Columbia glacier retreating 115 feet a year. “Ten years ago, we were saying that the glaciers are the indicator of climate change,” says World Glacier Monitoring Service Director Michael Zemp, who wasn’t involved in the study. “Now actually they’ve become a memorial of the climate crisis.”

Pollution may hamper memory Temporary spikes in air pollution can hurt thinking and memory, a new study suggests.

Researchers compared cognitive-test scores from nearly 1,000 men in Boston, average

Ostrom: ‘I’m a different person.’

how MDMA does this. But they think it may be because the drug can enable a patient’s brain to return to a more malleable childhood state, when it was much better at making and storing new memories.

age 69, to local levels of PM2.5s—airborne pollutants that are smaller than 2.5 micrometers in width and can pass through the blood-brain barrier. They found that higher PM2.5 levels in the four weeks preceding the tests were linked to poorer performance in tasks including word memory, number recall, and verbal fluency. The negative effect was the same even when PM2.5 concentrations remained below 10 micrograms per cubic meter, the level deemed acceptable by the World Health Organization.

Interestingly, the study also found that the men’s cognitive performance was less affected by rises in pollution if they were taking aspirin and other nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs. That may be because these drugs reduce inflammation, which can be triggered by tiny particles entering the brain. “These shorter-term effects are reversible: When air pollution clears, our brain reboots and starts working back to its original level,” senior author Andrea Baccarelli, from Columbia University in New York, tells The Guardian (U.K.). “However, multiple occurrences of these higher exposures cause permanent damage.”

subtle color change is something males pick up on—they bring more food Female hoopoes have an intriguing to females with duller-colored way of protecting their unborn eggs, presumably to ensure the chicks: the zebra-striped birds survival of higher-quality chicks. repeatedly cover their eggs This somewhat touching behavior in rancid-smelling, postcoital goo. has never been seen before in Secreted from a gland near the base birds, reports The Atlantic. Most of the mother’s tail, the fluid seeps male-to-female signals involve through the eggs’ porous shells displays of machismo or nestand is filled with friendly microbes building prowess. “Mate choice is a that make the hatchlings inside multistep process,” says evolutionmore likely to survive. This ary ecologist Sahas Barve, who stinky but effective process has wasn’t involved in the research. a telltale sign: It dulls the color “Just like humans, birds are of the eggshell from a light constantly judging their partblue to a greenish gray. And ners to make sure they A female hoopoe new research shows that this made the best choice.”

Survival of the stinkiest

Elliot Ross/The New York Times/Redux, Jared Pike/Purdue University, Alamy

Sufferers from post-traumatic stress disorder could get relief from an unlikely drug: MDMA, better known as the psychedelic Ecstasy. That’s the finding of a new study that involved 90 people with severe PTSD, including combat veterans, first responders, and victims of sexual assault. During three talk-therapy sessions, each eight hours long and spaced a month apart, the participants received either MDMA or a placebo. Two months after treatment, 67 percent of the MDMA group no longer qualified for a PTSD diagnosis, compared with 32 percent of the control group, reports The New York Times. “Literally, I’m a different person,” said Scott Ostrom, a

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ARTS Review of reviews: Books in similar ways. She also writes powerfully about the added stresses placed on lowincome mothers and argues for far more generous government support. “But by the time the stronger chapters occur, the damage has been done by the earlier wild claims of new moms falling apart.”

Book of the week Mom Genes: Inside the New Science of Our Ancient Maternal Instinct

by Abigail Tucker (Gallery, $28) “Mothers are different from other people,” said Emily Bobrow in The Wall Street Journal. In her “fascinating” new book, science journalist Abigail Tucker dives into the relatively new field of “mom science” to detail how women are physiologically transformed by pregnancy and early motherhood. The typical mother, Tucker says, experiences “a cellular-level revolution that rebuilds the female brain.” Mothers become better at interpreting facial expressions, more wary of strangers, and calmer than others in moments of stress. The downside: What women refer to as “mommy brain” is real: Four out of five new mothers report cognitive problems—primarily struggles with memory—and those issues can’t all be explained as effects of sleep deprivation.

“Tucker’s argument is not a subtle one,” said Barbara King in NPR.org. She shares

Mother and child: A transformative bond

studies showing that mothers experience a dramatic reduction in gray matter while simultaneously activating new neural pathways. She attributes such changes to a “monomaniacal” focus on the baby’s health. A mother herself, Tucker is often jokey and self-deprecating when offering such thoughts, but “a view of new mothers as brain-compromised isn’t a cute meme; it’s damaging to women who may have to fight a tide of suspicion about their competence.”

How bad can these cognitive effects be?

Tucker eventually reveals that the brains of adoptive mothers and gay parents change

Novel of the week Great Circle

Albert and the Whale: Albrecht Dürer and How Art Imagines Our World

by Maggie Shipstead

by Philip Hoare (Pegasus, $29)

(Knopf, $29)

“Most novelists have their limits”—but not Maggie Shipstead, said Susie Boyt in the Financial Times. The author of Seating Arrangements and Astonish Me is “a writer who can vividly summon whatever she chooses,” and she opens her ambitious new novel by introducing two memorable heroines and plunging readers into the middle of a Titanic-like disaster. One child survivor, Marian Graves, will become a celebrated aviator lost in 1950 during a daring flight. And we know that from the start, because the other heroine, Hadley, is a witty young film star hired to play Marian in a movie decades later. At first, Hadley’s tale is less vivid, said Ron Charles in The Washington Post. “Hollywood may be a fat target, but it’s also a tattered one,” and Shipstead “has far more success bringing 1914 to life than 2014.”

But once Hadley, still smarting from a tabloid scandal, digs into Marian’s story, the novel’s parallel dramas “begin to resonate with each other.” The result is a “soaring” work of fiction—“my top recommendation for this summer.”

THE WEEK May 21, 2021

In 1520, the artist Albrecht Dürer traveled for several days to view a beached whale but arrived too late, said John Williams in The New York Times.

By standard measures, this was a nonevent.

Yet its centrality to Philip Hoare’s new book is “perfectly indicative of the strange, seemingly spare ingredients that Hoare likes to turn into feasts.” The British writer, known for his award-winning 2008 book, The Whale, here makes Dürer and his work the subject of a “summary-defying blend of art history, biography, nature writing, and memoir.”

Whether you find his methods “enchanting or somewhat dizzying,” it’s hard not to be awed by “the forceful weather system that is Hoare’s imagination.”

Hoare positions Dürer as a central figure at a moment of revolution in human his-

The science doesn’t tell Tucker what she wished to hear anyway, said Julie LythcottHaims in The New York Times. She began her research hoping to find proof that women possess a maternal instinct and that it might be genetically encoded. Arguably, though she failed in that aim, the book “reveals something more valuable.” Tucker shares her own experience of motherhood, and she’s “at her finest” when describing the depression she fell into after her husband became ill, her anxiety spiked, and the couple’s third child arrived. She made it through not because she had mommy superpowers, she writes, but because she had strong social support, starting with help from her own mother. She concludes that such support is truly the key to good mothering, and that all mothers deserve to have it. “That’s what makes her tale ultimately redeemable and encouraging.” tory, said Rachel Campbell-Johnston in The Times (U.K.). “Here is an artist whose vision was forged in the medieval world, in the domain of myths, monsters, and miracles. At the same time, he was treading the very brink of the future, looking forward into the new realm of scientific revelations and discoveries.” Whales were near-mythic beasts, rarely seen. Dürer, whose engravings made him arguably the world’s first international artist, was spreading striking images—some accurate, some not—of the world’s wonders. But Hoare’s narrative does not dwell in 1520 for long. “It swirls times and places and people and disciplines together,” and “a picture of human society across history builds up.”

Hoare’s style takes getting used to, said Charles Arrowsmith in The Washington Post. A mention of a Dürer biographer inspires him to loop in other midcentury intellectuals who fled the U.S. That leads to mentions of poet Marianne Moore, novelist Thomas Mann, even David Bowie. “Before long, Hoare has unfurled a whole tapestry of lives connected, however loosely, to Dürer’s work and its themes.” From this idiosyncratic constellation of cultural greats, however, “he extrapolates an entire cosmology, a way of seeing the world every bit as rich and penetrating as Dürer’s.”

Media Bakery

26

The Book List Best books…chosen by John McWhorter Linguist John McWhorter is a Columbia University professor, contributor to The Atlantic, host of a Slate.com podcast, and author of 20 books. In his latest, Nine Nasty Words, he examines the origins and evolution of several notorious profanities.

Sea People by Christina Thompson (2019).

You may not think that you would enjoy a book about the peopling of the Polynesian islands, but this one you will. The vast Pacific Ocean was the last region peopled, and with celestial-navigation techniques that seem almost magical to the outsider. Linguistics, archaeology, folklore, and geography all come together in a fascinating story.

The Queen by Josh Levin (2019). The Reaganite “welfare queen” archetype was, of course, a myth, and based on essentially one person. Linda Taylor indeed drew welfare checks via several false identities, but her real story was one of American segregation, bigotry, and eventually psychological imbalance and murder. The Queen is a sterling lesson in the relentless complexity of social history.

American Pastoral by Philip Roth (1997). It seemed as if everybody had read this but me.

When I finally did, I was floored by the grinding tug between the ideals of a callow assimilationist everyman and the tragedy that fate can unleash upon a marriage, a family, and even a nation’s cultural fabric. This is the Roth novel most likely to be read 200 years from now.

The Coddling of the American Mind by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt (2018). Lukianoff and Haidt keenly anticipated today’s debates over “wokeness,” noting that contemporary educational orthodoxy teaches kids three basic tenets: What doesn’t kill you makes you weaker, always trust your feelings, and life is a battle between good people and bad people. Progressive? Opinions will differ.

You Say to Brick by Wendy Lesser (2017).

This exquisite summation of Louis Kahn’s life and work is also a stealth class in the aesthetics of modern architecture. It’s singular in a way surpassing recent bios of more famous architects Philip Johnson and Frank Lloyd Wright.

