The Week Magazine - 08.5.2022_downmagaz.net

TALKING POINTS MAIN STORIES OBITUARIES DO WE NEED Kansas’ The defender A CENTRIST abortion who changed PARTY? stunner basketball p.39 p.17 Andrew p.5 Bill Yang Russell THE BEST OF THE U.S. AND INTERNATIONAL MEDIA The ride gets rougher As spending and demand subside, is the U.S. heading into a recession? p.38 AUGUST 12, 2022 VOLUME 22 ISSUE 1091 WWW.THEWEEK.COM ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT EVERYTHING THAT MATTERS



Contents 3 Editor’s letter He would not “shut up and dribble.” Bill Russell was the most Russell, who died this week at 88 (see Obituaries, p.39), con- dominant basketball player of his era, leading the Boston Celtics to 11 NBA championships. But his experience as a Black athlete tinued his activism through his life, marching with Martin Luther in the 1950s and ’60s was defined by Jim Crow segregation and vicious racial animosity, which he refused to swallow silently. In King Jr., protesting the murder of civil rights activist Medgar Boston, his own team’s fans shouted “Go back to Africa” and called him a “baboon” and the N-word. When he and his family Evers in Mississippi, creating an integrated basketball clinic for moved to a Boston suburb, bigots broke into his home, painted racial slurs on the walls, and defecated in his bed. On the road, kids. Like Jackie Robinson, he had an outsize impact on society, he was denied service in hotels and restaurants. A man who ra- diated fierce dignity, Russell said he used this hatred “as energy and inspired generations of Black athletes to stand up against in- to fuel me, to work myself into a rage, a rage I used to win.” He also used it to fuel civil rights activism virtually unknown in ath- justice. Why, some fans complained then and now, must Black letes at the time. He called out the NBA for a tacit racial quota on teams. In 1961, he led a boycott of a game in Lexington, Ky., players inject “politics” into sports? Can’t the arena serve as an to protest a restaurant’s refusal to serve several Black players. escape from the real world? Escaping ugly racial realities, how- ever, is a luxury not available to those who must live with them. Black athletes and musicians, Russell once said, “are accepted as entertainers, but we are not accepted as people.” His legacy is his insistence that he and other African-Americans be seen as per- sons, as equal human beings. On and off the court, Bill Russell would not be denied. William Falk Editor-in-chief NEWS Speaker Nancy Pelosi and President Tsai Ing-wen in Taiwan (p.9) Editor-in-chief: William Falk Getty (2) 4 Main stories ARTS LEISURE Managing editors: Susan Caskie, Manchin changes his Mark Gimein mind; Kansas’ abortion- 23 Books 31 Food & Drink Assistant managing editor: Jay Wilkins rights earthquake; U.S. A biography gives Putin Spicy Punjabi catfish; don’t Deputy editor/Arts: Chris Mitchell kills al Qaida head a sympathetic hearing trust the World’s 50 Best Senior editors: Nick Aspinwall, Restaurants list Chris Erikson, Danny Funt, Scott Meslow, 6 Controversy of the week 24 Author of the week Dale Obbie, Zach Schonbrun, Hallie Stiller Is the DOJ closing in on Poet Safia Elhillo 32 Consumer Art director: Paul Crawford charges for Trump? answers the misogynists Equipment to make the Deputy art director: Rosanna Bulian most of summer; the super- Photo editor: Mark Rykoff 7 The U.S. at a glance 26 Art & Music powered Roadster e-bike Copy editor: Jane A. Halsey Stiff sentence in Jan. 6 Seeing Researchers: Nick Gallagher, trial; deadly flooding in double at the BUSINESS Rebecca Nathanson Kentucky National Contributing editors: Ryan Devlin, Gallery 36 News at a glance Bruno Maddox 8 The world at a glance Big Oil’s blockbuster Pelosi’s high-stakes 28 Film & corner; JetBlue wins its Group publisher: Paul Vizza Taiwan trip; Russian Home fight for Spirit ([email protected]) forces’ nuclear shield; Media Account director: Mary Gallagher Spain turns down AC Bullet 37 Making money ([email protected]) Train A sharp downturn for real Media planning manager: Andrea Crino 10 People delivers estate; colleges end their Direct response advertising: The loneliness of Alicia stylish but tuition freezes Anthony Smyth ([email protected]) Vikander’s success; an glib mayhem abortion doctor forced 38 Best columns SVP, Women’s, Homes, and News: into the spotlight Alicia Fighting over the meaning Sophie Wybrew-Bond Vikander of a “recession”; hackers Managing director, news Richard Campbell 11 Briefing target small businesses SVP, finance: Maria Beckett How billions of dollars (p.10) VP, Consumer Marketing-Global in Covid aid were lost to Superbrands: Nina La France fraud Consumer marketing director: Leslie Guarnieri 12 Best U.S. columns Manufacturing manager, North America: A religious crusade at the Lori Crook Supreme Court; fixing the HR manager: Joy Hart Electoral Count Act Operations manager: Cassandra Mondonedo 15 Best international columns Visit us at TheWeek.com. Russia opens a new Cold For customer service go to War front in Africa; how TheWeek.com/service. South Africa doomed its Renew a subscription at black townships RenewTheWeek.com or give a gift at GiveTheWeek.com. 16 Talking points Trump plays golf with THE WEEK August 12, 2022 the Saudis; abortion bans and the standard of care; failing on monkeypox

4 NEWS The main stories... Manchin’s reversal opens door for climate, tax bill What happened This cynically named bill will do nothing Democrats pushed to bring their $433 billion to address inflation, which is voters’ biggest climate, taxation, and health-care bill to concern, said National Review. Instead, it the Senate floor this week, after a stunning will unleash “new spending on government turnaround by centrist Sen. Joe Manchin (D- boondoggles” while funneling “taxpayer W.Va.) brought the seemingly dead package money to Democratic special interests.” The back to life. The bill, a key piece of President corporate tax hikes will stifle growth at a Biden’s domestic agenda and the most ambi- time when the economy is already con- tious federal climate legislation ever, appeared tracting, while expanded tax enforcement to hit a dead end just two weeks ago after means more middle-class taxpayers will be Manchin, a crucial vote in the evenly divided Surprise! Manchin with reporters this week “squeezed” by the IRS. “Hooray.” Senate, said he wouldn’t support it for fear it What the columnists said would worsen inflation. But he and Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer quietly resumed talks, and after inflation-hawk economist Ignore the Republican false “scaremongering” that the bill will raise Larry Summers and corporate leaders told Manchin they supported taxes on average Americans, said Catherine Rampell in The Wash- a revised bill, Democrats announced agreement on a package, now ington Post. “In reality, the tax-side changes are so narrow that rela- tively few people should even notice.” The minimum corporate tax dubbed the Inflation Reduction Act. targets “megacompanies” that pay zero in corporate income taxes The bill contains $369 billion in climate spending, including tax even as they report giant earnings to shareholders, while the closure credits for building solar and wind power and buying electric of the carried-interest loophole ends a dodge that allows wealthy in- vehicles. It would extend subsidies for millions of Obamacare users vestment managers to pay “lower tax rates than their receptionists.” and lower prescription drug costs by allowing Medicare to negoti- And added IRS funding should only worry tax cheats. ate some prices. It would also raise an estimated $739 billion in new The much-maligned Manchin has “been right about everything,” revenue—enough to offset the bill’s cost and pay $300 billion to- ward deficit reduction—in part by imposing a 15 percent minimum said Tim Miller in The Bulwark. He sounded the alarm on inflation tax on large corporations, expanding IRS enforcement, and closing when leading Democrats dismissed the issue. And now he’s delivered a package that “includes serious climate investment for the base, a loophole used to lower tax rates on investment income. With a tax hike on bankers for the populists, and deficit reduction” for Republicans unanimously opposed, all eyes were on Sen. Kyrsten right-leaning independents. Without Manchin’s strategic centrism Sinema (D-Ariz.), a centrist who has previously opposed closing that loophole. Her aides said she was reviewing the legislation with giving Democrats a Senate seat in a deep-red state, his party would Manchin. “She’ll make a good decision based on facts, and I’m rely- not have put Ketanji Brown Jackson on the Supreme Court, or passed the child tax credit, or gotten anything done in the Biden ing on that,” said Manchin. presidency. “Put some respect on the man’s name.” What the editorials said “Surprise!” said the Los Angeles Times. “After years of dangerous This is a big shot in the arm for Biden, said John Harris in Politico. inaction” on climate, the bill’s resurrection “offers a ray of hope.” He looks to be “pulling a significant victory out of the hat three It’s not perfect—at Manchin’s insistence it includes “wrongheaded months before the midterms”—a plot twist that invites “a reapprais- concessions to polluting industries,” such as requirements for new al” of his presidency. The old-school dealmaker recalibrated when oil and gas leases on public lands. But its clean-energy subsidies and his “maximalist goals” proved unreachable, giving Manchin and methane-reduction measures would cut greenhouse gas emissions by Schumer “cover to achieve incremental ones” and to emerge with a an estimated 40 percent by 2030. It’s a “transformational” achieve- “historic” package that will have real impact. Biden’s presidency is still “defined by his limits.” But “it has more life, and more possibil- ment at a moment when “the costs of a warming planet become ity” than seemed possible a week ago. more apparent every day.” It wasn’t all bad QIn June, four women boarded a rowboat in San Francisco QVeterinarians, volunteers, and drivers from across the country QA restaurant patron in southwest and set off into the deep waters of the Pacific.Thirty-four days are banding together to find China recently spotted what looked homes for 4,000 beagles recently like giant footprints the establish- later—through storms, sickness, and exhaustion—they ar- rescued from an animal-testing ment’s stone courtyard. Indeed, pa- lab.The first 400 beagles to be ad- leontologists confirmed they were rived in Honolulu, breaking a new world record for the fastest opted will be divided between the footprints, and they belonged to Humane Society and other rescue a pair of sauropods—herbivorous women’s crossing of the 2,400-nautical-mile stretch from Cali- partners, and there is no shortage dinosaurs with long necks and tails of interest: Some shelters have that roamed Earth 100 million years fornia to Hawaii. Rowing an already been overwhelmed by ago. Paleontologist Scott Persons inquiries.The dogs are learning regards dinosaur footprints as un- average of 70 miles per day, to play for the first time, said derappreciated discoveries. “That the Humane Society’s Lindsay is the motion of a living animal,” the group was motivated by Hamrick: “Everything, from the Persons said. “And tracks are some way that grass feels to watching of the only evidence that we have daily messages from fans, cars drive by, it’s all going to be a of dinosaurs’ social behavior.” brand-new experience for them.” and during one stretch, an escort from a whale. But the final 3 miles were the most emotional, said team member Libby Costello: “We recognized it was the last time that we were go- Getty, Instagram ing to have just the four of Challenge completed us, maybe ever.” THE WEEK August 12, 2022 Illustration by Fred Harper. Cover photos from Getty (3)

