Trails and lifts lead to the ski slopes of Schmittenhöhe mountain. Southwest, views from Gipfelwelt 3000 panoramic platform, at the top of the Kitzsteinhorn glacier, take in Hohe Tauern National Park and the looming Grossglockner mountain.
News: Israel Strikes West Bank, Hong Kong Offers Bounties For Activists
The Globalist Podcast, Tuesday, July 4, 2023: The latest on Israel’s major military operation in the West Bank.
Plus: the Hong Kong police’s bounties for self-exiled activists, the inauguration of Thailand’s new government and the soft power of military hospital ships.
The New York Times – Tuesday, July 4, 2023
Israel Launches Biggest Air Attack on West Bank in Nearly Two Decades
Israel said it used drone-fired missiles and ground troops against militant targets in the Jenin refugee camp. The assault killed at least eight Palestinians, the Palestinian health ministry said.
American Cities Have a Conversion Problem, and It’s Not Just Offices
Piles of regulations, or “kludge,” and a culture of “no” are limiting the ability to turn building blocks into something new.
It’s Getting Hard to Stage a School Play Without Political Drama
At a time when lawmakers and parents are seeking to restrict what can and cannot be taught in classrooms, many teachers are seeing efforts to limit what can be staged in their auditoriums.
The Mystery That Ended Two Women’s World Cup Dreams
An assault case that rattled one of France’s best soccer teams remains unresolved despite a series of arrests. Its main characters have paid a heavy price.
Opinion: A Humbled Putin, Environmentalism Harms The Poor, The Better Flags
‘Editor’s Picks’ Podcast (July 3, 2023) – A selection of three essential articles read aloud from the latest issue of The Economist: The humbling of Vladimir Putin, how misfiring environmentalism risks harming the world’s poor (10:20) and some tips to design better flags (18:55).
The humbling of Vladimir Putin
The Wagner mutiny exposes the Russian tyrant’s growing weakness. But don’t count him out yet
The last pretence of Vladimir Putin to be, as he imagines, one of his nation’s historic rulers was stripped away on June 24th. A band of armed mercenaries swept through his country almost unopposed, covering some 750km (470 miles) in a single day, seizing control of two big cities and getting to within 200km of Moscow before withdrawing unharmed.
How misfiring environmentalism risks harming the world’s poor
The trade-off between development and climate change is impossible to avoid
Thank goodness for the enthusiasts and the obsessives. If everyone always took a balanced view of everything, nothing would ever get done. But when campaigners’ worldview seeps into the staid apparatus of policymaking and global forums, bad decisions tend to follow. That, unfortunately, is especially true in the world of climate change.
How to design better flags
Some tips to avoid having an embarrassing emblem
Have you ever met a vexed vexillologist? This is someone who frets when flags are badly designed. Sadly, too many flags flutter to deceive: they are cluttered with imagery, a mess of colours and all too easily forgettable. Yet flags matter. Witness Ukraine’s blue-and-yellow banner, which now serves as a potent symbol around the world (not to mention on this newspaper’s covers).
Technology Review: AI Vs White-Collar Workers
Video timeline: 0:00 AI software 0:42 Why white-collar jobs? 2:01 AI and job cuts 3:52 What’s next?
Initial images, video and product designs could be taken over by machine learning tech. In fact, one report says nearly 4,000 workers lost their jobs in May to AI. Dropbox cut 16% of its workforce in part to invest more in the tech, while IBM sees a future where 30% of clerical work could be taken over by AI.
WSJ explains why AI may take some white-collar jobs – but also add new ones.
REVIEWS: ‘Warfare After Ukraine – Battlefield Lessons’ (The Economist)
Like the first world war, but with high technology
The war shows how technology is changing the battlefield. But mass still counts, argues Shashank Joshi
The latest in the battle of jamming with electronic beams
Jamming is knocking drones and missiles out of the sky
Previews: The New Yorker Magazine – July 10, 2023
On Killing Charles Dickens
I did everything I could to avoid writing my historical novel. When I finally started “The Fraud,” one principle was clear: no Dickens.
By Zadie Smith
For the first thirty years of my life, I lived within a one-mile radius of Willesden Green Tube Station. It’s true I went to college—I even moved to East London for a bit—but such interludes were brief. I soon returned to my little corner of North West London. Then suddenly, quite abruptly, I left not just the city but England itself. First for Rome, then Boston, and then my beloved New York, where I stayed ten years. When friends asked why I’d left the country, I’d sometimes answer with a joke: Because I don’t want to write a historical novel. Perhaps it was an in-joke: only other English novelists really understood what I meant by it. And there were other, more obvious reasons.
The Tyranny of the Tale
We’re told that story will set us free. But what if a narrative frame is also a cage?
By Parul Sehgal
After a millennium, she remains the hardest-working woman in literature. It was not enough to be saddled with a husband who had the nasty habit of marrying and murdering a new virgin every day to assure himself of spousal fidelity. Nor was it enough to produce a series of nested stories under such deadlines (truly, I complain too much), stories so prickly and tantalizing that the king postponed her murder every night to wait for the next installment. That’s to say nothing of the entirely forgotten three children she bore over those thousand and one nights. Who recalls that there was always a new baby in Scheherazade’s arms?
International Art: Apollo Magazine – July/Aug 2023
News: Riots Rattle France, Wagner Troops In Africa
The Globalist Podcast, Monday, July 3, 2023: Riots continue to rock France and threaten to impede preparations for the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics, Russia expert Jenny Mathers examines the fate of Wagner troops in Africa.
Also, the future of local news in Canada as Meta and Google block content. Plus: film critic Karen Krizanovich on the latest in Hollywood and new space technology is put under the microscope.
The New York Times – Monday, July 3, 2023
A Climate Laggard in America’s Industrial Heartland Has a Plan to Change, Fast
Lawmakers in Michigan have long fought tough pollution controls. But the toll of flooding, lost crops and damage to the Great Lakes appears to be changing minds.
As 2024 Voting Battles Heat Up, North Carolina G.O.P. Presses Forward
Republicans, whose edge in the state has narrowed in recent years, have gone on offense politically, leading to clashes over voting access and control over elections.
Cracking Down on Dissent, Russia Seeds a Surveillance Supply Chain
Russia is incubating a cottage industry of new digital surveillance tools to suppress domestic opposition to the war in Ukraine. The tech may also be sold overseas.
A Rubik’s Cube, Thick Socks and Giddy Anticipation: The Last Hours of the Titan
Five voyagers climbed into the Titan submersible in hopes of joining the select few who have seen the wreck of the Titanic up close. But within hours, their text messages stopped coming.
Boomers Daily 