The Castle Cross the Magnet Carter by Kia Corthron (2016). This novel doesn’t know whether it wants to be a mystery, a historical reflection, or a family saga—and shouldn’t.

Written by an accomplished playwright, it is a magnificently odd and passionate saga of two Black brothers during the second half of the 20th century. The thematic range and almost Faulknerian sprawl here deserve more attention.

Holly McWhorter, AP

Also of interest...in idols revisited The Invention of Miracles

Hawking Hawking

by Katie Booth (Simon & Schuster, $30)

by Charles Seife (Basic, $30)

Katie Booth has written “the rare biography that completely alters a famous person’s popular image,” said Chris Vognar in The Boston Globe.

Alexander Graham Bell cared less about inventing the telephone than he did about educating the deaf, yet he did great harm by fighting the use of sign language and promoting the eradication of deafness by means that inspired Nazi policies. “Bell was no simple monster,” though, and Booth has mustered “the courage and perspective” to show him whole.

We have enough starry-eyed portraits of Stephen Hawking, said Frank Wilczek in The New York Times. The renowned theoretical physicist led “a uniquely inspiring life,” but author Charles Seife “has performed an important service” by writing a biography that strips away the myths. Hawking did important work before ALS severely disabled him, but his later output often boosted his celebrity at the expense of science. Hawking Hawking hones to the truth; “it is what a great scientist deserves.”

Blood and Treasure

Beyond

by Bob Drury and Tom Clavin (St. Martin’s, $30)

by Stephen Walker (Harper, $30)

The “painful truth” about Daniel Boone’s exploits is that they were “antithetical to Native American survival,” said Peter Cozzens in The Wall Street Journal. But the legendary frontiersman emerges in this book as “a fundamentally decent man” who despised being hailed as an “Indian-fighter.” Blood and Treasure offers “superb portrayals of Boone and his white frontier contemporaries,” but also vividly evokes various trans-Appalachian tribes and “their heartwrenching efforts to protect their land.”

In the West, Yuri Gagarin’s name only registers as a trivia-question answer, said James McConnachie in The Sunday Times (U.K.). But this “tight, thrilling” book puts readers right beside the Soviet cosmonaut in 1961 as he becomes the first man in space. The Soviets got lucky: Gagarin could have died 100 ways.

Instead, he scored the USSR an unlikely Cold War triumph. In one of this book’s “gorgeously Russian” touches, he lands in a potato field and has to borrow a horse to reach a phone.

ARTS 27 Author of the week Stacey Abrams Is there nothing Stacey Abrams can’t do? asked Tyler Blint-Welsh in The Wall Street Journal. The former Georgia gubernatorial candidate and voting-rights advocate who spearheaded the Democratic Party’s bid to win control of the U.S. Senate also turns out to be a successful romance novelist who has published eight books under a pen name. Abrams, now 47, wrote the first of those novels while she still was a law student at Yale. At the time she chose to use the pseudonym Selena Montgomery, she was putting her own name on a journal article about tax policy and decided that the last thing she wanted was for fiction readers to Google her name and find that paper. “Since I was just starting in the romance field,” she says, “I wanted a separate identity so that people didn’t think it was romance being written by Alan Greenspan.”

The first novel that bears Abrams’ own name is also her first legal thriller, said Sarah Lyall in The New York Times.

In While Justice Sleeps, a brilliant law clerk finds herself in the middle of a national crisis when a U.S. Supreme Court justice falls into a coma.

Like many of Abrams’ other undertakings, the novel was partly a family effort, with all five of her siblings pitching in.

They were encouraged to be avid readers from childhood, after all, and they now maintain a monthly book club as well as ongoing discussions about popular TV series.

One sister helped Abrams get certain biological details right. Another chipped in on religion. Her brother Richard insisted that the climactic scene would move faster without the car chase—and Abrams reluctantly excised it. “I love a good car chase,” she says.

THE WEEK May 21, 2021

Review of reviews: Art & Stage

Exhibit of the week

One image from that show features a boy in aviator sunglasses posing in front of a movie theater; another captures three elegant women watching a parade. In more recent work, Bey has found a way to make the past visible in photos taken in the present, said Zoe Samudzi in Hyperallergic.com.

“The Birmingham Project,” from 2012, is a series of diptychs that commemorate a 1963 church bombing by pairing a child the same age as one of the victims with an elder Birmingham, Ala., resident born the same year as that victim. Viewing the images, “we are confronted by our own mortality,” and I was brought to tears by the love and pride that welled up within me.

Dawoud Bey: An American Project Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City, through Oct. 3

“Sometimes, the biggest gift an artist can receive is a limitation, an obstacle,” said Sebastian Smee in The Washington Post.

Photography presents multiple obstacles, which Dawoud Bey has been productively surmounting almost since he first picked up a 35-millimeter as a teenager. In a career survey that has just reached his native New York City after two previous stops, Bey’s portraits, mostly of fellow Black Americans, establish why his work is celebrated. They’re “at once so fresh and so assured” that by the time you’ve seen a dozen or more, “your mind is bobbling and humming like a new arrival at a housewarming party.” Bey’s secret has been that he works to share the power that a camera gives a photographer over the subject. “Where other photographers would be quickly in and out,” Bey instead immerses himself in a community, builds trust, and encourages his subjects to participate in how they’re presented.

Born in 1953 in Queens, N.Y., Bey had already taken up photography when a 1969 museum show affirmed the pursuit, said Tausif Noor in The New York Times.

A boy on 125th Street in a 1976 Bey portrait

“Harlem on My Mind,” an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, drew protests because most of the contributing artists were white. But the teenage Bey also saw a chance to carve a place in the world, and just a decade later, he had a museum exhibition of his own: “Harlem, U.S.A.”

The Last Match ++++

finals match progresses, the two racquet-less players narrate their crucial shots while their movements and a throbbing soundtrack “capture the tension of the game.”

Hallahan’s aging champion, mid-serve

“Unless you’re hiring actors with powerful serves and mean forehands,” said Chris Jones in the Chicago Tribune, it’s difficult to re-create the drama of a real-life tennis match in a theater setting. But the acclaimed Writers Theatre in suburban Chicago has found a way with “a very sophisticated, high-energy, and entertaining new show” that gains added energy because it’s streamed to viewers’ home screens. Ryan Hallahan portrays an American champion who, at 34, is “tennis old” but craving one last U.S. Open title before retirement.

His young Russian opponent, played by Christopher Sheard, is “amoral and manipulative,” but also hungry to win. As their THE WEEK May 21, 2021

Playwright Anna Ziegler weaves in flashbacks, and every turn in the story “makes you feel deeply for the players,” said Catey Sullivan in the Chicago Sun-Times. “Where Hallahan’s Tim tries to keep his emotions as tightly sealed as a vacuum-sealed can of tennis balls, Sheard’s Sergei wears his on his sleeve.” But we know that Sergei is hell-bent on defeating his former hero and that Tim is plagued by self-doubt despite his past triumphs. Their romantic partners are secondary characters, but Kayla Carter and Heather Chrisler make the characters memorable, one radiating warmth and the other “all fire and ice and ruthless pragmatism.” Unfortunately, Ziegler has neglected to provide a conclusion as dramatic as everything that leads up to it. “Imagine watching a breathlessly close Wimbledon final, only it culminates without a winner being declared. That’s the sense of deflation The Last Match ultimately serves.” From $40, writerstheatre.org, through May 30

Bey tricked time again in the exhibition’s most recent series, said Ariella Budick in the Financial Times. In 2017, Bey took daytime photographs of empty locations along the Underground Railroad in Ohio and then printed them to simulate nighttime, encouraging viewers to imagine the barely visible homes, fences, and landscapes as the images that runaway slaves saw when advancing north under the cover of darkness. “With a stroke of allusive magic, Bey conjures Black fugitives moving invisibly through a black terrain to the shores of Lake Erie. There, chunky waves meet the horizon where freedom hovers, swathed in suggestive shadow.”

Maya Lin’s ‘ghost forest’ There’s something unusual about the four dozen towering new trees in New York City’s Madison Square Park, said Michael Sol Warren in the Newark, N.J., Star-Ledger.

“They’re dead, and that’s just how Maya Lin wants them.” Lin, the artist who designed the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., had the Atlantic white cedars trucked in from southern New Jersey and erected in the park to draw attention to the losses wrought by climate change. She has a studio in Colorado that looks out on a forest destroyed by insects that thrive on warmer temperatures. These trees came from an area where storms have contaminated the soil with saltwater.

“It’s an incredibly striking display,” said Marley Marius in Vogue.com, “a disruption of the urban landscape that rather forcibly reminds one of what all this once was: dense and sprawling woodland.” The trees will remain in place until November, and the public is invited to walk among them.

Dawoud Bey, Writers Theatre, Madison Square Park Conservancy

28 ARTS

Review of reviews: Film & Music

Crawford: A man who can’t let go

The Killing of Two Lovers

Neon/Everett, Reuters

++++

particularly when one party is pulling toward divorce and the other toward reconciliation,” said Dennis Harvey in Variety.com. “There is no question that some kind of explosion is coming,” and Machoian delivers it, though not in a way viewers will anticipate. Sepideh Moafi plays Niki, a paralegal still aspiring to a bigger life, and as the couple’s story unfolds, “the acting barely feels like acting” and “the situations are documentary-real,” said Roger Moore in RogersMovieNation .com. “Machoian never lets this lapse into melodrama,” yet “the fact that he can take such an over-familiar situation and discover surprises in it may be his most impressive feat of all.” (In select theaters or $6 on demand) R

Other new movies

Made on a micro budget, Robert Machoian’s first feature-length film is “a transfixing drama without a wasted word or a single inessential scene,” said David Rooney in The Hollywood Reporter. The writer-director shot the movie in a remote town in Utah and opens it with a breathtaking sight: a man standing in a bedroom pointing a pistol at two lovers who are unaware he’s there. Played by accomplished TV actor Clayne Crawford, this is David, a husband and father driven to desperation as his marriage slips away. An “ominous dread” hangs over everything that follows, even as David proves to be usually gentle and kind.