...and how they were covered NEWS 5 Kansas voters surge to polls to protect abortion What happened What the columnists said In a stunning upset, Kansas voters this week The “blow to the anti-abortion movement” in overwhelmingly chose in a referendum to con- Kansas was bipartisan, said Will Saletan in The tinue the state’s guarantee of a right to abor- Bulwark. Registered Republicans outnumber tion. The referendum—the first popular vote Democrats by almost 2 to 1 in the state, and on abortion since the Supreme Court over- holding the referendum during the primaries turned Roe v. Wade—would have changed the instead of the general should have ensured state constitution to eliminate abortion rights, its passage. Instead, many Republicans voted enabling state legislators to restrict or ban it. “no.” Let that be a warning to the GOP that The vote in the conservative state, which last their voters “are divided on abortion,” and supported a Democrat for president in 1964, Abortion rights supporters celebrate. that might hurt them in November. was expected to be close. But newly mobilized suburban moderates pushed turnout to more than twice the level of In predicting a nationwide backlash on abortion, the Left is “gid- the 2018 midterm primaries, and the referendum was voted down dily overreading” the Kansas results, said Ramesh Ponnuru in by 59 to 41 percent. Kansas permits abortion for up to 22 weeks of National Review. Kansans would probably “never have adopted” pregnancy, and its clinics could soon attract patients from neigh- an abortion-protecting constitutional amendment by popular vote, boring Missouri and Oklahoma, which have near-total bans. but in 2019, their supreme court suddenly decided that the state constitution protected abortion, and voters were reluctant to erase In other elections this week, Republicans in Arizona, Michigan, and that right altogether. A specific replacement proposal, though, such Missouri chose Senate candidates who disputed the 2020 presiden- as a ban on abortion after 15 weeks, might have prevailed. tial election results. In Arizona, Blake Masters, endorsed by Donald Trump, won easily in a crowded field to become the Republican “The shape of the general-election landscape fell more clearly into challenger to Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, while as The Week view” this week, said David Siders in Politico, and the Big Lie went to press, another Trump pick, Kari Lake, was leading op- was a stubbornly persistent feature. Republicans in Arizona, for ponent Karrin Taylor Robson in the GOP gubernatorial race. For example, backed Mark Finchem, a former member of the far-right Michigan Senate, voters punished Rep. Peter Meijer, who voted to anti-government militia Oath Keepers, for secretary of state. He impeach Trump last year; he lost by a slim margin to far-right chal- joins a “growing cohort of die-hard Trump loyalists” who could lenger John Gibbs. And in the Missouri Senate race, state Attorney alter how votes are counted in swing states such as Michigan, General Eric Schmitt soundly defeated disgraced former Gov. Eric Nevada, and Pennsylvania. If just one wins this fall, it could put the Greitens, who was accused of domestic and sexual abuse. country in “an unprecedented—and dangerous—situation.” U.S. strike kills al Qaida’s top leader Reuters What happened What the columnists said After years of searching, the U.S. killed al Qaida’s leader, Ayman “Biden deserves credit for the strike,” said Marc Thiessen in The al-Zawahiri, this week in a Kabul drone strike. Considered more Washington Post. “But he also deserves blame for creating the responsible for 9/11 than anyone besides Osama bin Laden, conditions that allowed Zawahiri to set up operations in a city Zawahiri was on the balcony of a safe house in downtown Kabul that had been liberated from al Qaida with American blood.” when he was reportedly hit by two Hellfire R9X missiles, weap- When the U.S. killed Bin Laden in 2011, the raid led to a wealth ons designed to limit collateral damage by deploying six blades of intelligence. “Thanks to Biden, the U.S. no longer has boots just before impact, rather than causing an explosion. Less than a on the ground, and the drone strike destroyed all the actionable year after the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, the strike gives intelligence Zawahiri possessed.” a boost to President Biden, who views it as a success for his over- the-horizon strategy of protecting American interests without an Actually, this success seems to “vindicate the president’s belief in on-the-ground military presence. Zawahiri’s successor may be his America’s over-the-horizon counterterrorism capabilities,” said lieutenant, jihadist Saif al-Adel, a survivor of al Qaida’s founding Brian Glyn Williams in The Hill. I was skeptical when the U.S. generation who is believed to be in Iran. pulled out of Afghanistan last year. But the CIA’s ability to track down and kill “the most wanted man in the world” testifies to Zawahiri’s presence in the Afghan capital undercut Taliban assur- the viability of the strategy. When we combine strong intelligence ances that Afghanistan would not become a refuge for terrorists, gathering, state-of-the-art weapons, and special forces skill, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken said it “grossly violated” “America no longer needs to occupy foreign lands to take out the Doha agreement for the American withdrawal. Members of terrorists who operate in them.” the Taliban-affiliated Haqqani terrorist network raced to the safe house—located next door to the Taliban’s interior ministry— The U.S. made some “disastrous mistakes” in the “counterterror- after the strike, alongside Taliban intelligence officials. The ism crusade” it launched after 9/11, but it “remained focused” Taliban’s bond with al Qaida was cemented when then–Taliban on seeking justice for more than two decades, said David Ignatius chief Mullah Omar refused to hand over bin Laden to the U.S. in The Washington Post. Zawahiri became “a daily obsession” after 9/11. While less visible to Americans than its 2001 iteration, for American counterterrorism specialists. “That’s a warning for al Qaida now serves as an inspiration for a disparate Islamist the Russians, Chinese, or anyone else who doubts U.S. staying movement and claims more total fighters across more countries, power. Americans might look impatient and undependable, but particularly in Africa, than it did 21 years ago. they have long memories.”

