The Globalist (March 18, 2024): We get the latest from Gaza, explore the relevance of the third Summit for Democracy and question an EU cash-for-migration deal with Egypt.
Plus: the director of the Olympic Foundation for Culture and Heritage, and how to legislate happiness in California.
A boom in data centers and factories is straining electric grids and propping up fossil fuels.
The former president is facing converging financial crunches as he and the Republican Party confront a shortfall against President Biden and the Democrats.
Many appeared to be heeding a call by the opposition to express frustration by showing up en masse at midday. “We don’t have any other options,” said one woman.
Video timeline: 00:00 Intro 00:36 Filopappou Hill, Acropolis views 01:13 Monastiraki Square 01:44 Historic neighbourhood of Plaka 02:22 Hadrian’s Library and the Roman Agora 02:42 How to save money and visit the Archaeological sites 03:02 Finding local souvenirs at the Kypseli farmers’ market 04:35 Street band Sourloulou 05:37 The Acropolis Museum and the Acropolis 07:09 Greek Rebetiko music and dining at Skordópistē restaurant
In this video you will find tips for how to visit the main sites in the Greek capital like the Acropolis and Roman Agora. Taking you off the beaten tourist track, Sarah explores Greece’s rich musical traditions and shows us an authentic side of Athens that most tourists don’t see. Did you miss something in our video? Let us know in the comments!
Monocle on Sunday, March 17, 2024: Emma Nelson, Terry Stiastny and Stephen Dalziel on the weekend’s biggest talking points. We also speak to Monocle’s editorial director, Tyler Brûlé, in Lisbon and Naveena Kottoor, Monocle’s correspondent in Nairobi.
Their claims of censorship have successfully stymied the effort to filter election lies online.
Vladimir V. Putin, casting himself as the only leader able to end the war in Ukraine, is all but assured another term in a rubber-stamp election this weekend.
Local lore says that one 82-year-old professor has probably taught more Afghan women drivers in a California town than there are in all Afghanistan. For them, it’s not about empowerment; it’s for groceries.
THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW (March 16, 2024):
Because we could all use a laugh.
By Dwight Garner, Alexandra Jacobs and Jennifer Szalai
When it comes to fiction, humor is serious business. If tragedy appeals to the emotions, wit appeals to the mind. “You have to know where the funny is,” the writer Sheila Heti says, “and if you know where the funny is, you know everything.” Humor is a bulwark against complacency and conformity, mediocrity and predictability.
With all this in mind, we’ve put together a list of 22 of the funniest novels written in English since Joseph Heller’s “Catch-22” (1961). That book presented a voice that was fresh, liberated, angry and also funny — about something American novels hadn’t been funny about before: war. Set during World War II and featuring Capt. John Yossarian, a B-25 bombardier, the novel presaged, in its black humor, its outraged intelligence, its blend of tragedy and farce, and its awareness of the corrupt values that got us into Vietnam, not just Bob Dylan but the counterculture writ large.
“On Gaslighting,” by the philosophy professor Kate Abramson, explores the psychological phenomenon behind the hashtags.
ON GASLIGHTING, by Kate Abramson
Don’t be so sensitive.
You’re overreacting.
You’re imagining things.
These are things gaslighters say, writes Kate Abramson.
As she explains in “On Gaslighting,” the term originated in the 1944 film “Gaslight,” and after entering the therapeutic lexicon of the 1980s, steadily made its way into colloquial usage.
As a society we have become adept at classifying actions within interpersonal relationships using therapy-speak. From “attachment style” to “trauma-bonding,” personal judgments have become diagnoses — without the assistance of a licensed professional: Anyone with a social media account or a jokey T-shirt can get in on the action. (In 2021, the flippant phrase “gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss” became a popular, snide social-media shorthand for a certain kind of capitalist feminism.)
THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE (March 16, 2024):
The fall of affirmative action is part of a 50-year campaign to roll back racial progress.
By Nikole Hannah
Anthony K. Wutoh, the provost of Howard University, was sitting at his desk last July when his phone rang. It was the new dean of the College of Medicine, and she was worried. She had received a letter from a conservative law group called the Liberty Justice Center. The letter warned that in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision striking down affirmative action in college admissions, the school “must cease” any practices or policies that included a “racial component” and said it was notifying medical schools across the country that they must eliminate “racial discrimination” in their admissions. If Howard refused to comply, the letter threatened, the organization would sue.
Researchers are documenting a phenomenon that seems to help the dying, as well as those they leave behind.
By Phoebe Zerwick
Chris Kerr was 12 when he first observed a deathbed vision. His memory of that summer in 1974 is blurred, but not the sense of mystery he felt at the bedside of his dying father. Throughout Kerr’s childhood in Toronto, his father, a surgeon, was too busy to spend much time with his son, except for an annual fishing trip they took, just the two of them, to the Canadian wilderness. Gaunt and weakened by cancer at 42, his father reached for the buttons on Kerr’s shirt, fiddled with them and said something about getting ready to catch the plane to their cabin in the woods. “I knew intuitively, I knew wherever he was, must be a good place because we were going fishing,” Kerr told me.
Monocle on Saturday Podcast (March 16, 2024): Though voting has begun in Russia to elect the country’s next president, the results are unlikely to come as a surprise. However, there is resistance bubbling under the surface.
Join Georgina Godwin and Russia specialist Charles Hecker to discuss the run-up to the election. Plus: Tory donor Frank Hester’s racist comments, Boris Johnson’s unofficial talks in Venezuela and Monocle’s Fernando Augusto Pacheco interviews Lauro Andrade, founder of DW! São Paulo Design Week.
The highly anticipated ruling cut a middle path between removing Fani T. Willis for a conflict of interest and her full vindication.
The National Association of Realtors will pay $418 million in damages and will amend several rules that housing experts say will drive down housing costs.
The Gaza Health Ministry accused Israel of a “targeted” attack. Israel’s military denied the accusation, blaming Palestinian gunmen for the violence.
BARRON’S MAGAZINE – MARCH 18, 2024 ISSUE:
Barron’s annual list of 100 Most Influential Women in U.S. Finance honors established and emerging leaders in the field.
Biden has vowed to protect the program, while Trump has floated benefit cuts. What it means for future retirees.3 min read
Trian Partners has secured control of more than $3 billion worth of Disney stock and is demanding two board seats.
Energy companies increasingly cite AI as a major driver of electricity demand. But the grid could hold everything back.
The once-highflying payments company now trades at a valuation more suitable for a midsize bank. The good news: The path to a comeback is simpler than the Street expects.
Boomers Daily 