Despite the noirish title, this arresting film is “really about the pain of marital separation,

Four Good Days

Jack Ingram, Miranda Lambert & Jon Randall The Marfa Tapes

Czarface & MF Doom

++++

++++

“It’s fascinating to hear a genuine country star in a stripped-down context,” said Tom Breihan in Stereogum.com.

When the pandemic put an end to touring, Miranda Lambert and two songwriter friends gathered in Marfa, Texas, sat around a campfire singing, and made a set of recordings that “sounds like nothing else in her discography.” All 15 songs were written collaboratively, and Lambert sings more than half of them, all of them “straight-up” country: just a voice, an acoustic guitar or two, and lyrics that “do the classic-country thing of describing big feelings with specificity and economy.”

Lambert’s new version of “Tin Man,” an award-winning 2017 single, “channels unfiltered heartache,” said Eric Danton in PasteMagazine.com. Similarly, “The Wind’s Just Gonna Blow” is “at once simple and devastatingly effective.” But “not everything is a downhearted gut punch.” The “loose and relaxed” Guy Clark tribute “Home Grown Tomatoes” is one of many tracks punctuated by jokes and laughter. “Truth is, the whole album is fun, even when it’s melancholy.”

MF Doom’s first posthumous release “does not disappoint,” said Andrew Sacher in BrooklynVegan.com.

The masked rapper, a major figure in underground hip-hop, was “as prolific as ever” shortly before he died at age 49 in October, and had been working on this second collaboration with the supergroup Czarface. The music “feels a little more like classic East Coast boom bap” than the “psychedelic comic book rap” of 2018’s Czarface Meets Metal Face. The 10-track set “still spends plenty of time in outer space,” though, and it “serves as a reminder that Doom remained at the top of his game up through his very last days.” Unfortunately, Doom “largely plays second fiddle” to Czarface’s Esoteric, 7L, and Inspectah Deck (of Wu-Tang Clan fame), said James McMahon in NME.com. A “one-off, generational talent” deserves a more fitting epitaph. Still, this “short, loose, fun” record is “unquestionably” good. And “with that voice broadcast from beyond the grave—dank and dusty, impossibly cool—everything Doom shares here feels precious.”

Mila Kunis fares better than Glenn Close in the two stars’ new addiction drama, said Ty Burr in The Boston Globe. There’s “an actorly fussiness” to Close when she plays an ordinary person like the mother here, who grudgingly opens her door when her heroin-addict daughter vows once more to get clean. Kunis has the better role. She conveys “layers of self-destructive emotions,” including self-loathing and “a pitiless clarity about how close she is to the grave.” (In select theaters now; on demand May 21) R

Water Man David Oyelowo’s directorial debut is “a very nice movie that’s a lot like a bunch of other

Super What?

ARTS 29

very nice movies,” said Johnny Oleksinki in the New York Post. A boy whose mother is dying goes searching for the “Water Man,” a figure of local legend who supposedly knows the secret of immortality. Oyelowo, as the tween’s father, adds depth to the story, but it plays mostly as standard young adult fiction, except “watered down.” (In theaters only) PG

Wrath of Man Jason Statham’s latest thriller is “the bluntest kind of instrument, even for an action piece that styles itself as a B movie,” said Leah Greenblatt in Entertainment Weekly.

With Guy Ritchie directing, Statham plays an armored-car guard with a score to settle, and as always, there’s something “briskly compelling” about the actor’s affectless screen persona. Too bad “basic-cable blandness” renders Wrath “just another loose bag of lizard-brain thrills.” (In theaters only) R

Us Kids Consider this heartbreaking documentary “indispensable viewing for anyone who genuinely cares about the future of this country,” said Carlos Aguilar in the Los Angeles Times. In 2018, teenage survivors of the high school shooting in Parkland, Fla., stepped up to become “unstoppable” gun-control activists, and filmmaker Kim Snyder was there as they stared down threats to embark on a nationwide speaking tour. Their story becomes “a galvanizing portrait of bravery.”

(In select theaters, via virtual cinemas, or $6 on demand) Not rated

The end of the Globes?

“The party’s over for the Golden Globes, at least for now,” said Kyle Buchanan in The New York Times.

NBC announced this week that it won’t broadcast the awards show next year because Tom Cruise in 2000 needed reform of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association won’t be completed in time. In February, the Los Angeles Times had spotlighted corruption of the organization’s voting process and revealed that not one of its 87 voting members was Black.

Last week, proposed reforms were dismissed, with Scarlett Johansson and other stars speaking out. Tom Cruise even returned his three trophies to the organization—a significant rebuke, as such awards are “only as important as the recipients believe them to be.” Label the Globes “an endangered species,” said Brian Truitt in USA Today. Viewership has already plummeted, and for the public, a one-year absence of the Globes “could just be a reminder of how unnecessary they were in the first place.”

THE WEEK May 21, 2021

Movies on TV Comfort TV...

Earth Moods This new aerial-view series from National Geographic is almost a glorified screen saver. Yet it’s also subtly rewarding. Frozen seascapes, dazzling city lights, and undulating dune formations are paired with ambient music by composer Neil Davidge, creating a trance-inducing experience. Disney+

Headspace Guide to Meditation Headspace, the popular meditation app, has translated its services to TV, providing short episodes that help viewers adopt a regular meditation practice. The soothing voices of Andy and Eve, the app’s guides, suggest closing your eyes. When you don’t, you see simple animated figures that provide visual aid. Netflix

Stillwater A Zen-minded panda named Stillwater proves to be a perfect neighbor to three young siblings in this superb animated series based on picture books by author Jon J. Muth. Apple TV+

The Repair Shop Repairing precious family heirlooms may seem like a high-stress endeavor. But in this series, visiting a London workshop to watch craftspeople work their patient magic is always comforting, with each episode a meditation on the connecting power of well-made things. Netflix

A World of Calm A series of soothing stories narrated by Nicole Kidman and other stars, this show created by the meditation app Calm is designed to lull viewers to sleep. The visuals: gorgeous images of nature, with hints of humans’ orderly touch. HBO Max

Television The Week’s guide to what’s worth watching 1971: The Year That Music Changed Everything Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On. Carole King’s Tapestry. Joni Mitchell’s Blue. The Who’s Who’s Next. Something about 1971 brought out the best in the rock era, and this new eight-part series never seems to run out of great artists reaching similar peaks. Expect quality time revisiting the Stones, David Bowie, Led Zeppelin, Sly Stone, and a few ex-Beatles, with all the music grounded in a wide view of a tumultuous historical moment. Available Friday, May 21, Apple TV+ Army of the Dead The zombies in Zack Snyder’s new dystopian thriller have overrun Las Vegas, and they’re smarter and faster than the usual undead stiffs.

In a film arriving on home screens a week after its theatrical debut, former wrestler Dave Bautista plays an ex–war hero who assembles a well-armed team to pull off a $200 million heist.

Little do the thieves know that they’ll have to fight their way out of Sin City. Available Friday, May 21, Netflix Solos Actors don’t often get a chance to go it alone.

This new anthology series lets them do just that, presenting six 30-minute dramas focused on a single character. Anne Hathaway portrays a scientist who discovers time travel. Helen Mirren plays a solo intergalactic passenger. Other episodes showcase Anthony Mackie, Uzo Aduba, Constance Wu, Dan Stevens, and Morgan Freeman.

Available Friday, May 21, Amazon Prime Master of None Aziz Ansari’s critically acclaimed comedy series is back. Put on hold in 2018 shortly after a woman accused creator and star Aziz Ansari of sexual misconduct, the show is returning with a five-episode season that focuses on Lena Waithe’s Denise and her marriage to Alicia, played by rising star Naomi Ackie. Ansari co-wrote the story with Waithe and directs each episode.

For now, Denise’s friend Dev, Ansari’s semiautobiographical character, slips into a side role.

Available Sunday, May 23, Netflix

THE WEEK May 21, 2021

The Chi Sunday must be Lena Waithe day. The ensemble drama series she created about the neighborhood of her youth, Chicago’s South Side, is returning for a fourth season, a six-episode run that will tackle the national crisis in policing head on.

Kevin, Jake, and Papa, the three friends who are coming of age in today’s Chi Town, are discovering how society views young Black men when the city’s new Black mayor, Otis Perry, makes a bold move to change the status quo. Sunday, May 23, at 9 p.m., Showtime Other highlights Who Killed Sara?

This twisty Mexican thriller series had a buzzy debut in the U.S. just two months ago.

Now Season 2 arrives, resuming a brother’s quest to find his sister’s killer almost 20 years after he was framed for the murder. Available Wednesday, May 19, Netflix Special Ryan O’Connell’s delightful semi-autobiographical comedy series about a gay man with cerebral palsy loosens up in its second and final season.

Available Thursday, May 20, Netflix 2021 Billboard Music Awards The Weeknd, after his snubbing by the Grammys, leads all nominees heading into next week’s awards show. Pink and Drake will receive career honors. Sunday, May 23, at 8 p.m., NBC

Show of the week In Treatment

Painting With John John Lurie, former film actor, musician, and cult figure, now spends his days in the Caribbean, teaching viewers how to paint watercolors and also how to live.

HBO Max

John and Yoko: Just wanting some truth, in 1971

Aduba: Taking on the world’s problems

A decade has passed between In Treatment sessions. Gone, sadly, is Gabriel Byrne’s Paul Weston, who occupied the psychotherapist’s chair for three seasons. Replacing him is Uzo Aduba (Orange Is the New Black), who’s calmly empathic as a Los Angeles therapist who’s guiding three patients through varied problems amid the pandemic while mourning a parent’s death and navigating a rocky romantic relationship.

With Anthony Ramos as a home-care worker, Quintessa Swindell as a queer teen, and John Benjamin Hickey as a white-collar criminal just out of prison. Sunday, May 23, at 9 p.m., HBO

• All listings are Eastern Time.