6 NEWS Controversy of the week Trump: Is there strong evidence he committed crimes? “The Jan. 6 committee has done its job,” mittee, said Edward Luce in the Financial said Noah Bookbinder in Salon, and now it’s Times, the DOJ will need to prove its case “time for Attorney General Merrick Garland beyond a reasonable doubt. Jurors will know to do his.” Through videos, texts, and wit- the defendant “retains the devotion of mil- ness testimony from inside Trump’s White lions of Americans, many of them armed.” House, the committee laid out an “over- Garland can take pressure off the jury, said whelming” case for multiple criminal charges Rebecca Beitsch and Harper Neidig in The against Donald Trump. We now know for Hill, by focusing on specific, concrete crimes certain that Trump was repeatedly told by where Trump’s guilt will be easy to prove. advisers, including then–Attorney General Even if Trump honestly thought the elec- Bill Barr, that there was no election fraud, tion was stolen, for example, that wouldn’t change the fact that he tried to “obstruct an and that advisers who concocted a phony Garland: Investigating Trump’s actions elector scheme knew it was illegal and sought a pardon. We know that Trump knew the rioters were armed, and official proceeding”—Congress’ certification of the vote—a crime further incited the mob even when Vice President Mike Pence’s life for which hundreds of Capitol rioters have already been con- was in real danger. Now there are reports that the famously cau- victed. The “easiest path” to a conviction, said Chris Strohm in tious Garland and his federal prosecutors are asking Trump’s inner Bloomberg.com, may be to charge Trump for his role in submitting circle about his actions before, during, and after Jan. 6, and issuing lists of “fake electors” from seven swing states. Forgery and docu- subpoenas for testimony and records. Trump’s legal team is worried ment fraud are everyday crimes that the public understands, and and is already preparing possible defenses, said Asawin Suebsaeng for which people are imprisoned on a daily basis. and Adam Rawnsley in Rolling Stone. A central strategy will be No, said Charlie Sykes in The Bulwark, Garland should “go as big blaming “fall guys”—that is, “shifting blame from Trump to his as possible.” The MAGA faithful are going to react with total fury advisers for the efforts to overturn the election.” to any prosecution of their “Orange God King,” so Garland may That would actually be a strong defense, said Jonathan Turley in as well bring charges that reflect the gravity of his attempted coup: The Hill. The Jan. 6 hearings have conclusively shown that while seditious conspiracy, fraud, obstruction, and incitement. Failing some advisers told Trump he’d lost the election and should con- to charge Trump with crimes would prove presidents are above cede, he was hearing the opposite from lawyers Rudy Giuliani, the law, said Kimberly Atkins Stohr in The Boston Globe. That John Eastman, Sidney Powell, and the rest of what more sober- precedent has already set by the absence of legal consequences for minded staffers dubbed “Team Crazy.” Trump’s reliance on Team previous presidents who committed apparent crimes, including Crazy’s advice could persuade a jury that he truly believed the Warren Harding, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton. It falls to the election had been stolen, and that his subsequent actions and state- mild-mannered Garland to now end that toxic tradition. “Our ments were therefore legal, if delusional. Unlike the Jan. 6 com- future as a nation depends on it.” Only in America Good week for: In other news Getty QAlabama prison officials Birds, mice, and dogs, after the Polish Academy of Sciences GOP drops objections told a reporter she couldn’t officially classified cats as an “invasive alien species,” because they to burn-pit care witness an execution because kill billions of birds and small mammals a year and have “a nega- her skirt was too short. Ivana tive influence’’ on “native biodiversity.’’ The Senate voted 86-11 this Hrynkiw said she had to bor- Mick Jagger, who celebrated his 79th birthday on a European week to enhance health-care row fisherman’s waders to tour with the Rolling Stones that marks their 60th anniversary and disability benefits for up cover her legs and sneakers as a band. The great-grandfather of three partied with his bal- to 3.5 million veterans poten- to replace her open-toed lerina girlfriend Melanie Hamrick, 35, who is the mother of their tially exposed to toxic burn shoes to do her job. Her editor 5-year-old son. pits, after Republicans briefly filed a complaint, saying the blocked the bill, sparking officials’ demands were “sex- George Jetson, the hapless future-dwelling patriarch of the pop- protests. The bill, expected ist and an egregious breach of ular 1960s cartoon series, which indicated he was born on July 31 to cost $280 billion over the professional conduct.” in the impossibly far-off year of 2022. next decade, would presume that any U.S. service member QAmid rising threats of vio- Bad week for: stationed in a combat zone lence, members of Congress over the past 32 years could are being given $10,000 Sequels, after President Biden’s physician said he is suffering a have been exposed to toxic each to upgrade their home Covid rebound after taking the antiviral Paxlovid. While Biden substances, streamlining ac- security. The plan comes after “continues to feel well,” the doctor said, he is once again testing cess to care. Republicans, led GOP Rep. Lee Zeldin was at- positive and “experiencing a bit of a return of a loose cough.” by Pat Toomey of Pennsylva- tacked onstage at a campaign nia, pulled their support last stop, and a man making death Economic indicators, after a Duane Reade store in New York week, arguing that the costs threats was arrested at the City decided to encase its $3.99 cans of Spam processed meat in of the toxins fund could rise home of Democratic Rep. Pra- plastic antitheft containers. with few checks. The bill is mila Jayapal. Johns Hopkins a win for President Biden, political science professor Grammar, after Lavern Spicer, a Republican congressional who believes burn pits might Liliana Mason said it’s clear candidate from Florida, claimed that “there are no pronouns in the have caused the brain cancer that “the norms around anti- Constitution.” Critics pointed that there are dozens of pronouns in that killed his son Beau, who violence are eroding.” the Constitution, including its first word, “We.” served in Iraq, in 2015. THE WEEK August 12, 2022

The U.S. at a glance... NEWS 7 Eastern Kentucky Covington, Ky. Washington, D.C. Appalachian tragedy: Catastrophic Suits tossed: A federal judge last week flooding last week left at least 37 people dismissed defamation lawsuits filed Seven-year sentence: Guy Reffitt, a dead and destroyed entire towns across by former Covington Catholic High School student Nicholas Sandmann, the Texan right-wing militia member who eastern MAGA hat–wearing teenager whose Kentucky. viral 2019 encounter near the Lincoln brought a pistol to After Memorial became a political Rorschach more than test. Sandmann had sued five Gannett the Jan. 6 attack 1,300 newspapers, plus seven national media water organizations, for reports suggesting he and threatened to rescues, had blocked a Native American drummer, A deluge cut off escape routes. hundreds Nathan Phillips, from escaping a crowd of drag members of of resi- students in Washington for a “March for dents remained missing, and officials said Life” rally. Some liberals said the students Congress from the the death toll is likely to rise. As up to were taunting Phillips, while conservatives 10 inches of rain fell over 48 hours in rallied around them, and former President Capitol, was sen- already saturated counties, floods and Trump said they’d been “smeared.” mudslides offered a fleeting window to Phillips’ accounts were “unverifiable,” the tenced this week escape from many towns for which just judge ruled, and the press reports were one rural road or bridge serves as an protected by the First Amendment. In the to more than seven access point. Rescue efforts struggled past two years, Sandmann reached settle- to overcome downed cell service and ments for undisclosed sums with CNN, years in prison—the destroyed infrastructure, including NBC, and The Washington Post. dozens of bridges now washed longest term to date out or inaccessible. In the town Fort Lauderdale of Fleming-Neon, the city hall Shattered: Families of the 17 people for any the 800-plus Reffitt was destroyed, with every- murdered in the 2018 Marjory Stoneman people arrested in thing inside covered by more Douglas High School shooting told jurors than a foot of mud, and the this week about indescribable grief and connection with the insurrection. Judge town bank, pharmacy, and crushed dreams for children who would post office were also flooded. be in college by now. “To try to articu- Dabney Friedrich, a Trump appointee, Destruction spanned at least late how it has affected me would be for five counties; in Knott County, me to rip my heart out and present it to called Reffitt’s actions “the antithesis four siblings, ages 2 to 8, were you shattered in a million pieces,” said swept away by strong currents. Shara Kaplan, whose 18-year-old daugh- of patriotism.” Reffitt, 49, did not go ter, Meadow Pollack, was murdered. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty inside the Capitol or attack police, and for Nikolas Cruz, now 23, who pleaded guilty last fall to 17 counts of murder defense attorneys said his stiff sentence and 17 counts of attempted murder. Defense attorneys asked for a sentence was punishment for not accepting a plea of life in prison without the possibility of parole. The killer looked downward deal. The former oil rig manager was and had no visible reaction to the impact statements, while one of his attorneys turned in by his teenage son, after dabbed away tears. Earlier, without families present, jurors saw video of the telling his children “traitors massacre itself, with some victims shot at point-blank range. get shot.” Reffitt apologized at his sentencing, saying, “In 2020, I was a little crazy.” His daughter, Peyton, said, “Trump deserves life in prison if my father’s in prison for this long.” Miami Pardon promise: Backstage at a Republican event in 2019, Rep. Matt Tulsa Gaetz (R-Fla.) assured former President White and uncomfortable: The Oklahoma Trump’s longtime adviser Roger Stone State Board of Education voted last week that he had nothing to fear ahead of his to downgrade Tulsa Public Schools to upcoming trial because “the boss” would “accredited with warning” after a teacher likely grant him clemency as a reward complained that the district’s implicit-bias for not cooperating with special counsel training mate- Robert Mueller, The Washington Post rials “shame reported last week. Apparently unaware white people.” they were being recorded by a Danish In the first documentary film enforcement crew trailing Stone, action under a Gaetz, a close law restricting Trump ally, told ‘Implicit bias’ fight how schools Stone, “The boss can discuss race still has a very and sex, the board voted 4-2 to lower favorable view of the Tulsa district’s status. The penalty you,” adding that Stone the president had will bring extra oversight for a deficiency “said it directly.” With Stone awaiting that “seriously detracts from the quality trial for obstructing Congress’ probe of the school’s educational program.” A of Russian election interference, Gaetz 20-minute training video last year urged told him, “I don’t think the big guy teachers to be “aware of our own inher- can let you go down for this.” Indeed, ent biases, as well as historical biases after Stone was sentenced to 40 months Getty, DOJ, Google, Getty against minorities.” The state board also in prison, Trump commuted Stone’s downgraded Mustang Public Schools near sentence and eventually pardoned him. Oklahoma City, after a single teacher “You’re a bulls--- artist, not a liar,” asked students to reflect on whether they Gaetz told Stone, who replied, “Correct. had experienced or perpetrated discrimi- There’s a big difference.” nation or bullying. THE WEEK August 12, 2022

