Don’t Have Kids, Don’t Anger China, and Don’t Vote for Trump — The Week Link
the best articles we’ve read this week
By Nicholas Keywork and Sam Mather
This is our second weekly collection of the best articles we’ve read!
Trump Time Capsule #79-∞ by James Fallows at The Atlantic
The Time Capsule is going on hiatus, but it’s worth checking out: it documents what we know about Trump before the election. It’s unique for its lack of hand-waving and “That’s just not how things are done!” argumentation; Fallows actually explains the depth of Trump’s disqualifications. Fallows’ combination of righteous anger and proper analysis makes it a good reference. Scrolling down the most recent few entries, I see an incident I’d already forgotten about: a former director of the CIA calling Trump “an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation”.
While Trump’s refusal to release his tax records has gotten more attention, his failure to provide a plausible medical report is in a way more shocking… The only report he has put out is a preposterous North Korean News Service-style farce last year, from a doctor who certified him as “unequivocally the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.”… In an item called “I’m a doctor. These are the things I find most concerning about Trump’s medical letter” Dr. Jen Gunter explains why this aspect of Trump’s stonewalling deserves much more attention.
Should We Be Having Kids in the Age of Climate Change? by Jennifer Ludden at NPR
Climate change is going to have devastating effects on the planet, affecting all life on earth with dramatic consequences for future generations. So, what should we be doing to help fight climate change? Well, it turns out the single best way each of us could fight climate change is by having fewer kids. It’s not the solution you might expect, so Jennifer Ludden embarks on an intriguing exploration of the complicated ethical questions involved.
Rieder’s audience seems to want an easier way. A student asks about the carbon savings from not eating meat. Excellent idea, Rieder says. But no amount of conservation gives you a pass. Oregon State University researchers have calculated the savings from all kinds of conservation measures: driving a hybrid, driving less, recycling, using energy-efficient appliances, windows and light bulbs.
For an American, the total metric tons of carbon dioxide saved by all of those measures over an entire lifetime of 80 years: 488. By contrast, the metric tons saved when a person chooses to have one fewer child: 9,441.
China: The People’s Fury, by Richard Bernstein at The New York Review of Books
This short piece — occasioned by the Hague rejecting China’s claim to territory in the South China Sea — gives great, clear context on Chinese history and international law. It’s accessible for people (like me) who have never heard of this controversy before but it’s not patronizingly simple. And it evokes a lot of parallels between Chinese populism and Trumpism, which is some serious food for thought.
In view of China’s one-party state, top-down control, and pervasive efforts to control the Internet, it is tempting to regard the popular response as a nationalist storm stirred up by the government… Hours after the tribunal issued its decision, the headline on the official Communist Party newspaper, People’s Daily, was: “U.S.-led conspiracy behind the farce.”…
Heavy-handed, intensely aggrieved responses to perceived Western slights have a long tradition in Communist China, where recent history is presented largely as a chronicle of the depredations of foreign powers in the late imperial era — known as the “century of humiliation” — followed by the heroic achievement of the Chinese Communist Party of breaking free from such meddling. To many Chinese, to be patriotic is to support the Party, which has been extremely successful in portraying itself as the force ensuring that China will never be humiliated again.
How to Be Polite, by Paul Ford at The Message
A sweet, funny, very personal essay. The practical take-away here is to always tell people that their job sounds hard. Everyone likes hearing that. And the story of how he met his wife is striking. But what makes the essay really great is how Ford thinks about what politeness is, and what it’s for, and why he depends on it so much.
She was surprised to see the stubborn power of politeness over time. Over time. That’s the thing. Mostly we talk about politeness in the moment. Please, thank you, no go ahead, I like your hat, cool shoes, you look nice today, please take my seat, sir, ma’am, etc. All good, but fleeting.….
