‘Editor’s Picks’ Podcast (October 16, 2023) – A selection of three articles read aloud from the latest issue of The Economist. This week, will Israel’s agony and retribution end in chaos or stability? Also, the backlash against green policies (09:58) and a disastrous workplace experiment (16:15).
Category Archives: Reviews
Culture/Politics: Harper’s Magazine – November 2023
The Machine Breaker – Inside the mind of an “ecoterrorist”
In the summer of 2016, a fifty-seven-year-old Texan named Stephen McRae drove east out of the rainforests of Oregon and into the vast expanse of the Great Basin. His plan was to commit sabotage. First up was a coal-burning power plant near Carlin, Nevada, a 242-megawatt facility owned by the Newmont Corporation that existed to service two nearby gold mines, also owned by Newmont.
Forbidden Fruit
The anti-avocado militias of Michoacán
Phone service was down—a fuse had blown in the cell tower during a recent storm—and even though my arrival had been cleared with the government of Cherán in advance, the armed guard manning the highway checkpoint, decked out in full fatigues, the wrong shade to pass for Mexican military, refused to wave me through. My guide, Uli Escamilla, assured him that we had an appointment, and that we could prove it if only we could call or text our envoy. The officer gripped his rifle with both hands and peered into the windows of our rental car.
Previews: The New Yorker Magazine – Oct 23, 2023
Beyond the Myth of Rural America
Its inhabitants are as much creatures of state power and industrial capitalism as their city-dwelling counterparts.
Demanding that your friend pull the car over so you can examine an unusual architectural detail is not, I’m told, endearing. But some of us can’t help ourselves. For the painter Grant Wood, it was an incongruous Gothic window on an otherwise modest frame house in Eldon, Iowa, that required stopping. It looked as if a cottage were impersonating a cathedral. Wood tried to imagine who “would fit into such a home.” He recruited his sister and his dentist as models and costumed them in old-fashioned attire. The result, “American Gothic,” as he titled the painting from 1930, is probably the most famous art work ever produced in the United States.
When Foster Parents Don’t Want to Give Back the Baby
In many states, lawyers are pushing a new legal strategy that forces biological parents to compete for custody of their children.
American Chronicles – Beyond the Myth of Rural America
Its inhabitants are as much creatures of state power and industrial capitalism as their city-dwelling counterparts.
What Happened to San Francisco, Really?
It depends on which tech bro, city official, billionaire investor, grassroots activist, or Michelin-starred restaurateur you ask.By Nathan Heller
The Great Cash-for-Carbon Hustle
Offsetting has been hailed as a fix for runaway emissions and climate change—but the market’s largest firm sold millions of credits for carbon reductions that weren’t real.
Literary Review Of Canada November 2023 Preview
Literary Review of Canada – November 2023: The latest issue features Who Keeps Killing Canadian History; The Influencers – A dual biography from Charlotte Gray, and more…
The Influencers – A dual biography from Charlotte Gray
Passionate Mothers, Powerful Sons: The Lives of Jennie Jerome Churchill and Sara Delano Roosevelt by Charlotte Gray
They were born the same year. Their families left Paris the same year. Their sons entered institutions that would shape their lives the same year. If Stephen Sondheim had written Passionate Mothers, Powerful Sons instead of Charlotte Gray, he might have employed one of the timeless lines from his Broadway show Company to depict the lives and loves of Jennie Jerome Churchill and Sara Delano Roosevelt: “Parallel lines who meet.”
Fowl Lines – Speaking of speakers
Anthony Rota stepped down as Canada’s thirty-seventh Speaker of the House of Commons on September 27, for reasons pretty much the entire world knows. Between his unprecedented resignation and the election of Greg Fergus to take up that fancy oak and velvet chair, the electorate was treated to some familiar headlines. “Who Can Bring Back Commons Decency?” the Toronto Star asked on its front page. “Being Speaker Isn’t Easy,” the CBC reminded us. “And It Just Got a Lot Harder.”
World Economic Forum: Top Stories – Oct 14, 2023
0:15 Why engagement in the news is in decline – A massive media survey looked at trust and engagement in the news and found both are in steady decline. Just 48% of people say they are very or extremely interested in the news in 2023 down from 63% in 2017. Trust in the news has fallen 2 percentage points in a year. Now, only 40% say they trust the news most of the time and 36% say they actively avoid the news sometimes or often.