Apple TV, HBO

30 ARTS

LEISURE Food & Drink

31

Fear-free fish stew: A new dinner staple from Nigella Lawson Warm oil in a heavy-based saucepan or Dutch oven. Add onion and cook gently for about 20 minutes until beginning to soften.

“I know a lot of people are hesitant about cooking fish, and I do understand why,” said Nigella Lawson in Cook, Eat, Repeat (Ecco). “But this, my friends, is the recipe to allay your anxieties and free you from fear.”

Finely grate in orange zest and garlic, add chopped cilantro stalks and grated fresh ginger. Stir everything in over gentle heat, then add spices.

“It’s also very useful when you have to get dinner on the table fast.” For although the sauce takes about an hour to cook—“and for a good half of this time you can be lying languorously on a sofa”—you can make the dish in advance. “Indeed, I think it is better for having time to steep and mellow.” When you’re ready to eat, “you just heat the sauce, adding a quarter cup of water, chop up your fish chunkily, drop it all into the simmering pan, and supper’s pretty much on the table.”

Jonathan Lovekin, Reuters

Recipe of the week Fear-free fish stew ¼ tsp each cinnamon and ground mace ½ tsp each ground ginger, turmeric, hot smoked paprika, and cumin 1 large sweet potato A small bunch of cilantro 2 tbsp olive oil 1 onion, roughly chopped 1 orange 2 fat cloves of garlic, peeled 1 tsp finely grated fresh ginger 1 (28 oz) can of diced tomatoes 1 tbsp tomato paste

Tip in the diced sweet potato and stir in over medium heat for a minute or so. Add canned tomatoes and 1²⁄3 cups cold water.

Spoon in tomato paste and add salt and honey or maple syrup. Halve zested orange and squeeze out 1 tbsp juice. Add that too, giving everything a good stir.

Serve atop black rice for extra visual pop.

1 tsp flaky sea salt or kosher salt (or ½ tsp fine sea salt) 1 tsp honey or maple syrup 1¾ lbs skinless firm white fish, in 1 thick piece or thick-cut fillet Measure all spices into a little bowl, then peel sweet potato, cut into ½-inch dice, and leave to one side. Finely chop tender stalks from cilantro, to create 3 tbsp.

Turn up heat to bring to a boil, then clamp on the lid, turn heat down, and leave to simmer for 40 to 45 minutes until sweet potato is completely soft and sauce has thickened slightly.

Cut fish into large bite-size pieces and add to sauce. Turn heat down and put lid on.

Depending on how chunky or how cold the fish is, it’ll need 3 to 5 minutes to cook.

Remove pan from heat, remove lid and let stand for 2 minutes.

Chop cilantro leaves and sprinkle over stew. Serves 4.

Restaurants: Pandemic pivots that ought to be permanent

Spirits: Mexican whiskey

The pandemic has changed how we dine out—maybe forever and maybe for the best, said Monica Burton in Eater.com.

While no one wants to see the challenges of the past 14 months sustained, some of the restaurant industry’s innovative responses are worth keeping.

Takeout cocktails: Having an expertly crafted Manhattan delivered to one’s door was a new experience for many of us last spring. “It was also, unsurprisingly, delightful.” The cities and states that loosened alcohol regulations to allow such sales should make the changes permanent. Restaurants still need the revenue boost.

Expanded outdoor dining: With government blessing, many restaurants set up tables on streets and traffic lanes closed to vehicles last summer. Surely, some of that real estate doesn’t have to be given back to trucks and cars.

Meal kits: A twist on takeout, kits offered patrons a way to cook or assemble restaurantquality meals at home, and there’s no reason for the practice to end.

High-end takeout: Many fine restaurants offered takeout food for the first time, said Tom Sietsema in The Washington Post, and turned out to be good at it. Chefs not only learned what dishes travel well, they offered pleasant extras such as handwritten notes, free desserts—even suggested music playlists.

Mutual respect: Sure, it’s a quality that’s hard to measure, but “customers have been showing it—and restaurant workers have been enjoying it—as never before.” Let’s all keep it up. When I think today of “first responders,” restaurant workers are right behind doctors and other medical workers who devote themselves to our well-being.

Until recently, mezcal and tequila were Mexico’s only spirits worth chasing, said Matthew Kronsberg in Bloomberg.com.

But in a development that “feels both revolutionary and utterly natural,” distillers have ventured beyond agave-based spirits to tap the country’s “treasure trove” of heirloom corn varieties. The resulting whiskeys are distinctive—light enough to let the corn sing.

Abasolo Ancestral Corn Whisky ($40). Corn grown 7,000 feet above sea level is nixtamalized, unlocking “a floral sweetness.”

Sierra Norte Single Barrel Whiskey (from $59). Choose your corn—yellow, black, red, purple.

Oaxaca distiller Douglas French showcases each variety’s distinct characteristics.

Modern Ancient ($44 for 375 ml).

To make this whiskey, San Francisco’s Rob Easter imports “intensely flavored” Mexican corn, including a pinkish-purple variety that may be the rarest of all.

THE WEEK May 21, 2021

Consumer

32 LEISURE

The 2022 Infiniti QX55: What the critics say Kelley Blue Book “The 2022 Infiniti QX55 was born to pose for photos.” Essentially a QX50 with a coupe-like roofline, the new crossover from Nissan’s luxury division “has a handsome and athletic look,” and it’s “a solid choice” among a growing number of sportylooking five-seaters. “The taillights alone are worth the price of admission.” Unfortunately, the transmission is a bit poky and the power train can be “quite loud.”

Bloomberg.com Like so many other “perfectly capable, utterly forgettable” contemporary vehicles, the QX55 has “no more soul than a microwave.”

Our test drive “passed by unremarkably, like watching a movie on mute.” Granted, “there are no truly ‘bad’ cars these days,” and the QX55 is accommodating enough. “But with ho-hum interior accoutrements, lackluster driving performance, and an exterior that simply follows the leaders,” this crossover is just checking a box in Infiniti’s lineup.

Car and Driver At least the QX55 delivers “excellent” ride quality and “a cushy cocoon” of a cabin.

“For many buyers in this segment, that’s about all they’re looking for.” All-wheel drive comes standard, too. And though the QX55 can’t fit as much cargo as a QX50, it holds

Style before substance, from $46,500 more than its pricier German competitors.

As for the styling, well, “fashion is fickle.”

Twenty years from now, SUVs with fastback roofs might be cool precisely because they’re “just so 2022.”

The best of...adventures with kids

Fayogoo Kids Walkie Talkies

Thule Yepp Maxi

“Outdoor explorers will love rocking these sporty shoes,” an “ultra-comfortable” closed-toe sandal for kids from about 2 to 10.

Available in 20 color schemes, they feature thick rubber outsoles with “plenty of tread.”

Two-way radios “offer kids hours of entertainment,” not to mention an empowering sense of independence. These rechargeable, dropresistant walkie-talkies come in a variety of fun colors and feature builtin flashlights. Maximum range is 4 miles.

“No other kids bike seat provides a ride that’s as smooth, stable, and comfortable for children as the Thule Yepp Maxi,” which is available in both framemount and rack-mount versions. Think of it as “a tool for family togetherness.”

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GeoSafari Jr. Kidnoculars Extreme

Bounty Hunter Junior T.I.D.

Keen Seacamp II CNX

Young naturalists will love these “next-level” binoculars, which provide “a truly immersive experience” by combining focus-free lenses with a directional microphone that amplifies birdcalls. “It’s STEM learning in action.”

This lightweight metal detector for kids is “more advanced than your typical children’s toy.” The coils “can detect everything from coins to gold,” and the easy-to-read screen indicates how deep the bounty is buried.

$25, educationalinsights.com Source: Fatherly.com

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Tip of the week...

Surprising uses for mouthwash

And for those who have everything...

Best sites...

For finding your vintage dream car

Q Freshen the kitchen. A kitchen sink “can get pretty stinky,” but a capful of Listerine or an imitation mouthwash will kill bacteria in the drain. If your trash stinks, reduce the odor by tossing in a small paper towel soaked with mouthwash.

Q Clean a bathroom. Listerine was a hospital-grade antiseptic before it was marketed as a mouthwash, so try it for lifting grime and mold from showers and tile floors. To clean the toilet, pour in a capful and let it sit 15 minutes before scrubbing.

Q Kill fleas. Simply lather your dog with a mix of equal parts shampoo and mouthwash, then wait five minutes before rinsing.

Q Beat athlete’s foot and more. To kill foot fungus, soak your feet for 45 to 60 minutes in equal parts warm water, vinegar, and Listerine. Straight mouthwash can be used as an underarm deodorant, while a 1:1 mix of water and mouthwash fights dandruff.

“The life of a birdwatcher can be brief moments of joy separated by long periods of frustration.” But the pastime might be about to get smart. Bird Buddy, a bird feeder created by a startup in Slovenia, features an integrated camera that detects avian visitors and can notify the homeowner via an app, provide live video, snap close-ups, and even identify the bird by its markings and song. The device, which is available for pre-order and expected to ship in October, turns birdwatching into a game. Whatever you’re doing, you’ll effortlessly be building a collection of species sightings. Bird Buddy “does all the hard work.”

Q BringATrailer.com “sets the standard for car auction platforms.” Launched in 2007, the site took off thanks to its detailed listings, which come with “a wealth of photos” and sometimes videos too. “You’ll find a wide range of vehicles, from classic 4x4s to pristine European sports cars,” and the comments sections are abuzz with questions. “It’s always a fun, informative read.”

Q RadForSale.com, a new auction platform associated with Radwood auto shows, specializes in cars and trucks of the ’80s and ’90s. “If your vehicular tastes lean more toward Miami Vice than Bullitt, this site is definitely worth a look.”

Q Hemmings.com began in 1954 as a magazine. On the site’s auction platform, “you’ll find a wealth of eye-catching rides from nearly any decade: Hot rods, minibikes—no matter what you’re looking for, there’s a good chance you’ll find something you like.”