People silently struggle from all kinds of terrible things. They suffer from depression, ambition, substance abuse, and pretension. They suffer from family tragedy, Ivy-League educations, and self-loathing. They suffer from failing marriages, physical pain, and publishing. The good thing about politeness is that you can treat these people exactly the same. And then wait to see what happens. You don’t have to have an opinion. You don’t need to make a judgment. I know that doesn’t sound like liberation, because we live and work in an opinion-based economy. But it is. Not having an opinion means not having an obligation. And not being obligated is one of the sweetest of life’s riches.
Can We Trust Julian Assange and WikiLeaks? By Alex Gibney at The New York Times
Whistleblowers are critical in modern society, to hold the powerful sources in society accountable. But who watches the watchmen? As far as heroes of transparency go, Julian Assange is a problematic one — and Edward Snowden (among others) is calling him out for it.
Mr. Assange has also leaked documents to benefit his private aims. In 2010, he ordered an associate named James Ball to pass 90,000 cables covering Russia, most European countries and Israel to a shady journalist named Israel Shamir, who, according to Mr. Ball, later offered them to pro-Putin Russian media outlets for a $10,000 fee. It also seems likely that Mr. Shamir passed documents to Belarus’s brutal president, Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, just before a crackdown on opposition activists (which WikiLeaks has denied). Mr. Shamir is also the father of Johannes Wahlstrom, a Swedish journalist who helped to engineer a vilification campaign against the two women who accused Mr. Assange of sexual assaults and who was to be a key witness had Mr. Assange been tried for rape in Sweden.
The Mystery of Hieronymous Bosch, by Ingrid Rowland at The New York Review of Books
To be honest, I’ve always thought Bosch was a joke, so this was illuminating. Rowland clearly loves his paintings, and it’s exciting and pleasant to have an expert guide you through a painter’s art and times. Rowland includes pictures of most of the paintings she discusses, so you can judge for yourself how much you agree with her analysis and how much you’d rather just gape at Bosch’s completely surreal paintings.
His early admirers celebrated the boundless ingenuity of his work, but they also recognized the sureness of his hand and his unerringly observant eye. In the precision of his draftsmanship, his sensitivity to landscape, his fascination with animals, he shows some surprising affinities with his contemporary from Florence, Leonardo da Vinci — who else but Leonardo would have noticed, and recorded, as Bosch does, the way that evening light can turn the waters of a distant river into a radiant mirror? Both artists were fascinated by grotesque human faces, but Bosch also detailed grotesque human behavior with a bawdy abandon all his own. No matter how closely we look at his minutely particular works, there is always something more to see.
Pieces of Silver, by Paul Krugman at The New York Times
As noted in Fallows’ piece above, Donald Trump is a reprehensible and bizarre candidate. So why are most Republicans publicly backing him? In this critique of Republican leadership, Paul Krugman explores the possibilities, and they are pretty unflattering.
Most senior figures in the Republican Party are still supporting him, threats of violence and all. Why?
One answer is that these were never men and women of principle.
Another answer is that in an era of intense partisanship, the greatest risk facing many Republican politicians isn’t that of losing in the general election, it’s that of losing to an extremist primary challenger. This makes them afraid to cross Mr. Trump, whose ugliness channels the true feelings of the party’s base.
But there’s a third answer, which can be summarized in one number: 34.
What’s that? It’s the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate of the average federal tax rate for the top 1 percent.
BONUS: Last Chance U, Netflix Documentary Series
Okay, so this obviously is not an article, but it might be the best thing I’ve watched in the past year. So if you are able to watch this series on Netflix, I highly highly recommend it. It is ostensibly about football, but it’s really about people — a group of players who, for various personal reasons, were unable to enroll in Division-I Universities to play, trying to prove themselves, work through personal challenges, and achieve the grades needed to become eligible. There are moments that are exceptionally funny, and many more that are heartbreaking. This film crew was able to negotiate rights to observe basically everything associated with the team, so what you see has not been controlled or shaped by the school. The documentary is so well done you come away feeling like you almost know the players, staff, and fans personally. I checked out one episode and couldn’t stop, so I ended up watching all six hours of episodes in 24 hours.