8 NEWS The world at a glance... Victoria, British Columbia Mitrovica, Kosovo Cult spreads to U.S.: A QAnon leader who calls Serbs protest violently: Ethnic Serbs used herself Queen of Canada and says she is an alien trucks to block roads and fired guns at space creature with supernatural powers has begun Kosovar police this week in a dispute over recruiting Americans to her cause. Philippine license plates, reigniting a long-simmering immigrant Romana Didulo was investigated conflict. The protesters oppose a new rule last year after urging her followers to defy requiring ethnic Serb residents to put Kosovar Covid lockdowns and “shoot to kill” vac- license plates on their cars; many have kept Roadblock Serbian plates as a sign that they don’t accept Didulo: Recruiting cine workers. Didulo preaches that utilities are now free in Canada, and some of her Kosovar sovereignty. Kosovo broke away from Serbia in 1999 and 60,000 followers, including many elderly Canadians on fixed accuses that country, a Russian ally, of inciting the current violence. incomes, have had their water and power cut off for nonpay- One Serbian lawmaker said this week that his country may be ment. Last month, she said she was establishing a “Kingdom “forced to begin the denazification of the Balkans,” mirroring the of America” and had appointed a deputy there to be U.S. com- language Russia used to justify its invasion of Ukraine. mander. Already, followers have started contacting U.S. officials, warning them Didulo’s reign is about to begin. Madrid Don’t use AC: To save energy as temperatures soar, Spain’s government has announced limits on air-conditioning usage. Starting next week, the AC must be set no cooler than 81 degrees in all public buildings, shopping centers, cinemas, train stations, and airports; when winter comes, heat must be set at 66 degrees or below. The EU is facing an energy crisis because of Russia’s recent halving of gas shipments and wants all members to cut gas usage by 15 percent. Spain, which relies much less on Russian energy than other EU countries, agreed only to cuts of about 8 percent, but even those will bite. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said office workers will be cool enough if they copy him by wear- ing open collars and no tie. But the populist head of the Madrid region, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, said the capital city won’t comply. Guatemala City Trampling press freedom: Guatemalan authorities have arrested the nation’s most prominent journalist, José Rubén Zamora, founder of the investigative newspaper El Periódico. Prosecutors accused him of money laundering, and Zamora: Arrested Zamora promptly went on a hunger strike, saying he was a political pris- oner. “We live in a narco-klepto dictatorship,” he said. Successive leaders have targeted Zamora for nearly two decades: He’s been beaten up, kidnapped, and arrested multiple times. Most recently his newspaper has reported on suspected corruption in the administration of President Alejandro Giammattei. Both Attorney General María Consuelo Porras and anti-corruption chief Rafael Curruchiche were placed on a U.S. State Department list of “cor- rupt and undemocratic actors” after Periódico articles detailed how they blocked corruption probes. Brasília Planning insurrection? Eduardo San Cristóbal, Venezuela Bolsonaro, the third son of far-right Rebuilding ties: Venezuela and Colombia have agreed to begin restoring diplomatic relations when Colombian President-elect Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, has Gustavo Petro takes office next month. After meeting in a Venezuelan border town, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Carlos been implicated in the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol Faria and incoming Colombian counterpart Alvaro Leyva said the countries would exchange ambassadors for the first time since a insurrection. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) told 2015 border dispute. They will also boost security on their shared border, which has become a hotbed of kidnapping, drug traffick- Brazilian activists last week that Eduardo, who Bolsonaro ing, and conflict between armed rebel groups. Petro, who will was in the Capitol days before the riot, was to become Colombia’s first leftist president next week, has vowed to fully reopen the border with Venezuela. About 2 million of the be added to the congressional investigation. The English-speaking 5.4 million Venezuelan migrants who have left the country in the past six years have settled in Colombia. Eduardo acts as his father’s unofficial American envoy at U.S. Reuters, Getty, Reuters, Getty THE WEEK August 12, 2022 right-wing rallies and has reportedly concluded that the Trumpist coup failed only because of a lack of Army support. President Bolsonaro is trailing in polls ahead of the Oct. 2 presidential race and has been following Trump’s playbook to dispute the vote, casting doubt on the integrity of Brazil’s voting machines and the independence of its Supreme Court.

The world at a glance... NEWS 9 Nikopol, Ukraine Nara, Japan Nuclear fortress: Ukrainian troops repelled Backlash against Moonies: The assassination last month of for- Russian advances throughout the east mer Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has exposed the deep ties between and south this week but were stymied in Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party and the Unification Nikopol, where the Russian army was using Church founded by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon. Assassin Tetsuya Europe’s largest nuclear power station as a Yamagami said he shot Abe because of his links to the church, shield. The Russians captured Zaporizhzhia Wreckage in Nikopol which he blamed for bankrupting his family. The LDP was Nuclear Power Plant in March and have founded by Abe’s grandfather, who was close to Moon and even been lobbing missiles from it, knowing that the Ukrainians can’t intervened with U.S. authorities when the cult leader was jailed strike back without risking nuclear catastrophe. Some residents for tax evasion. Over the decades, LDP leaders including Abe fre- of Nikopol have fled, but many don’t want to leave their homes. quently spoke at church events. Japanese media have been busily “They shoot at us, and there is nothing we can do,” said retiree documenting those links since Abe’s death, and the backlash has Halyna Hrashchenkova. Nikopol lies along the Ukrainian army’s grown so strong that many Japanese are now calling for Abe’s path toward retaking the southern city of Kherson, and Ukraine planned state funeral to be canceled. has recaptured 53 settlements near there and severed a key rail link to Crimea. Taipei Chinese fury after Pelosi visits Taiwan: Chinese troops maneu- vered into position for planned live-fire drills surrounding Taiwan this week after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi became the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit the self-governing island since 1997. Defying Beijing’s objections, Pelosi, a longtime China hawk, met with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing- wen, as well as other top officials and human rights activists, and said she wanted to make it “unequivocally clear” that America stood with Taiwan. “We want Taiwan to always have freedom with security,” Pelosi said, “and we’re not backing away from that.” Taiwan’s 23 million people mostly welcomed U.S. support for their autonomy from China. But the Biden administration reiterated that there was no change in America’s long-standing “one China policy,” which formally recognizes only the People’s Republic but allows informal relations and defense ties with Taipei. China, which claims Taiwan as its ter- ritory, threatened reprisals, and Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Xie Feng sum- Pelosi: China hawk moned the U.S. ambassador to Beijing, Nicholas Burns, to convey the government’s displeasure. Just before Pelosi arrived, China flew a contingent of 21 war- planes, including fighter jets, into Taiwanese air-defense zone. After she left, the Chinese military began exercises to effec- tively blockade the island, using an array of force including long-range weapons and conventional missiles. Some of the planned forays encroach within 12 miles of Taiwan’s coast. If China uses live fire within those Taiwanese waters, it could be Krugersdorp, seen under international rules of engagement as an act of war. South Africa Gang rape at film shoot: A Tsavo National Park, Kenya gang of armed men forced Climate change kills elephants: The climate crisis is killing 20 their way into a music video times more elephants in Kenya than poachers are, wildlife offi- shoot at an abandoned mine cials said last week. Kenya is suffering its worst drought in four Protesters want justice. west of Johannesburg last decades, and elephants, which can drink more than 50 gallons week, robbed the 22 people of water and eat 300 pounds of food per day, are among the in the cast and crew, and gang-raped eight of the women. Police hardest hit. At least 179 Kenyan elephants have died of thirst in blamed illegal gold miners in the region and rounded up more the past year, some of them in Tsavo than 120 suspects, many of them illegal immigrants. Two other National Park, while poaching for suspects were killed in a shoot-out with police and a third was ivory has killed fewer than 10. “It’s a Reuters, Getty, AP, Getty wounded, police said. It’s unclear, though, whether any of the red alarm,” said Kenyan Tourism and miners had anything to do with the attack; police said that DNA Wildlife Secretary Najib Balala. “We from the rape victims would be used to identify the perpetrators. have forgotten to invest in biodiversity “These horrible acts of brutality,” said South African President management and ecoysystems. We Cyril Ramaphosa, “are an affront to the right of women and girls have invested only in illegal wildlife to live and work in freedom and safety.” trade and poaching.” Elephants: Thirsty THE WEEK August 12, 2022

10 NEWS People A physician in the national spotlight Vikander’s melancholy highs Dr. Caitlin Bernard has found herself at the Alicia Vikander didn’t enjoy how success upended her life, said center of the nation’s new abortion wars, said Jonathan Dean in The Times (U.K.). The raves she drew for the Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Ava Sasani in The 2014 sci-fi thriller Ex Machina and the Academy Award she won New York Times. The obstetrician-gynecologist for the 2015 transgender romance The Danish Girl changed the recently performed an abortion on a 10-year- Swedish actress’ life, but not entirely in a good way. Making old rape victim from Ohio, after the girl had those movies kept her away from home, family, and friends for to travel to Indianapolis because abortion is several months. “It was very lonely,” the 33-year-old says. Her banned in Ohio after six weeks, even in cases Oscar led to roles in big-budget films like Jason Bourne and of rape or incest. Bernard immediately started receiving harass- Tomb Raider, but Vikander felt even more lost. “When, in other ment and threats from abortion opponents, and Indiana’s attorney people’s eyes, I was at my height of fame, I was the most sad. I general said he would investigate her, accusing Bernard of using kept telling myself, ‘Take it in. It is incredible.’ But I didn’t know the girl’s “personal trauma” to “push her ideological stance.” what to do. There were all these first-class flights, five-star rooms. There’s no doubt Bernard supports abortion rights: She’s protested But I was always by myself.” She now lives happily with her actor outside the statehouse and has a tattoo that says “Trust women” husband, Michael Fassbender, and their son in Lisbon. In a new next to a wire coat hanger. “The politicization of me, and of the HBO series, she plays a pop singer who suffers a miscarriage but work that I do, has definitely made it difficult for me to con- is told to proceed with a performance that same night. It hit home tinue to do advocacy,” Bernard says. Abortion is a small part of for Vikander, who also has miscarried. “There are times that her practice, but she provides abortions several days a month at myself or colleagues have been through something, and I can’t Planned Parenthood clinics in Indiana and Kentucky. In 2020, the understand how they went on to the red carpet afterward,” she FBI informed Bernard of a kidnapping threat against her daughter. says. “Most people would not be able to step out of their house.” “Physicians who provide abortion have been harassed [and] mur- dered,” said Bernard, 37. “For too long, they’ve had to be silent to protect their families, and it’s created an idea that we’re doing something wrong or illegal. And we’re not.” Why Conway chose Donald over George Kellyanne Conway hated being in the middle of a Washington soap opera, said Josh Glancy in The Times (U.K.). A loyal aide to former President Trump, Conway grew furious as her husband, the conservative lawyer George Conway, repeat- edly mocked the Trump administration on Twitter, on TV, and in newspaper columns. Trump returned fire, tweeting that George was a “stone cold LOSER” and “a husband from hell.” Kellyanne, 55, hated the drama. “If this was all done for show, please remove me from the starring role, cancel the rest of the season, and refund the audience’s money. Put your popcorn down. It’s not a show, it’s my life.” When Trump was elected, George was considered a possible pick for solicitor general, but he quickly decided that Trump was a lawless madman and joined a group of “never Trump” Republicans. “I didn’t allow Trump to affect my marriage, George did,” Kellyanne says. She admits feeling “worried” about their future. “He seemed to enjoy the attention,” Conway says. “I just wanted him to be the husband and father to our children that I had always known.” QActor Will Smith publicly apologized last Rock, who has made sarcastic references arts of media manipulation.” During one Getty, Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/The New York Times/Redux, Getty week to comedian Chris Rock for slapping to the slap in his comedy routines, did not argument, Bannon and Kushner accused respond. Smith said that he’s been told by each other of leaking stories to the press to him in the face at the 2022 Oscars people close to Rock that “he’s not ready to make the other look bad. “I will break you ceremony, offering a personal meet- talk, but when he is, he will reach out.” in half,” he quotes Bannon as warning him. ing “whenever you’re ready to talk.” “Don’t f--- with me.” QIn a new memoir, former presidential ad- In a video, Smith said he acted viser Jared Kushner settles scores with his QSinger Taylor Swift has the worst private- impulsively when Rock told a joke White House rivals and adversaries, claim- jet carbon emissions of any celebrity thus about Jada Pinkett Smith’s short ing that former chief of staff John Kelly far this year, the analytics agency Yard hair—she suffers from alopecia— once physically pushed Ivanka Trump. Kelly has revealed.Taylor’s private jet has taken and that “I wasn’t thinking about once stormed out of a contentious Oval 170 flights since January, amassing nearly how many people got hurt.” He Office meeting and encountered Ivanka in 23,000 minutes in the air and emitting a said that he has spent three months a hallway. “Kelly shoved her out of the way total of 8,293 tons of carbon—or 1,184 struggling to come to terms with and stormed by,” Kushner writes. Kelly, a times the average person’s total annual how his “unacceptable” behavior retired Marine Corps general, said he has emissions. Swift’s spokesperson said that no memory of such an incident, adding, “It “Taylor’s jet is loaned out regularly to other let his family, friends, and fans is inconceivable that I would EVER shove a individuals,” but climate activists said it down. “Disappointing people is woman.” Kushner describes adviser Steve didn’t matter whether Swift was personally Bannon as a “toxic” master of “the dark in her plane as it was disgorging carbon. my central trauma,” Smith said. THE WEEK August 12, 2022