Source: Lifehacker.com THE WEEK May 21, 2021

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Best properties on the market

34

This week: Homes for big families

1 W Ambler, Pa. Second Tamora, a stone manor built in 1898, has eight bedrooms and seven full bathrooms. Features include a marble foyer, three staircases, hand-painted walls, 10 fireplaces, a catering kitchen, a wine cellar, and an indoor lap pool.

The 3.5-acre wooded property includes a tree-lined driveway, courtyard, fountain, formal gardens, fourcar garage, and 50-foot swimming pool; the area has quality schools, shopping, dining, and outdoor activities. $2,997,000. Nicole Miller-DeSantis, Coldwell Banker Preferred/Blue Bell, (215) 850-1305 1 3 2

5 6

4

2 X Washington, D.C. Once the rectory for St. Augustine’s

Church, this 1947 Renaissance Revival on Logan Circle is now a 10-bedroom home with eight full bathrooms. Inside are travertine floors, French doors, original woodwork, formal entry with dual salons, chef’s kitchen, breakfast and dining rooms, grand owner’s suite, in-law apartment, and roof deck with city views; the historic neighborhood offers contemporary dining, shopping, and culture. $3,999,900. The Gary & Michael Team, Coldwell Banker Realty/Mid-Atlantic, (202) 491-5910 3 X New Canaan, Conn. This 1992

Georgian Colonial has seven bedrooms and seven full bathrooms.

The house features teak, ironwood, and mahogany woodwork; marble and granite stonework; a butterfly entry staircase; and a solarium, paneled library, guest suite, gourmet kitchen, and 3,000-bottle secret wine cellar. The 5-acre wooded grounds include a private lake, a lighted tennis court, extensive lawns, and multilevel garden beds, paths, and terraces. $5,600,000.

Rita Kirby, William Pitt/Sotheby’s International Realty, (203) 984-7665 THE WEEK May 21, 2021

Best properties on the market

35

4 X Marco Island, Fla. Built

on a double lot, this 1989 home has seven bedrooms, nine bathrooms, and a dining room that seats 26. Updated in 2019–20, the house includes a new roof, seawall, and impact-resistant windows and doors; eat-in chef’s kitchen seating eight; wet bar; billiard room; and main suite with two walk-in closets and a dual-sink bathroom.

Outside are a pool and spa, a covered lanai, a tennis/basketball court, a five-car garage, and a dock with a boat lift on Roberts Bay. $4,449,000.

Michelle Thomas, Premier Sotheby’s International Realty, (239) 860-7176

Steal of the week

5 S Calabasas, Calif. The Retreat at Mulholland includes a

master suite with two wood-burning fireplaces, four bedrooms with en suite bathrooms, and a one-bedroom guest quarters.

The contemporary home has wide-plank oak floors, a spiral staircase, French windows and doors, and an open layout with chef’s kitchen. The 14-acre property in the Santa Monica Mountains features a 2-acre vineyard planted with syrah grapes, a lighted tennis court, and a landscaped terrace with pebble-tech pool and spa. $5,600,000. Holly Hatch, Holly & Chris Luxury Homes/The Agency, (818) 306-7901

6 S Mayhill, N.M. This log home in Lincoln National Forest has five bedrooms, three bathrooms, and two full kitchens; the split floor plan can accommodate two families. Details include log walls, fan lights, a fireplace, a woodstove, and four outdoor decks. The half-acre lot is in Cloud Country Estates, and owners assume membership in Cloud Country Club, which offers a fishing pond, swimming pool, tennis and basketball courts, and a party barn, private park, and RV storage. $472,850. Tabitha Foster, Future Real Estate, (325) 450-6309 THE WEEK May 21, 2021

The bottom line Q The total outstanding U.S. credit card debt fell to $749 billion, from $913 billion in Jan. 2020. Credit card balances at Discover and Capital One were down 9 percent and 17 percent, respectively, in the first quarter, as stimulus checks helped Americans pay down bills.

The Wall Street Journal Q The price of Dogecoin dropped 35 percent in the 24 hours after Tesla CEO Elon Musk hosted Saturday Night Live last week. The price of the digital coin had risen to 73 cents. When asked on the show to explain what Dogecoin is, Musk said, “It’s a hustle.”

Bloomberg.com

Q Of the 3,597 store openings that large retail chains in the U.S. have announced so far this year, nearly half (45.2 percent) are either a Dollar General, Dollar Tree, or Family Dollar. Dollar General alone is planning to open 1,035 new stores in 2021.

CNN.com Q A chemical-plant fire at a

supplier of chlorine tablets in Louisiana is partly to blame for a likely 70 percent spike in the price of pool chlorine this summer. About 60 to 70 percent of 5.2 million residential in-ground pools in the U.S. use chlorine tablets CNBC.com Q A new IMF survey says the portion of global central bank reserves held in U.S. dollars fell to 59 percent in the fourth quarter of 2020, its lowest point in 25 years. The euro’s share grew to 21.2 percent.

BUSINESS The news at a glance Inflation: Sudden jump raises economic fears “The Federal Reserve faces a Prices are rising at a pace crucial test,” said Karl Smith in not seen in years, said Jeffry Bloomberg.com. Officials have Bartash in MarketWatch insisted that the spike in prices .com. The Labor Department is only temporary, “driven by said this week that the annual pandemic-related shortages and rate of inflation jumped to supply-chain disruptions” that 4.2 percent in April, the highwill get ironed out. They have est level since 2008. The stress resisted calls to raise interest for companies is growing as rates in response. The Fed’s “businesses grapple with supPain at the checkout counter focus is on average inflation, ply shortages raising the costs letting prices rise and fall here and there “so that of many goods and services.” The consumer over time inflation averages roughly 2 percent”; price index, measuring a basket of everyday items, rose 0.8 percent from March to April, four for many months it has been lower. But investors are rattled, and if businesses and consumers start times what economists expected. The average cost of a used vehicle is now over $25,000, while to anticipate higher prices, a self-fulfilling cycle could set in. The Fed’s messaging needs to be “the cost of food is rising twice as fast as it was clear and consistent from here on. before the pandemic.”

JEDI: Pentagon may cancel $10 billion deal “Pentagon officials are considering pulling the plug on the star-crossed JEDI cloud-computing project,” said John McKinnon in The Wall Street Journal. Microsoft won the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure contract to overhaul the Defense Department’s data organization, beating out Amazon and Oracle for the work, valued at $10 billion. But it has “been mired in litigation from Amazon,” which contends “that then–President Trump exerted improper pressure on the Pentagon” to punish Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. Lawmakers have since criticized using a “single-vendor, winner-take-all approach” for such a large task.

Buybacks: Corporations look to pay out profits Flush with cash, U.S. companies are preparing for a “buyback bonanza,” said Aziza Kasumov and Siddharth Venkataramakrishnan in the Financial Times. In the first four months of the year, U.S. companies announced $484 billion in share repurchases, “the highest such total in at least two decades, according to Goldman Sachs.” The acceleration comes as companies have been reporting blowout earnings in the first quarter. Many were “hoarding cash” last year “in the case of a long downturn.” Now they are turning to buybacks instead of raising dividends, which are hard to cut later if profits decline.

Investing: ARK struggles as investors question tech “Cathie Wood’s miserable month continued” as investors pulled funds amid the tech selloff, said Sam Potter in Bloomberg.com. The star fund manager’s ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK) was one of the best-performing exchange-traded funds in 2020, thanks to “big bets on the likes of Tesla and Bitcoin.” But investors are “souring on the kind of pricey shares the money manager favors in companies with often unproven technologies.”

ARKK has dropped 34 percent since its February peak, and its assets dropped below $20 billion this week for the first time since January.

Axios.com

China: Signs of dissent come with a high price

Q Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is building a yacht so big that it has its own support yacht with a helipad. The 417-footlong main boat has three masts and is expected to cost roughly $500 million.

Shares of a Chinese delivery giant plummeted this week after its founder and CEO posted a reference to a 1,100-year-old poem about overthrowing China’s first emperor, said Laura He in CNN.com. Speculation ignited on social media that Meituan CEO Wang Xing made the post “as a veiled shot at the government,” which has been “reining in some of the country’s biggest tech giants,” including Jack Ma’s Ant Group and Alibaba. The reaction showed the price of any criticism of China’s government: Meituan lost nearly $30 billion in market value.

Bloomberg.com THE WEEK May 21, 2021

A price that barely fits in this headline Berkshire Hathaway’s stock price is so high the markets can’t handle it, said Alexander Osipovich in The Wall Street Journal. The Class A shares of Warren Buffett’s company have been trading at an astronomical $421,000, “and the market is optimistic.” That’s a problem, because some exchanges’ older computer formats were not designed for a price like that, creating a “stockmarket version of the Y2K bug.” Nasdaq’s software records stock prices “in a compact computer format that uses 32 bits, or ones and zeros. The biggest number possible is two to the 32nd power minus one, or 4,294,967,295.”

Prices are recorded in increments of a hundredth of a cent, so the share price is limited to $429,496.7295. But Buffett, who has long insisted on never splitting his Class A shares, seems willing to take the risk it won’t exceed that before Nasdaq updates its data feeds this month.