1:53 This robot can help people with disabilities dress – The robot was designed by a team at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). They used a simulation to teach it how to perform its task. The team used an AI-driven approach called ‘reinforcement learning’. The robot was rewarded each time it correctly placed a shirt further along an arm.
3:25 Company captures and stores CO2 with limestone – Heirloom takes crushed limestone and heats it in a kiln powered by renewable energy. The reaction generates two products. These are CO2, which can be permanently stored underground or in materials like concrete and a powder, which is hydrated with water to make calcium hydroxide. When the calcium hydroxide is spread onto trays, it absorbs CO2 from the air to become limestone and the whole process can begin again.
5:24 How to use ChatGPT more safely – ChatGPT is an AI tool that gives detailed, natural language answers to prompts based on a database of 300 billion words drawn from books and articles. The AI learns from its interactions with you, so here are 5 ways to ensure you’re using it safely.
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The World Economic Forum is the International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation. The Forum engages the foremost political, business, cultural and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas. We believe that progress happens by bringing together people from all walks of life who have the drive and the influence to make positive change.
Arts & Culture: The New Criterion — Nov 2023
The New Criterion – November 2023 issue:
The burden of the humanities by Wilfred M. McClay
A lyrical populist revolt by Victor Davis Hanson
Blanquette de Bard by Anthony Daniels
Polymorphous Peretz by Myron Magnet
New poems by David Mason & Ian Pople
The New York Times Book Review – October 15, 2023
THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW (October 15, 2023): This week’s issue features a fabulous historical novel, the Janet Malcolm-like account of an Australian murder trial, a sprightly history of the Oxford English Dictionary, a homage to “The Haunting of Hill House”, historical fiction, thrillers, crime novels, romance, horror & Gothic fiction, science fiction & fantasy.)
A Fitting — and Frightening — Homage to ‘The Haunting of Hill House’
Apparitions, black hares and time warps festoon the pages of Elizabeth Hand’s “A Haunting on the Hill,” set in the same moldering mansion as Shirley Jackson’s classic horror novel.
The Wife Has Committed Murder but It’s the Husband Who Scares Her Lawyer
In Marie NDiaye’s new novel, “Vengeance Is Mine,” a woman is haunted by a decades-old trauma she feels, but cannot quite remember.
VENGEANCE IS MINE, by Marie NDiaye. Translated by Jordan Stump.
The characters in Marie NDiaye’s novels are an unsettling brood. They fret and pace around their homes, tormented by their pasts. Their minds trap and trick them. A daughter can’t shake memories of her mother’s murder; a man gropes for the truth about his imprisonment in a deserted vacation town; a chef pursues culinary perfection at any cost; a woman — reminded of a friend, a schoolteacher or was it her mother? — fatally chases an apparition in green.
Finance Preview: Barron’s Magazine – Oct 16, 2023
BARRON’S MAGAZINE – October 16, 2023 ISSUE:
Why Apple Wants Its Chips Made in a Desert
Oil Prices Could Spike Above $100 if the Israel-Hamas War Widens
So far, the fighting has affected oil prices only modestly, in contrast to past wars in the Middle East. That could change, depending on Iran’s role.
Insurance Stocks Have Been Hammered. 6 Picks for the Rebound.
Insurers have been hit by a one-two punch of natural disasters and lackluster financial markets. But there’s a silver lining: the profits and surpluses that come with rising premiums.
Don’t Make This Common Medicare Open Enrollment Mistake
Enrolling in the wrong plan can cost you hundreds of dollars a year.
Where We Would Invest $100,000 Right Now
Walmart, Moderna, Tesla, and IBM are among our favorite ideas for the current market.
Analysis: How Powerful Is Hamas? (The Economist)
Video timeline: 00:00 – What is Hamas? 00:55 – Hamas’s control of Gaza 01:18 – Growth of Hamas military capacity 01:32 – The latest attack on Israel
Space: NASA’s $1 Billion Metal Asteroid Mission
Video timeline: 0:00 NASA’s mission 0:46 The psyche asteroid 1:45 Why metal matters 3:04 What we can learn from the mission
The rocky inner planets of our solar system are thought to have mostly metallic cores. WSJ breaks down why this mission matters and what it could tell us about Earth’s origins.
Boomers Daily 