Briefing NEWS 11 Stealing Covid aid Billions in pandemic relief dollars were wasted or pocketed by scammers. How did that happen? Was Covid relief successful? convertible and a Corvette Stingray. A In many ways, yes. It helped prevent California businessman was charged what most economists agree would’ve with using $5 million in aid to buy a been the worst economic crisis since the Lamborghini and a Ferrari. A family of Great Depression. As the pandemic hit in Christian missionaries received $8.4 mil- the spring of 2020 amid a massive wave lion from the SBA by falsely claiming to of hospitalizations and deaths, many run a ministry with 486 employees and businesses shut down or reduced opera- a $2.7 million monthly payroll. tions and the U.S. economy lost more Why the lack of oversight? than 20 million jobs. Lawmakers scram- bled to act, and in late March, President The government hadn’t distributed aid Trump signed the $2 trillion CARES Act, on this massive scale before, and with a sprawling package that included direct millions of people and businesses hurt- payments to households, enhanced unem- The seizure of a Lamborghini bought with federal aid ing, it chose speed over precision. Many ployment insurance, and small-business state unemployment agencies, hobbled loans. In March 2021, with millions still out of work, President by archaic, decades-old computer systems and understaffing from Biden signed a second Covid relief bill, this one for $1.9 trillion. years of budget cuts, were quickly overwhelmed. Twenty states did Under the Trump and Biden administrations, the federal govern- not perform all the required background checks on applicants. The ment allocated $6 trillion toward pandemic relief. A Moody’s SBA, a congressional subcommittee found, may have approved Analytics report says these collective efforts saved the country 1.6 million loans without evaluating the applications. With loans from a major, double-dip recession. In the midst of a paralyzing rubber-stamped 500 at a time, even obvious red flags, such as over- pandemic, 2020 saw the biggest drop in poverty in five decades seas client locations, sometimes didn’t prevent approval. and no major increase in hunger. Once vaccines arrived, the Can the money be recovered? economy rebounded briskly and unemployment hit record lows. “What the money did,” said Louise Sheiner, an economist with the Only a small fraction of it. Federal authorities have so far recap- Brookings Institution, “was to basically make sure that when we tured $4 billion—less than 3 percent of wrongful payments— could reopen, people had money to spend, their credit rating wasn’t of unemployment money, and they have opened more than ruined, they weren’t evicted, and kids weren’t going hungry.” 1,150 investigations of potential misuse of various relief funds. Was there a price for that success? Government and bank investigators have returned $10 billion in misallocated business relief to government coffers. But the vast Yes. The San Francisco Fed estimates that trillions injected into the majority of the fraud remains unpunished. The Justice Department economy added as much as 3 percentage points to the inflation lacks the resources to investigate and prosecute tens of thousands rate by late 2021. In addition, an alarming proportion of money of perpetrators. was misspent or stolen. Of $873 billion How states spent their windfalls Was there a better way? in unemployment insurance distributed, a recent Labor Department report estimates Washington sent some $900 billion to Governments around the world have that at least 1 in 6 dollars should not have spent more than $15 trillion on pandemic state and local governments aiming to been paid out, “with a significant por- prevent fiscal catastrophe as their tax relief, but most countries did not offer tion attributable to fraud.” Cybersecurity revenues plunged. But with few strings direct cash to citizens regardless of need, on how states could use the funds, some firm DarkTower discovered that more are spending them or using them to free as the U.S. did. Instead, they funneled the than 200,000 users of the messaging app up state money for projects with little or money to laid-off workers through their Telegram belonged to groups that traded no connection to the pandemic. Alabama employers and existing welfare organiza- tips on the best states to target for unem- spent $400 million of pandemic money tions. Some level of fraud was inevitable, ployment money. Criminal networks in on building three new prisons. Florida but even compared with a previous stimu- China, Nigeria, and elsewhere started dedicated a fifth of its $8.8 billion allot- lus, Covid spending was wildly inefficient. identity-theft rings. Aid targeted to busi- ment to highway construction; one town Only 0.6 percent of the $831 billion nesses fared little better. A University of in the state spent some of its allotment on American Recovery and Reinvestment Texas analysis of 11.8 million Paycheck a new golf course. California, which got Act of 2009, for example, went to fraud- Protection Program loans found a 15 per- $37.3 billion under the two rescue plans, sters. Strengthening, modernizing, and cent fraud rate, potentially costing taxpay- had a $100 billion budget surplus in 2021— expanding government social safety net ers more than $117 billion. About $3.9 some of which is being refunded to state systems could make large-scale waste billion in Small Business Administration residents. Federal law bars states from less likely in the next emergency, but (SBA) loans went to 57,000 entities on the using the funds for tax cuts, but 21 states George Washington University economics Treasury Department’s “do not pay” list. have challenged the prohibition in court— professor Tara Sinclair points out there most of them successfully. “These states isn’t much appetite for spending billions How did that happen? are awash in money—everybody from now to prevent future fraud. It’s hard to Kentucky to California,” said Scott Jennings, convince taxpayers, she said, that “if we Scammers invented or misrepresented busi- a former aide to Sen. Mitch McConnell do this, it’ll look like a lot of money now, nesses to get loans. One 55-year-old Texan (R-Ky.). And “if there’s one thing a governor but the next time there’s a crisis, we won’t was later convicted of netting $24 million knows how to do, it’s drive around their end up just spending a trillion or two, through 15 fraudulent loan applications; state and hand out huge checks.” willy-nilly.” he spent some of the money on a Bentley AP THE WEEK August 12, 2022