AP, Newscom

36

Making money

BUSINESS 37

Work world: Pandemic eases some paths to retirement latest annual survey by the Employee More older workers are taking the panBenefit Research Institute (EBRI) found demic as a cue to leave the daily grind, that while 26 percent of workers say said Alexandre Tanzi and Michael Sasso they intended to work into their 70s, in Bloomberg.com. Working Baby Boombecause of health or other hardships ers had been “better known for hanging just 6 percent actually do. Regardless of on to their jobs as long as possible.” But age, savers now might want to consider “after a year of Zoom calls, and soaring shifting their retirement accounts before stock and real estate values,” more are tax rates rise, said Anne Tergesen in contemplating retiring earlier than they’d The Wall Street Journal. For those with imagined. “About 2.7 million workers big balances in a traditional IRA, “the ages 55 and older plan to apply early for key strategy to pursue is the Roth conSocial Security benefits—almost twice version.” You will pay income tax on a as many as the 1.4 million people in the transfer, but “once you hold a Roth acsame age group who anticipate workDiLorenzo: How much ‘does all this matter’? count for at least five years and are age ing longer, according to a U.S. Census 59½ or older, future withdrawals of both principal and appreciaBureau survey.” Plans can easily change, but an unprecedented tion are tax- and penalty-free.” surge in stock prices and home values is easing the retirement path for some Americans. Many also cite a new “life is short” Employers are starting to worry about losing workers too mentality after the living through the pandemic. “It makes you quickly, said Camilla Cavendish in the Financial Times. “I have think, ‘Does all this matter as much as you think it does?’” said been shocked to meet executives in big consulting and accountCraig DiLorenzo, a former 3M executive who retired in March ing firms who want to plan their exit before they get pushed out at age 58. at 60. Most are in their early 50s, at the peak of their earning power, yet mentally they have already left.” In Spain, as the The exceptions to that trend are the workers whose finances labor pool shrinks and the deficit grows, the government has have been “battered” by the pandemic, said Suzanne Woolley, even begun “offering people up to $14,500 to work beyond the also in Bloomberg.com. “Nearly 2 out of 5 workers were furpension age of 66.” Persuading older workers “with the right loughed or laid off” or had their hours adjusted, and of those, skills” to stay on could prove as important as “trying to woo about a quarter now say they don’t think they can retire “until younger ones with heartfelt mission statements.” later than planned.” That said, “life often doesn’t comply.” The

What the experts say Maybe the next winner is Ponzicoin?

Speculators are on the hunt for the next digital currency that can soar “to the moon,” said Caitlin Ostroff in The Wall Street Journal.

With prices soaring for Bitcoin, Ethereum, and even Dogecoin, investors are looking for cheaper alternatives that could skyrocket at any moment. “Their bets, usually fueled by rumors and speculation in online forums and chat groups,” are causing alarm among market analysts. But a “fear of missing out” is feeding a buying frenzy, and even celebrities are getting in on the activity. The rapper Lil Yachty has been promoting SafeMoon, a cryptocurrency that “has rallied more than 20,000 percent since its launch in March.” The price of VeChain has risen more than 900 percent, “as a wave of new buyers have piled into the crypto project from China in recent weeks.”

Sebastian Hidalgo/Bloomberg

Insurance telemarketers target elders “Every time you think you’ve seen every possible way the U.S. health-care system lets people down, along comes some new outrage,” said David Lazarus in the Los Angeles Times.

This one involves a 76-year-old Alzheimer’s patient in California who was convinced to change insurance providers by a commissiondriven telemarketer. It’s unclear whether the

Charity of the week third-party salesperson called her, or she called based on a promotion or ad. Regardless, when her daughter found out, she called the new insurer, Humana. Despite getting documents that “explicitly authorized her to make insurance decisions on her mother’s behalf,” Humana insisted the documents weren’t valid and refused to cancel the policy. It was only after “I reached out to all the businesses involved,” that the Humana policy was canceled and the previous coverage restored.

Homebuyers turn to unusual offers The competitiveness of the housing market is forcing buyers to take extreme measures, said Anna Bahney in CNN.com. “The number of available homes to buy in April dropped by 40 percent from a year ago,” driving prices up 20 percent. Many prospective buyers “are offering prices well above what sellers are asking,” paying all cash—or going even further to land their dream homes. “One buyer in New Jersey threw in a stay at a Caribbean villa with the offer.” Waiving appraisals and contingencies has become common. It pays to try to find out what motivates a seller; the “terms of the sale can sometimes be just as appealing to a seller as a higher price.” One example: giving the seller more time to move out.

Founded in 1983, Centurion (centurion .org) fights to free innocent people wrongly sentenced to prison. Centurion focuses on cases that lack DNA evidence, conducting thorough field investigations, scouring court records, locating and interviewing witnesses, and more.

Centurion looks for evidence that was intentionally hidden, witnesses who were coerced, and forensic evidence that was missed. Recently, Centurion helped free Benjamine Spencer, 56, who served in prison for 34 years for a murder and robbery that he did not commit. It also helped obtain the release of Kevin DeSalle, sentenced in Louisiana by a non-unanimous jury to life without parole after a one-day trial. Since its inception, Centurion has gathered evidence that has freed 65 people who had been sentenced to death or to life in prison.

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 21, 2021

Best columns: Business

38

Vaccines: Should Covid-19 trump patent protections?

U.S. factories are stuck in neutral David Lynch

The Washington Post

Cheaper cities are getting expensive Justin Fox

Bloomberg.com

THE WEEK May 21, 2021

On the factory floor at the Sogefi auto-parts plant in Prichard, W.Va., logistics manager Randy Simpkins “calls audibles like a quarterback staring down a blitz,” said David Lynch. The scene “illustrates the deepening production challenges roiling American industry as it shakes off the pandemic.” There are shortages of almost everything—from springs to fishing line to cardboard boxes. Simpkins “is on calls every day getting yelled at: ‘Where is my shipment?’” These travails “are mirrored across industrial America.” Supply-chain bottlenecks are complicating the recovery and threatening to ignite an inflationary spiral. The causes of the upheaval are many. Simpkins

recently learned that a shipment of plastic resin would be delayed four weeks because plants were still ironing out disruptions from Texas’ February freeze. A lack of copper snarled Sogefi’s production of electric actuators for General Motors. When supplies don’t arrive on time, Sogefi, which makes engine parts for almost every global automaker, has to improvise.

The company’s “freight bill for April was twice the budgeted figure,” because backlogs forced it to ship by air to meet deadlines. Suppliers can’t deliver on schedule, while automakers insist that “a year is long enough” to have solved any pandemic problems— and people like Simpkins are caught in the middle.

Pandemic migration is magnifying trends that are making much of the country less affordable, said Justin Fox. Not long ago, for instance, housing costs in Boise were substantially lower than the national average. Now migration from high-cost cities has left Boise with “the sharpest rent increases over the past year of 519 U.S. cities.” California has long suffered a crisis of housing affordability amid “antidevelopment activism and regulation.” But many of the country’s least affordable places to live are now in Florida. Relative to median pay, Orlando is pricier than San Francisco, and Miami is more costly than New York City. “They’re not more expensive in

absolute terms,” but locals are feeling the squeeze.

Even the big cities in Texas, “whose wide-open spaces and loose regulatory policies have been the great counterexamples to the constrained cities of the East and West coasts,” are seeing saturated suburbs and rising prices. So where is housing still truly affordable? Some smaller cities—Pittsburgh, Columbus, and Indianapolis—have stayed inexpensive while becoming “magnets for skilled younger workers.” So, too, with cities like Detroit, New Orleans, and “my beloved former home” Birmingham, Ala.—cities that went through hard times but stand to rise again in the “shifting post-pandemic geography of jobs.”

Getty

In record time, Pfizer created and President Biden dialed up the pressure distributed a drug “that effectively alon pharmaceutical companies to help leviated the threat of the most deadly other countries fight the pandemic, said virus we’ve faced in over a century,” Josh Wingrove in Bloomberg.com, stunDavid Harsanyi in NationalReview ning allies last week by calling for patent .com. “So, naturally, progressives protections on Covid-19 vaccines to be want to punish Pfizer” by stripping its lifted. In a “reversal of long-standing patents. Liberal Democrats want to U.S. policy that its companies’ intellecuse Pfizer’s profits as justification for tual property is sacrosanct,” U.S. Trade “state-sponsored theft.” This patent Representative Katherine Tai said the heist won’t end well, said The Wall administration would “back a World Street Journal in an editorial. U.S. Trade Organization process to try to and European drug companies have reach” agreement for patent waivers to already voluntarily entered into dozens speed the worldwide vaccination effort.

Progressives rally to ‘free the vaccine.’ of licensing agreements to scale up So far, though, the WTO is not close to production in low-income countries, but producing vaccines safely a consensus on such waivers, and Biden’s support for them could takes time. Meanwhile, Biden is willing to hand over “America’s turn out be largely symbolic, because France and Germany have crown pharmaceutical jewels.” The U.S. “has a competitive adsaid they would oppose rolling back patent rights. vantage in biotech” that will disappear if investors “think their own government will betray them under political pressure.”

Biden is right, said Katie Gallogly-Swan in The New Republic.

“We will continue to play catch-up” with this virus unless we It’s telling that Moderna says it won’t enforce its Covid-related are able to produce vaccines “to scale, quickly, and without patents, said Sarah Jane Tribble and Arthur Allen in Kaiser affordability barriers.” Intellectual-property protections are “a Health News. “No known independent producer” has even athuge barrier to this task.” Those patents are mainly in place to tempted “to replicate the company’s mRNA vaccine,” which “protect the profits of pharmaceutical giants.” Moderna earned relies on a sophisticated process developed over 10 years. Even $1.22 billion in the first quarter, while Pfizer counted roughly Johnson & Johnson, which uses more conventional techniques, $900 million in profits. Biden criticized Donald Trump for his “vaccine isolationism,” said Michelle Goldberg in The New York “assessed nearly 100 production sites” and selected fewer than a dozen partners to share the requisite technology, training, and raw Times. Now, India, South Africa, and dozens of other countries materials—and it has still been the victim of production mistakes. are begging for this “temporary change to global trade rules to “In the best-case scenario, sharing patents is only a tiny step in the help them defend themselves.” A waiver won’t automatically vastly complex work of making a Covid vaccine.” solve the vaccine shortage, but it’s a start.

