A selection of three essential articles read aloud from the latest issue of The Economist. This week, are sanctions on Russia working? Plus, Joe Biden’s sweeping debt-forgiveness plan (10:00) and in defence of commuting (15:10).
Category Archives: Opinion
Preview: The Economist Magazine – August 27, 2022
Are sanctions working?
- China’s changing debt diplomacyTime to work with Western creditors
- Gene tweaking: a new era beginsScience has made a genetic revolution possible
- How diversity training can backfire?Many programmes may do more to protect against litigation than to reduce discrimination
- Streaming wars: dragons v hobbitsA century-old studio wages a big-budget war against a streaming upstart
Preview: The Guardian Weekly – August 26, 2022
Life and death: Inside the 26 August Guardian Weekly
Six months of hell in Ukraine. Plus: recession stalks Europe.
The troop buildups, the belligerent speeches, the excruciatingly staged Kremlin policy meetings … for months, the signs had been there in plain sight. Nonetheless, the order in the early hours of 24 February from Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine came as a lightning bolt, one that would change Europe for years to come.
Opinion: Will Trump Run In 2024, Visa-Mastercard, A New British Prime Minister
A selection of three essential articles read aloud from the latest issue of The Economist. This week, will Donald Trump run again? Also, the future of the Visa-Mastercard payments duopoly (9:35) and, what kind of prime minister will Britain get? (21:45).
Preview: The New Yorker Magazine – August 29, 2022
Anita Kunz’s “No Photos, Please!”
The artist discusses the enduring allure of the “Mona Lisa,” the puzzle of celebrity, and which famous people she would invite to dinner.
By Françoise Mouly, Art by Anita Kunz
The Age of Instagram Face
How social media, FaceTune, and plastic surgery created a single, cyborgian look.
What Bob Dylan Wanted at Twenty-three
A portrait of the artist trying to move past “finger-pointing” songs, and finding a new voice in the process.
By Nat Hentoff
Cover: The New York Times Magazine – August 21, 2022
Willie Nelson’s Long Encore
As he approaches 90, even brushes with death can’t keep him off the road — or dim a late-life creative burst.
TikTok Audio Memes Are Everywhere. How Do They Work?
Welcome to the era of the audio meme, a time when replicable units of sound are a cultural currency as strong as — if not stronger than — images and text.
Read more: https://nyti.ms/3A6vPOT
Previews: The Economist Magazine – August 20, 2022
Will Donald Trump run again?
And, if he does, would Republicans pick him as their nominee?
What kind of prime minister will Britain get?
It will be a technocrat who knows what to do, or a politician who knows how to do it
Previews: New Humanist Magazine – Autumn 2022
Making sense of war
Polishing the crystal ball
The intelligence community often fails to make accurate predictions. Amy Zegart, an expert brought in to improve analysis in the United States, sets out what can be done to overcome our cognitive biases.
Improving analysis to prevent nuclear catastrophe isn’t just a matter of history. Great power competition is back. Russia and China are trying to rewrite the international order along authoritarian lines.
Preview: The Guardian Weekly – August 19, 2022
Joe Biden’s political capital is riding high after a key plank of his legislative programme came to fruition. But the US president has greeted this “hot streak” in his usual quiet fashion. For his predecessor, it was a decidedly rough week after his home was raided by the FBI, looking for official documents that Donald Trump had held on to after his presidential term had ended. The reaction was a typical explosion of rage and accusation. David Smith, our Washington bureau chief, follows this compare-and-contrast theme to see which of the two men, who at this juncture still look likely to face each other again in the 2024 presidential election, came out on top.
Opinion: Taiwan-China-U.S. War Prevention, Germany Awakened, British Gloom
A selection of three essential articles read aloud from the latest issue of The Economist. This week, how to prevent a war between America and China over Taiwan, thanks to Vladimir Putin, Germany has woken up (10:20), and Britain’s summer of discontent (18:40).
Boomers Daily 