12 NEWS Best columns: The U.S. Alito’s Justice Samuel Alito has made it clear that he views an “increasingly It must be true... religious secular society” as a threat the Supreme Court must fight, said Dahlia crusade Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern. In a recent speech on religious freedom I read it in the tabloids at an event sponsored by Notre Dame Law School’s Religious Liberty Dahlia Lithwick and Initiative—which filed briefs arguing for overturning Roe—Alito quoted QAn artist is asking for Mark Joseph Stern the Gospels while emphasizing the central role of religion in democratic $6,300 for an artwork in governance. With characteristic sarcasm, he welcomed the disapproval a New Zealand gallery Slate of foreign critics of his abortion ruling, including Prince Harry, Boris consisting of a slice of Johnson, and the leaders of France and Canada, as proof his opinion pickle from a McDonald’s was correct. In “economically advanced countries,” Alito warned, reli- hamburger flung onto the gious liberty is under threat from an “increasingly secular society” and ceiling. Matthew Griffin’s its “new moral code.” That code includes women’s equality and repro- work Pickle, at the Michael ductive rights, LGBTQ rights, and secular public education—“everything Lett Gallery in Auckland, is Alito despises.” Many Americans, he complained, think religion “is just a deliberately “provocative not all that important” or worthy of “special protection.” But Alito and gesture,” said his represen- the Christian conservatives who now control the court, he indicated, will tative, Ryan Moore of Fine not put up with a separation of church and state. Their mission: to em- Arts in Sydney. The piece power fellow believers to govern the godless. is “a sculptural gesture,” Moore said, which examines Preventing “What if Mike Pence had said yes?” asked David French. What if he’d “the way value and mean- another caved in to ex-President Trump’s pressure and declared him the winner ing is generated between coup attempt of the 2020 election? “America probably would have survived that mo- people.” ment, but the key word there is probably.” Now we have proposed leg- David French islation that would address the key reason that Trump and his corrupt QBelgian “cadre of loyalists” were able to put Pence in that position: the Elec- scientists The Dispatch toral Count Act of 1887. The convoluted wording of the act “is worse are inves- than a mess.” It gives Congress the right to object to electoral votes “on tigating a flimsy or nonexistent pretexts” and “overturn a presidential election report that upon a simple majority vote.” It also vaguely defines the vice president’s different role in counting the votes. To rectify these dangerous flaws, a bipartisan styles of coalition of senators has drafted the Electoral Count Reform Act. It’s “a music monumental improvement” that fixes the ECA’s biggest problems, and affect the behavior of pigs. specifies that the vice president cannot reject “a single Electoral College The study was inspired by vote.” House Democrats are demanding even broader electoral reforms, farmer Piet Paesmans, who but they risk creating a bill that will fail to pass the Senate—leaving the noted that his pigs grew ECA intact for the 2024 election. “And as 2020 demonstrated, failure animated when his son could be catastrophic.” started singing in the barn during an insemination The urgent The “Fauci ouchie” was a miracle that saved “millions of lives,” said session. He began playing need for The Washington Post. But now we need another urgent effort to pro- them a curated soundtrack, new vaccines duce new vaccines to fight Covid. The existing shots continue to do with energetic music when a good job of preventing serious illness and death. But the dominant he wants them to be active Editorial Omicron variant, BA.5, now infecting millions of Americans every and lullabies in the evening. week is essentially a different virus from the one that originally emerged “Jolly dance songs are The Washington Post from China, with so many mutations that it can elude antibodies from the biggest hits,” he says. both vaccines and prior infection. A booster tailored to BA.5 may be Rock music, though, “is too available by September, but rejiggering vaccines to “chase variants” is strong. They don’t like it.” not sustainable. At a White House summit on Covid last week, An- thony Fauci, who heads the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious QA Tunisian bride was jilted Diseases, said the government had awarded $42.8 million to four teams at the altar after her would- working on pan-coronavirus vaccines that could protect against all be mother-in-law protested variants. One “tantalizing alternative” also being developed is a nasal that she was too short and spray that would block infection and transmission “where the vaccine unattractive for her son to particles enter the body.” A nasal vaccine could truly end the pandemic. marry. Prior to the ceremony, “The government would be wise to do everything possible to help.” bride Lamia al-Labawi hadn’t met her groom’s mother, Viewpoint “Russia’s president would have the world believe that his country is guided by who had seen her only in pictures—and made her unifying ideas of cultural pride and conservative values, exceptionalism and displeasure known when she met the genuine article, splendid isolation. But in reality, [Vladimir] Putin’s Russia has no coherent ideology; it’s just a mess ordering her son to halt the service. He complied, of contradictions: It is Soviet nostalgia and a cultural arrogance that glorifies the Russian empire. departing with his mother, and leaving al-Labawi to say Putin’s success as president of Russia has rested for some time on his ability to mete out daily in an anguished Facebook post she’d been humiliated. humiliations to Russians and then act as if he feels their rage as they do, as if he alone knows where One supporter wrote, “You did not lose a man. You lost to direct it—toward the West, toward Ukraine, anywhere except toward the Kremlin.” whoever could be a curse in Reuters your life.” Peter Pomerantsev in The New York Times THE WEEK August 12, 2022



14 NEWS Best columns: Europe FINLAND Since Finland lifted Covid travel restrictions last say they support keeping Russian tourists out month, our country has been awash in Russian entirely, to punish Russia for its invasion. But that Why we must tourists, said Esa Mäkinen, and many Finns don’t would be both impractical and unfair. There are welcome want them here. Finland is the most “convenient 90,000 native Russian speakers living in Finland, the Russians gateway to Europe for Russians,” because it’s easy many of whom have relatives in Russia—will we to get a Schengen visa there that allows them to keep out Grandma? And what about the many Esa Mäkinen go on to nearly any EU country. But it feels wrong Russians who oppose the war and want to come to look up from a paper in which we read about to the West “to meet like-minded people?” This is Helsingin Sanomat dead Ukrainian children and see a happy group Vladimir Putin’s war, and just as EU sanctions tar- of vacationing Russians at the next café table. get only the oligarchs and politicians who support ROMANIA The “contrast between the sunny tourist circuit him, so should a Finnish ban. We should deny and the darkness of Ukraine” is too much to bear. visas to those Russians who are “responsible for A shameless Finland’s four largest parliamentary groups now the war,” not the vacationers and “babushkas.” whitewashing of plagiarism The Romanian government wants to destroy the nia.” It’s not our first time catching a leader in an country’s academic reputation, said Magda Gradi- academic lie: Former Prime Minister Victor Ponta Magda Gradinaru naru. Its bill before parliament would dissolve our was ridiculed for refusing to resign back in 2012, national academic accreditation council and grant when he was found to have plagiarized his own Spotmedia amnesty to plagiarists after three years. Nobody thesis. But Ponta, at least, “did not drag Romanian asked for such a law: It is simply a naked attempt academia into the swamp with him.” By sunset- to protect Prime Minister Nicolae Ciuca, who was ting civil liability for plagiarizing after three years, accused earlier this year of copying parts of his the bill would incentivize cheating. If you don’t get doctoral thesis in military science. Ciuca is willing caught relatively quickly, good for you, nobody to smear all Romanian intellectuals just to save can sue you! If this law passes, every student who his own skin. How will the rest of the Western dreams of an academic career would be wise to academic world see us now? A “general amnesty” “run to the airport as soon as they finish high on plagiarism will cast “reasonable doubt, even if school” and study abroad. There will be no honor unfair, on every academic thesis written in Roma- in a Romanian degree. Netherlands: Farmers’ protest is going global Dutch farmers have brought the country meat exports and the world’s second- to a standstill with their fury over the largest exporter of agricultural goods government’s climate plan, said Yvonne overall—to bear the costs of his cli- Hofs in De Volkskrant (Netherlands). mate goals. If this policy goes through, Livestock emit nitrogen in their intesti- many Dutch farmers will simply be nal gas and their manure, and the new forced to kill off their livestock and proposed nitrogen emission regulations sell their land. The far right “sees op- could lead to the closing of more than portunity” in this clash, said Camille a quarter of Dutch livestock farms. The Gijs and Bartosz Brzezinski in Politico farmers won’t have it. Since the plan (Belgium). Right-wing populists in the was announced in June, some 40,000 of Netherlands and abroad have seized them have been protesting, using their on the farmers’ cause as a symbol of tractors to block major highways, setting Blocking the highway to Eindhoven working-class anger against “green” fires, and dumping manure on roads. As policies. French politician Marine the protests went on, they grew more extremist, and now farm- Le Pen tweeted in support of the protesters, while Donald Trump ers have even threatened state construction workers who were told a conference of conservative youth, Turning Point USA, that sent to remove the hay bales and the upside-down Dutch flags Dutch farmers were “bravely resisting the climate tyranny of the from the roads, doxxing them on social media. Yet through all Dutch government.” Fox News covers the protesters as heroes. this, authorities “have looked on idly.” Dutch police aren’t usu- ally meek, but they seem reluctant to go up against the massive The protest has already gone global, said Samuel Dutschmann in farm vehicles—just as Canadian police did little to stop truckers The Spectator (U.K.). The Dutch policy has its roots in EU cli- who took over Toronto last winter. If the government caves to mate goals, but this summer has seen solidarity marches among the agriculture industry’s demands, it will teach Dutch society farmers not only in Europe but also “as far away as Argentina that “intimidation pays.” and Canada.” And the political repercussions are likely to be just as widespread. Rutte is “watching his center-right party The farmers’ behavior is “reprehensible and punishable,” said lose supporters by the day,” while membership in the populist NRC (Netherlands) in an editorial, but you have to under- Farmer Citizen Movement is surging. Just look at Sri Lanka, stand “the core of rural anger.” Prime Minister Mark Rutte where the government’s “forceful and devastating” anti-nitrogen “ignored the nitrogen problem for years” before unveiling regulations caused a food shortage that sparked protests; that several emissions-cutting measures at once. His new policy of- whole saga ended in the storming of the presidential palace and fers “no vision or perspective for the future of the agricultural the toppling of the government. If governments continue target- sector” but instead leaves that industry—the leader in EU ing farmers, they are “playing with fire.” Getty THE WEEK August 12, 2022