Obituaries The hard-charger who triumphed at the Indy 500 Bobby Unser followed a simple philosophy on the race1934–2021 track: “Go fast, lead, win.” A self-proclaimed “charger” from a storied auto-racing family, he was a three-time champion of the Indianapolis 500 and a record 13-time victor at Colorado’s Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, an against-the-clock gravel-road race that winds through 156 turns with no guardrails overlooking drops of up to 1,000 feet. Unser had a winning mix of brains—he could draw maps of every course from memory— and utter fearlessness. Although an uncle died on the track and an older brother, Jerry Unser Jr., perished in a fiery crash while practicing for the 1959 Indy 500, Unser never thought of death when he was behind the wheel. “Is it bravery? No, I don’t think so,” he said. “That’s like saying a fish is brave to swim or asking a bird, ‘Don’t you get scared flying around way up there?’”

Bobby Unser

He was raised in Albuquerque by a schoolteacher mother and a father who “owned a garage along Route 66,” said the Associated Press. Unser “grew up tooling around in old jalopies” and at age 15 quit high school to start racing at Roswell New Mexico Speedway. After serving two years in the Air Force, he “debuted at Pikes Peak in 1955,

winning his first championship there the next year,” said The Washington Post. Unser “had a slower start at the Indy 500,” completing only two laps of his 1963 debut before crashing “his turbocharged Kurtis-Novi.” The following year, Unser got “caught in a seven-car accident that killed two drivers” after his first lap.

He won the Indy 500 for the first time in 1968—also becoming the first driver to top 170 mph at the race—and notched another win in 1975.

Unser triumphed again at Indianapolis in 1981, besting Mario Andretti by 5.3 seconds, said The New York Times. A day later, officials ruled that Unser had passed cars illegally while exiting the pit lane under caution and penalized him one lap, giving the victory to Andretti. “An appeals panel reinstated Unser as the winner more than four months later.” But the episode left him disillusioned, and he retired from Indy cars in 1982.

Unser became a color commentator for ABC— he was in the booth in 1987 when his brother Al became the Indy 500’s second four-time winner— and kept racing, capturing his final Pikes Peak title in 1986. “I have no slow days in my life,” he said. “I was trained to go fast, and I will go fast until the day I die.”

The photographer who took soul-stealing shots June Newton’s photography career was launched by a case 1923–2021 of the flu. It was 1970 in Paris, and her husband, the high-fashion photographer Helmut Newton, was too ill to attend a shoot for Gitanes cigarettes. So on a whim the former actress took a quick tutorial in how to handle a camera and went in his place.

“The pictures weren’t bad,” she said. “They were sent off to the client in London, and the check came back addressed to Helmut Newton. I was in business.” While Helmut was known as the King of Kink for his sexually explicit and often brutal images, June—who worked under the name Alice Springs—specialized in intimate portraits of celebrity subjects. Charlotte Rampling stares the viewer down in a 1982 photo; in a 1978 shot, an imperious Yves Saint Laurent clutches his chihuahua, Hazel. “I used all the acting skills I had,” said Newton, “to make people relax, dwell within themselves, and just look at me.”

Getty, Alice Springs/Maconochie Photography.

June Newton

Born June Browne, she had an “eccentric” childhood on a farm outside Melbourne, said The Guardian (U.K.). Her mother once dealt with a den of snakes by playing a harmonica to lure them

to a bowl of milk; a family friend known as Aunt Allie then beat them to death. June trained as an actor, and was performing in Melbourne when “she responded to an ad for models for a new, smart studio.” It was run by Helmut Newton, a German Jew who’d fled the Nazis to Singapore, then Australia. “They married within a year,” relocating to London in 1957 and then Paris. June “quit acting and turned to painting while her husband’s star began to rise,” said Vanity Fair. After taking up photography— choosing her nom de guerre by sticking a pin in a map of Australia—she, too, became a sought-after hire for magazines and commercial clients.

Newton “balanced two jobs for the rest of her life,” said The Times (U.K.), as a photographer and as Helmut’s “art director, curator, protector, and promoter.” The pair, who later lived in Monte Carlo and spent winters at the Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles, often photographed each other, and gathered these and other images in a 1998 book, Us and Them. Helmut “wasn’t interested in people,” she said of their contrasting styles. “‘I’m not interested in soul,’ he said. But I was, and I tried to steal them. And in many cases I did.”

39 The pioneering chemist who helped invent a lifesaving diabetes test For much of the 20th century, diabetes tests were cumbersome, expensive, and dangerously imprecise.

Technicians had to collect a urine sample, combine Helen Murray Free it with a 1923–2021 reagent, and then heat the mixture over a Bunsen burner. The sample changed color according to the amount of sugar in the urine, but mistakes were common because the test couldn’t distinguish glucose from other sugars. Then in 1956, chemist Helen Murray Free and her husband devised a way to coat strips of filter paper with chemicals that turned blue when exposed to glucose. This dip-and-read test allowed patients to regularly and accurately monitor their glucose levels at home; its importance hit home for Free decades later when she was approached by a grateful woman at an event in Austin.

“She said her husband was a diabetic and if we hadn’t done this, he wouldn’t be alive today,” Free recalled.

“We all cried.”

Born in Pittsburgh, Free “described herself as a nerd in high school,” said The Wall Street Journal. She enrolled in college in 1941 with expectations of becoming a teacher, one of the few professions then open to women graduates. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor a few months later, male students began streaming out of colleges to join the military.

The country still needed scientists, so on the advice of a dormitory housemother, Free switched her major from English to chemistry.

She “went on to pursue a decades-long career as a chemist at Miles Laboratories in Indiana,” where her future husband, Alfred Free, was a biochemist, said The Washington Post. The pair worked as a double act: He provided the ideas; she made them real. “Once you find out the joy of discovery,” she said, “nothing can beat that thrill.”

THE WEEK May 21, 2021

The last word

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The death and rebirth of a perfect tree The American chestnut ruled over Appalachia before blight killed almost every tree, said journalist Kate Morgan in Sierra magazine. Through cross-breeding and gene-splicing, scientists are trying to bring it back.

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N CENTRAL PENNSYLVANIA,

tissue around the wounds, creating barriers that keep the fungus from spreading.

there are monuments to the dead. Inside centuryold barns and farmhouses, ceiling beams and wide floor planks that are straightgrained and honey red with age serve as reminders of one of the deadliest epidemics to ever reach American shores.

Between 1904 and 1940, some 3.5 billion American chestnut trees, the giants of the Appalachian hardwood forest, succumbed to a fungal blight called Cryphonectria parasitica.

“People think the Chinese chestnuts are immune to the blight; there’s no such thing as immunity,” Fitzsimmons says. “But they can wall off the infection really quickly, surround it with that callus tissue, and stop it progressing.” Japanese chestnuts have a resistance similar to the Chinese varieties, she says, while the American variety has very little. Once The loss was stunning—not Cryphonectria parasitica just for sprawling ecosystems colonizes a wound on an across much of the eastern American chestnut, it’s United States, where the tree unstoppable. It polishes was a keystone species, but off the already-dead tissue, Fitzsimmons with young chestnuts: No single approach will beat blight. also for the Appalachian way then secretes oxalic acid, a of life. When the profitable nuts and timber toxin that kills the chestnut’s cells, feeding a forester noticed something odd happening disappeared, the Appalachian landscape the fungus and killing the tree. to the chestnuts at the Bronx Zoo in New was reshaped twice over: first by the death York. The trees were developing cankers Carried on the wind, the blight spread an of the chestnuts, then by a century of coal surrounded by strange spotty, orangeestimated 50 miles a year, tree by tree. First mining that stripped and scarred the earth, yellow patches.

He called in mycologist a canker would appear, causing the bark to leaving piles of rubble in its wake.

William A. Murrill to examine the fungus. bulge or sink. Soon the wound would burst By almost any metric, the American By the time Murrill published his findings open, sending spores sailing outward from chestnut was a perfect tree. Massive, fastjust over a year later, the disease had spread an ocher-colored blotch. The mighty upper growing, and rot-resistant, it was easy to to New Jersey, Maryland, the District of limbs died first, then the trunk. By 1910, mill into cabin logs, furniture, fence posts, Columbia, and Virginia. coalitions had been formed and quarantine and railroad ties. After being harvested, it lines drawn. Boy Scouts were enlisted to Murrill warned his incredulous colleagues resprouted; in 20 years, it was ready for scour forests and cut down blighted trees. It that the blight—imported on ornamental the sawyer again. Wide limbs spanned was no use. By the time the blight had run Japanese chestnuts as early as 1876—would the canopy, filtering sunlight and creating its course, nearly 4 billion American chestkill every chestnut tree. By 1904 it was a diverse, layered forest below. Cooper’s nuts across 300,000 square miles were gone. already too late to stop it. hawks nested in the high branches, wild Meanwhile, the coal industry has left turkeys in the lower forks. Cherokee people ARA FERN FITZSIMMONS is part of a its own wake of destruction in the made dough from the crushed nuts, treated small army of biologists, ecologists, Appalachian forest. In a single scoop, an heart troubles with the leaves, and dressed foresters, and activists who are pasaverage-size Bucyrus-Erie dragline can move wounds with astringent brewed from the sionately dedicated to bringing back the more than 100 tons of earth. This machine sprouts. And in the fall, when the chestnuts iconic tree. Shouting over the hum of a drove the biggest technological shift mining piled up in carpets half a foot thick, white greenhouse fan, Fitzsimmons, the director has ever seen. The dragline lifts away the settler families collected and sold them by of restoration at The American Chestnut topsoil and rock and deposits it in nearby the bushel.

Foundation (TACF), is waving a golden, valleys, reshaping entire topographies and jagged-edged leaf at me as she explains that In a range stretching from southern Maine leaving behind wide swaths of barren, the chestnut genus, Castanea, originated in to the Florida Panhandle and west to the contaminated land. While trees didn’t root China. The Cryphonectria parasitica blight Mississippi River, the chestnut dominated in the compacted earth, fast-growing, nonfungus survives on dead tree tissue, and the landscape, accounting for a quarter of native grasses did, creating meadows where in the three species of chestnuts in China, all trees in the eastern hardwood forest. In there ought to be forests. it lives mostly unobtrusively, feeding on Appalachia, the heart of the tree’s range, ’M PICKING MY way through bramble, generations of people were rocked in chest- damaged cambium under the bark where a tree’s been wounded by weather, an anitrying to keep up with Fitzsimmons. nut cradles and buried in chestnut caskets. mal, or insects. These trees, which evolved The hillside we’re standing on is former But the dominance wouldn’t last. In 1904, alongside the blight, grow burl-like callus mineland in Coal Township, an hour north

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THE WEEK May 21, 2021

Nate Smallwood

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The last word of Harrisburg, Pa. In 2014, Fitzsimmons and a team of volunteers with TACF planted hundreds of chestnuts here. One of the planters was Liz Schwartz, who remembers saying a little prayer every time she tucked a nut into the hardscrabble.