Best columns: International NEWS 15 Africa: A battleground in the new Cold War Isolated by its decision to wage aggres- that, Lavrov used his trip to hammer sive war in Ukraine, Russia is making a home the false narrative that the grain play for influence in Africa, said Benita shortage was due to Western sanctions van Eyssen in Deutsche Welle (Germany). rather than Russian policies, said Paolo Through its paramilitary Wagner Group, Garimberti in La Repubblica (Italy). Russia has backed military governments Africans seemed ready to believe him: in Mali, the Central African Republic, After all, 25 African countries abstained and Sudan, where Russians are mining from the U.N. resolution condemning gold in defiance of Western sanctions. the Ukraine war. Vladimir Putin wants Moscow’s willingness to supply guns an African presence as “part of the and money without scruples have made reincarnation of the USSR as a global it an “attractive international partner” power”—and Lavrov made a good start for struggling African governments, with a relentless propaganda push that leaving the West playing catch-up in an Lavrov in Uganda: Leading the way to cooperation Macron was left struggling to discredit. intensifying “political and diplomatic competition.” That’s why, on a visit to former French colonies Macron was already at a disadvantage, said Kader Patrick Cameroon, Benin, and Guinea-Bissau last week, French President Karantao in Sidwaya Quotidien (Burkina Faso). “Anti-French Emmanuel Macron tried to cast Russia as an enemy of African feeling” has been growing on the continent, as France props up development. Macron called Russia a “colonial, imperial power” its allies in the fight against Islamist terrorism no matter how and said its blockade of grain shipments from Ukraine, lifted this brutal those regimes may be. Africans took note that while week, amounted to using African hunger as a weapon. But Rus- Macron claims to promote democracy, he said nothing to his sian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had gotten there first. On hosts in Cameroon or Benin about their autocratic govern- his four-nation tour of the continent days earlier, Lavrov denied ments. Yet Africans should be wary of giving Russia a free pass, blocking the grain and emphasized that his country, unlike the said South African journalist Tafi Mhaka in Al Jazeera (Qatar). West, was not “stained by the bloody crimes of colonialism.” Russia frequently uses “whataboutism” to deflect attention from its war crimes and human rights abuses, which plays well with It’s starting to “look like a revival of the Cold War,” said Al- Africans who “hold the West, and only the West,” responsible for Ahram (Egypt) in an editorial, with the West and Russia vying to African instability. But while it’s true that Africans have “suffered lure African countries into their opposing camps. But we in the massively under U.S. dominance,” Russia is “belligerent in its Global South “simply cannot afford” to take sides. We’re acutely own right” and is “doubling down on its neo-colonial ambitions” feeling “the ripples of the Ukraine war,” as skyrocketing prices of here. Replacing American and European meddling with Russian wheat and fuel have left “millions of people suffering.” Knowing meddling “would not be good news for Africa.” SOUTH AFRICA A recent spate of tavern killings focused the na- and “informal settlements.” Armed gangs now tion’s attention on the violence in the country’s control these townships. Residents face the con- The dark roots townships, said Masixole Booi. In June, 21 Black stant threat of rape and robbery, and some have to of brutality youth died under mysterious circumstances at a pay protection fees for their businesses lest they be in townships tavern in the coastal city of East London. Two murdered in their homes. Politicians have pledged weeks later, 15 Black people were gunned down to respond to the tavern killings by cracking down Masixole Booi in a tavern in Soweto; that same weekend, six on underage drinking, but of course that’s not the died in two other tavern shootings. Each slaying problem. The townships are in crisis because of The Daily Maverick surely has different motives, but the underlying the “drug lords and thugs fighting for territory” thread is that “townships are violent by design.” and the gang members “armed to the teeth with During apartheid, whites took refuge in gated high-caliber guns.” To Black township residents, communities, while most Black and mixed-race the only thing shocking about the recent tavern communities were “pushed into unsafe outskirts” murders is that they happened in the same week. CHINA In June, a group of men brutally attacked a crime and guns—but it barely mentioned violence woman in a restaurant in the northern Chinese against women. This is a trend: In high-profile Why the Party city of Tangshan, said Danai Howard. When she cases where women are victimized, such as in ignores violence resisted their drunken advances, they grabbed her 2020 when an influencer was murdered by her against women by her hair, kicked her, and broke bottles over her husband on livestream, misogynistic motives are head. Women who intervened were also beaten, downplayed. The Communist Party won’t allow a Danai Howard while male bystanders stood around and did women’s movement because it fears any grassroots nothing. CCTV footage of the event went viral, organizing. That’s why state media call the global South China Morning Post and many hoped it would mark a watershed in #MeToo movement a “tool to subvert the Chinese attitudes about violence against women. It didn’t. government,” and authorities routinely censor Getty In response to the outcry over the Tangshan inci- the hashtag, “limiting any conversation about dent, the Chinese Supreme Court ordered pros- women’s rights.” Chinese women are left to battle ecutors and judges to crack down on organized “systemic” violence as individuals, each alone. THE WEEK August 12, 2022

16 NEWS Talking points Noted Saudi golf tour: A happy partner in Trump QFox News has gone The Saudi-backed LIV golf blasted at Bedminster, pretty more than 100 days without featuring an tour found a “perfectly women passed out free interview with Donald Trump, a once-ubiquitous suited” headliner, said beer to fans, and spectators presence on the conser- vative network. Fox has Eamon Lynch in USA Today. chanted “four more years” failed to show nearly all of his rallies this year, and Although some big names in at Trump. Players praised FoxNews.com recently ran a segment of inter- golf—Phil Mickelson, Dustin the new team format and views withTrump voters saying he was “too polar- Johnson, Brooks Koepka, dodged other questions. Like izing” to run again. Sergio Garcia—shamelessly Trump, they should have The NewYorkTimes took nine-figure offers to quit just admitted, “I did it for QFive years after the nation’s first openly trans- America’s PGA Tour to join the money.” Not everyone is gender state legislator was elected, in Virginia, a the Saudis’ new sportswash- ashamed to be linked to the record 55 trans candidates ing venture, former President A ‘very generous’ payment from the Saudis Saudi tour, said John Barr are running for public office this year.There Trump stole the show at last week’s LIV event at in ESPN.com. Basketball great Charles Barkley are also 20 gender non- conforming candidates his club in Bedminster, N.J. He played in a pro- played in the pro-am, and although he turned running and 18 non- binary candidates. am round, with the presidential seal plastered on down a big-bucks offer to join LIV’s broadcasting The Washington Post carts, towels, and the course itself as a marketing team, he slammed “selective outrage” over golfers QAn un- tool—an apparent violation of federal law. Asked taking Saudi money. “If you play sports,” Barkley named buyer paid $6.1 how much he’s being paid by the Saudis, Trump said, “we all take money from sources you might million for a 22-foot-long said it’s “very generous,” but added, “I don’t do not love or appreciate.” Gorgosaurus skeleton–one of only 20 it for that.” Sure he doesn’t. Back when Trump known to exist—at a So- theby’s auction last week. was running for president, said Justin Baragona Blood money is different, said Christine Brennan The 77 million–year-old specimen was unearthed in The Daily Beast, he said the 9/11 families in USA Today. LIV is bankrolled by the Saudis’ in Montana in 2018 and was a member of the should be able to sue the Saudis for possible Public Investment Fund, which is controlled by Tyrannosaurid family. Half of Tyrannosaurus rex complicity in the attacks. Last week, when dis- Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, “who skeletons are in private hands. gusted 9/11 families protested outside Bedminster, sanctioned the 2018 murder and dismemberment FoxNews.com Trump played dumb. “Nobody’s gotten to the of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.” QThe three former Min- bottom of 9/11,” he shrugged. Golfers who’ve joined the new tour have “failed neapolis police officers who were partnered with miserably” to justify their involvement, claiming Derek Chauvin when he killed George Floyd have From a spectator standpoint, the LIV felt like a ignorance about the Saudis’ many human rights been sentenced to federal prison for violating Floyd’s “circus,” said Mark Cannizzaro in the New York violations. Tiger Woods reportedly turned down civil rights and failing to come to his aid. Last Post. Unlike at buttoned-up PGA events, where $800 million to join LIV. For some people at week, J. Alexander Kueng, 28, andTouThao, 36, were talkative spectators are quickly shushed, music least, integrity can’t be bought. given sentences of three and 3.5 years, respective- Abortion laws: The battle over exceptions ly; a week earlierThomas Lane, 39, received a 2.5- The choice for red-state legislators now passing occur, it’s “the fault of the doctors themselves” Getty, AP year sentence. extremist abortion laws is between “cruel and for misreading the law. The Texas bill, like “every crueler,” said Ruth Marcus in The Washington pro-life state law in the country,” makes excep- Reuters Post. With Roe v. Wade overturned, Republican tions for a woman’s life and health, and it’s up to lawmakers are now making “real-world, and “a doctor’s medical judgment” whether to induce THE WEEK August 12, 2022 politically dicey choices” about how far to go a premature birth to save a woman. But through with restrictions. In Indiana’s state legislature, “patently false claims” about what the laws say anti-abortion activists are calling the rape and and mean, proponents of “unlimited abortion” are incest exception a “loophole,” and are heartlessly telling misleading horror stories “with the sole aim insisting that to qualify, girls and women have to of undermining pro-life laws.” file police reports “under the penalties of perjury.” Other states’ laws have defined exceptions for the “The anti-abortion movement is in denial,” said health and the life of the mother in “cramped and Michelle Goldberg in The New York Times. Prom- ambiguous” language, said Mark Joseph Stern in inent abortion opponents are now even suggesting Slate. As a result, doctors and hospitals have “legit- “doctors, lawyers, and hospital ethics boards are imate concerns that they will face civil and criminal all collaborating to withhold care from anguished penalties” if overzealous prosecutors disagree that women” to generate propaganda. “Bearing a child the patient “had a true medical emergency.” After remains startlingly dangerous,” said Annie Lowrey Texas passed its “heartbeat bill” last year, one in The Atlantic. I had two pregnancies that nearly woman was denied care after her water broke at killed me and caused agonizing side effects: uncon- 18 weeks, dooming the nonviable fetus; she had to trollable itching, hallucinations, diabetes, and liver wait days until she had a bloody discharge and a disease among them. “I know I cannot give birth life-threatening infection before doctors intervened. again,” because I can’t risk leaving “the children I already have and love” motherless. Yet in many “Abortion supporters have offered little evidence” states, if I became pregnant again, the decision that this is a widespread problem, said Alexandra over what to do would not be mine. How could DeSanctis in National Review. If such cases do the life of the mother “possibly mean so little?”