Six years later, improbably, the chestnuts seem to be thriving, the largest maybe 25 feet tall. Between them, there are yellow poplar, black locust, aspen, sumac, and fire cherry trees, volunteers whose seeds blew in or were dropped by birds or small mammals. “This is the ‘dog hair stage,’ where the growth is as thick as the hair on a dog,” Fitzsimmons says. “In 10 years, we’ll have canopy closure.” Starved for sunlight, the low, barbed bushes will die back. Trees will mature, and shrubbery will spread out.

Eventually, “it becomes a forest.”

plicated, he posited, a simpler solution would be to add a defense mechanism from elsewhere. Wheat and other cereals produce an enzyme, known as OxO, that protects them “from disease caused by oxalic acid by producing oxalate oxidase,” Powell says.

The chestnut blight “all rotates around this acid. If you can get rid of that, all of a sudden it can’t get into healthy tissue.”

Powell started with embryos from an American chestnut near Binghamton, N.Y., that hadn’t totally succumbed to the blight.

He inserted a gene that produces the OxO enzyme and grew seedlings that looked like tiny palm trees on petri dish islands of agar.

The first petri dish chestnuts were grown in

Over the long term, even the B3 F3s have a survival rate of only about 20 percent.

When the program began, Fitzsimmons says, “the thinking was that resistance was a very simply inherited trait, controlled by two or three genes. If that were the case, this would have worked. However, we know now that chestnut blight resistance is more complicated than that.”

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N THE 1990S, William Powell, a professor at SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, N.Y., who’d been contracted to help solve the chestnut puzzle, had what he calls a eureka moment. If resistance was genetically com-

them with the advanced backcross trees.

“At this point, the transgenics are under tight guidelines,” she says. “The USDA permitting guidelines leave no chance, zero risk, of that gene entering the wild and getting out of your control. It’s impossible, following these guidelines, for it to escape.”

But release into the wild, Powell and Fitzsimmons agree, is the next step on the road to restoration. In early 2020, Powell and his team submitted a nearly 300-page petition to the USDA, requesting that the agency deregulate Darling 58, making it legal for anyone to plant it anywhere. The move would be the first time a genetically modified organism was approved for release into the wild.

If Darling 58 is approved for release and its seeds are planted—by members of the public, restoration groups, and anyone else who wants them—their locations will be entered into a TACF database. Then, if all goes according to plan, they’ll reproduce, pollinating both wild shoots and backcrossed trees. The result will be genetic diversity and resistance: Of Darling 58’s offspring, “half give you the resistance, and half preserve the wild type,” Powell says.

“In 100 years, a transgenic tree will still be producing wild ones.”

This is one of 40 plantings on former mining sites across Pennsylvania’s coal region.

The reclaimed mines have become unusual nurseries for TACF’s breeding program, which has spent more than three decades trying to create blight-resistant trees. Not much thrives in the torn-up, thin, and acidic soil, but chestnuts seem to love it.

Superimpose maps of the historic chestnut range and the coalfields and the two overlap almost exactly.

TACF’s breeding program began in 1989 at a research farm in Meadowview, Va. The scientists of TACF hypothesized that it would be possible, over generations, to breed a chestnut that had all the characteristics of its native forebears but contained just enough Chinese genes to fend off the blight. Their method, called backcross breeding, began with creating half-American, half-Chinese chestnut trees.

That generation, known as F1, was backcrossed with an American, creating generation B1 F1. The backcross was repeated twice, resulting in B2 F1, then B3 F1. That fourth-generation tree was then bred twice with other backcrosses, leading to generation B3 F2 and, finally, B3 F3—a tree that is essentially 15/16ths American chestnut.

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American and Chinese chestnut leaves

1995; progress was slow, as Powell tested introducing the OxO gene to different parts of the genome. One iteration, called the Darling line (after Herb Darling, a conservationist who had supported Powell’s work), was especially promising. On July 12, 2012, a colleague of Powell’s, Linda McGuigan, inserted the OxO gene into Darling 58.

Genetically speaking, Darling 58 is an entirely American chestnut with one extra gene that gives it a bonus characteristic: resistance to Cryphonectria parasitica.

Here is where things get messy. In 1996, agrochemical company Monsanto introduced plants engineered to be immune to its Roundup herbicide. In the years since, transgenic plants have faced public resistance in the United States and abroad.

When TACF announced its support of Darling 58, two board members of the Massachusetts and Rhode Island chapter resigned in protest. There are hard-liners on both sides of the chestnut-restoration community: backcross supporters who think transgenics are dangerous and transgenic supporters who think backcrossing is useless. But once the shortcomings of the backcross breeding program became apparent, the two efforts began working in concert.

Since the first Darling 58s matured, Fitzsimmons’ team has been cross-pollinating

That is, as Fitzsimmons sees it, the only way to give the American chestnut a fighting chance. “People think Darling 58 is a silver bullet, or that the OxO gene is immunity, but it is not.” The path to resistance, she says, requires both the variable Chinesederived resistance of the backcrosses and the OxO gene expression of the transgenics.

Turn the coalfields into thriving, mature chestnut forests and the trees could do the rest, seeding themselves into adjacent forestlands. Slowly, from these debased landscapes, a new forest would expand outward. Imagine autumn in a sloping grove, broad, craggy trunks climbing the hillside.

Black bears, fat on sweet chestnuts, drag their feet on the loamy ground, and salamanders skitter through pools in the forest that was and the forest that could be.

“We call this a century project,” Powell says. “To get it to look even somewhat like it did before the blight is going to take centuries. It’s for the next generation—it’s planting a tree you’ll never enjoy the shade of.” It requires a kind of optimism unique to those who look at the badland of a strip mine and envision a forest, the kind of faith held by those who plant a seed in desecrated ground and say a prayer.

Adapted from a story originally published in Sierra, the national magazine of the Sierra Club. Used with permission.

THE WEEK May 21, 2021

The Puzzle Page

Crossword No. 600: What’s That Sound? by Matt Gaffney 1

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THE WEEK May 21, 2021

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ACROSS 1 ___ badge (Boy Scout’s achievement) 6 Tournament anyone can enter 10 Austin clock setting (abbr.)

13 Rice-___ 14 Latvia’s capital 15 Tape recorder button 16 Aviator on the ground 18 Feature of Cindy Brady’s speech 19 Totally fine 20 Salmon ___ (sushi choice) 21 Cochise or Geronimo, e.g.

23 Eponymous maker of frozen fish 26 Shakespearean lament 27 Beginnings 29 Amy Winehouse hit of 2006 32 Some tennis is played on them 35 Football’s Crimson Tide 37 Bird on Australian coins 38 Tempe sch.

39 Loud insects swarming much of the Eastern U.S. this month after their standard 17-year dormancy; some of the many sounds they make begin our four theme entries 41 Color in Target’s logo 42 Congresswoman Cheney

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The Week Contest

43 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory author 44 Works for a food truck, sometimes 46 Easy-to-learn instrument 48 Law & Order plot elements 50 Birdbath filler 52 Common component in cosmetics 56 Hanger’s place 58 Valet’s domain 59 “___ of these days...”

60 Loser to a tortoise 61 What to do if you don’t know a song’s lyrics 65 Two pieces in a loaf 66 Prefix with present 67 Transported en masse 68 A Nightmare on Elm Street director Craven 69 Location 70 Six-pack stuff DOWN 1 ___ Speaker (address for Pelosi) 2 Bad move 3 Pieces that start in the corners 4 Weekend getaway spot 5 Score that can be “broken” 6 Eddie Murray was one for 12 seasons 7 Amount of mulch 8 Driving force 9 Birth-related

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10 Phrase often used as hypertext 11 Strip with a robe 12 Hunt and peck, say 15 Home, casually 17 The House of Hohenzollern’s land 22 Fly behind a boat 24 D.C. type, for short 25 Funny little story 26 “It’s ___ state of affairs” 28 Sport with bats but no pitcher 30 Part of AFL-CIO, for short 31 Amigos 32 Shoot the breeze 33 It’s larger than the Arctic Ocean 34 Coinages often hashtagged on Twitter 36 “Or art thou but a dagger of the mind” speaker 40 Burn 45 Org. seen at ORD 47 Desert stops 49 Shout in the outfield 51 Societal spirit 53 Put ___ (find a job for) 54 Word with city or circle 55 Can’t go without 56 Prepare to swallow 57 “Stay in your ___” 58 K–P connection 62 Official at Yanks games 63 Fall back 64 Election time, often (abbr.)

This week’s question: 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?

Last week’s contest: Portuguese scientists have found that people who drink between three and five daily cups of coffee display “increased levels of attention and alertness” and “improved motor control.” Please come up with a name for a coffee brand that promises its brew will provide superior mental and physical abilities.

THE WINNER: Maximumwell House Mary Jo Astrachan, Oneida, N.Y. SECOND PLACE: Cup of Know Greg Tymon, Rydal, Pa. THIRD PLACE: Grounds for Success Patty Oberhausen, Fort Wayne, Ind. 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 “Early retirement” in the subject line. Entries are due by noon, Eastern Time, Tuesday, May 18. Winners will appear on the Puzzle Page next issue and at theweek .com/puzzles on Friday, May 21. 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: medium

Find the solutions to all The Week’s puzzles online: www.theweek.com/puzzle.

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