Talking points NEWS 17 Monkeypox: Another ‘public health failure’ Wit & Wisdom Even as we grapple with the manufacturer will deliver an “I am always realizing ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, additional 500,000 doses. how very little I know. Never call yourself an “we are face-to-face with a What makes our failures expert and never claim to write the complete book new health crisis,” said Sanjay all the worse, said Kather- of anything.” Gupta in CNN.com. Since ine Wu in The Atlantic, is Cookbook author Diana the first U.S. case of monkey- that this should have been Kennedy, quoted in the pox surfaced in May, cases an easy one. Monkeypox Los Angeles Times of the once-rare disease have is a “known entity” that’s “There are no dangerous thoughts for the simple steadily risen, and California, relatively easy to contain; reason that thinking New York, and Illinois have tests, antivirals, and vac- itself is such a dangerous declared monkeypox a health cines already existed. The enterprise.” emergency. Nearly 6,000 U.S. Monkeypox virons (in red) Covid pandemic should have Hannah Arendt, quoted in cases have now been reported, exposed our public health The Guardian almost all among gay men who contracted the “weak points” and increased our readiness. “Aren’t all orchestras just giant cover bands?” illness through sex. The virus spreads primarily Comedian Micky Overman, through intimate skin-to-skin contact, but can “Some of the most glaring errors have been quoted in The Telegraph (U.K.) also pass via shared bedding, towels, and cloth- in communication,” said Kelsey Piper in Vox. “When you slip on a banana peel, people laugh ing. No American has died from the disease, Globally, 98 percent of cases are among gay or at you; but when you which typically causes a fever, body aches, and bisexual men, but health officials are wary of tell people you slipped on a banana peel, it’s painful, pus-filled lesions that can last weeks— labeling monkeypox a “gay disease.” To avoid your laugh.” and fears are growing that it may be “too late” to that stigma, they have emphasized that it can Nora Ephron, quoted in contain the outbreak. strike anyone instead of warning sexually active The New Statesman gay men that their risk is “highly elevated.” The “A work of art is never finished. It is only We’re looking at America’s “next public health virus won’t “spread like wildfire” the way Covid abandoned.” failure,” said Scott Gottlieb in The New York did, said Leana Wen in The Washington Post, but Leonardo da Vinci, quoted in History of Yesterday Times. As with Covid, health officials were too it may yet become “a broader threat.” Cases have “Freedom is a fragile slow to react, failing to expand testing capacity been reported among women and two children thing, and it’s never more than one generation away even once it was clear monkeypox was spread- suspected to have gotten it through household from extinction.” ing domestically. The government had an effec- contact. Public health officials need to “urgently Ronald Reagan, quoted in tive vaccine but only 2,400 doses, and officials ramp up their efforts, because an infectious dis- the Eagle Times didn’t act quickly enough to generate more, leav- ease that begins in one community almost cer- “Rock ’n’ roll might not solve your problems, but ing us with a shortfall until October, when the tainly won’t stay there.” it does let you dance all Yang’s third party: Does it stand a chance? over them.” Alamy Every few election cycles, third parties spring up set of issues.” In 1848, anti-slavery politicians Pete Townshend, quoted “like clockwork,” said J.D. Tuccille in Reason. formed the Free Soil Party to protest expand- in Far Out The latest is the Forward Party, launched last ing slavery, forcing that issue to the center of week by former Democratic presidential candidate the political debate. More recently, in 2000 and Poll watch Andrew Yang, former Gov. Christine Todd Whit- 2016, Green Party candidates ran to the left of the man (R-N.J.), and former congressman David Democrats and got votes from young liberals— Q61% of Americans want Jolly (R-Fla.). Yang says Forward will represent and ended up helping to elect George W. Bush and their state to have laws “the moderate, common-sense majority” who Donald Trump in razor-thin elections. As a gen- that guarantee access to crave solutions to problems instead of mind- eral proposition, going forward “is vague enough abortion, including 51% less partisanship. An appetite for an alternative to sound attractive,” said Ramesh Ponnuru in of residents in states that does seem to exist, with a 2021 poll finding that Bloomberg. But many dissatisfied voters think the are banning abortion. In 62 percent of Americans think the country needs existing parties are not far enough to the left or states with abortion pro- a third party. But “when you dig deeper,” there right, and do not truly want “centrist” leaders. tections, 68% of people actually isn’t a lot of support for “meh-style com- support such laws, while promises” on such hot-button issues as abortion, The independent voter is largely a myth, said 22% oppose them. 83% gun safety, climate change, and voting rights. Andrew Gawthorpe in The Guardian. Though of Democrats want abor- These are highly polarizing issues, with little roughly 40 percent of Americans say they’re inde- tion protections in their middle ground. Forward’s earnest, wonky organiz- pendents, political scientists have found that most state, compared with 37% ers, however, are “centrist technocrats” who “mis- consistently vote for one party. They don’t like of Republicans. take governance for an engineering problem that being seen as partisans, but they view people who requires a few tweaks to get it properly running.” are different or disagree with them with as much Kaiser Family Foundation tribal disdain as admitted Democrats and Repub- Sorry, but “the Forward Party will amount to licans do. It doesn’t matter, because Forward isn’t THE WEEK August 12, 2022 nothing,” said Jamelle Bouie in The New York “a third party in the traditional sense” anyway, Times. Throughout American history, third parties said Alexandra Petri in The Washington Post. It’s have been most successful when they’ve “galva- “not a party of ideas,” but merely “the idea of a nized a narrow slice of the public over a specific party” for people who don’t like parties.

18 NEWS Pick of the week’s cartoons THE WEEK August 12, 2022 For more political cartoons, visit: www.theweek.com/cartoons.

Pick of the week’s cartoons NEWS 19 THE WEEK August 12, 2022

20 NEWS Technology Social media: The Instagram rebellion “Instagram sucks now,” said Kate Knibbs in scroll two thumbs without showing me a Wired, and you can thank the Kardashians random melting burrata.” And it still can’t for making that clear even to the people compete with TikTok, which is a “more who run it. This spring, Instagram released a entertaining app” because its algorithm test version of its app that replaces the regu- knows “everything about you” and what lar feed with a full-screen stream filled with you actually like. A new app that bills mostly TikTok-like videos. The audience has itself as the “anti-Instagram” is now rac- hated it, and last week the reality stars Kylie ing up the app store download charts, said Jenner and her sister Kim Kardashian (total Elizabeth Moore in Bloomberg. BeReal follower count for the two: 689 million, “requires all the people on the platform to though presumably with a fair deal of over- take a photo within a two-minute window lap) shared a petition asking Instagram to each day,” prompted by a push notifica- “stop trying to be like TikTok.” Instagram’s tion that it’s “Time to BeReal.” Its appeal, CEO Adam Mosseri got the message and Is Instagram becoming a TikTok look-alike? according to many users, is the spontane- admitted the company had “messed up.” ity, and “its intentional opposition to the Jenner and Kardashian are not disinterested parties: Any shift in ultra-curated aesthetic of Instagram.” Unfortunately, the app has Instagram “poses a threat to their multimillion-dollar business been racked with glitches that derail the experience. interests” as mega-influencers. But in this case, they’re saying what ordinary Instagram users are feeling. “What was once a There may be a small and temporary retreat, but Instagram repository for photos of friends and family is now a junkyard and its parent company, Meta, will keep pushing Reels on us, stuffed with knockoff TikToks known as ‘Reels.’” said Amanda Silberling in TechCrunch. “Reels is a big potential moneymaker for Meta in a time when its revenue is starting to Instagram should just “go back to what it was good at,” said decline.” The video format keeps users engaged for longer and Helen Meriel Thomas in Vice—“letting everyone post nice pho- can reach more people, raising the odds that an advertiser could tos and Stories, in chronological order.” Instagram used to be get its product to go viral. It’s no wonder Meta CEO Mark like “the chicer cousin of Facebook,” which lost the under-40 Zuckerberg said last week that the percentage of content that is crowd when the “racist Boomers and conspiracy theorists took served by Meta’s AI is expected to double by year end. “Who over.” But now Instagram isn’t fun, either; it won’t even “let me cares about the average user as long as stakeholders are happy?” Innovation of the week Bytes: What’s new in tech Researchers have developed a Two flights up, one flight... ings as confirmation of bias at Google, which Getty, Felice Frankel stick-on ultrasound patch that could they say has contributed to falling fundraising one day “scan a person’s insides as One reason that air taxis have been slow figures. Google has said the study relies on old they go about their daily life,” said to get off the ground? They keep crashing, data. However, last month it asked the Federal Ian Sample in The Guardian. The said Alan Levin in Bloomberg. New electric- Election Commission to “greenlight a pilot adhesive patch is the size of a post- powered, vertical-takeoff vehicles, or eVTOLs, program exempting campaign emails from age stamp but contains “an array from companies like Boeing, Joby, and Lilium, spam detection.” The request has generated of tiny sensors that beam ultrasonic promise “to whisk people and cargo across overwhelmingly negative public comments waves through the skin.” It’s the traffic-choked cities.” But their safety record is from Gmail users worried that this will in- reflection of the sound waves off checkered with accidents, meaning “the road tensify “the deluge of promotional messages the person’s insides that produces to government approval and public acceptance swamping Americans every day.” high-resolution images of heart won’t be easy.” As recently as February, “a activity, lungs, the digestive system, component on Joby’s six-propeller craft broke Subscription game services thrive and other bodily functions. “At the in midair.” In 2019, a prototype built by a moment, the patch has to be con- Boeing subsidiary suffered a software malfunc- Subscriptions make mobile gaming fun again, nected to an instrument that turns tion that turned off its engines. In addition, said Andrew Webster in The Verge. For a the reflections into images,” so it eVTOLs are powered by lithium-ion batteries, while, it seemed like “the glory days of early can be used only inside a hospital. which have an unfortunate tendency to burst iPhone gaming” were over. App-store games But the inventors of the patch at into flames. Advocates say things will be fine slowly got cheaper but also became saddled MIT are confident they will be able in the end, and “accidents are a healthy sign with in-app purchases and “microtransactions to develop a wireless version that that the industry is pushing the envelope.” that plagued” the overall experience. However, sends data to a phone. in 2021, Apple Arcade got “a huge boost The GOP vs. the spam blockers with the introduction of classic games.” THE WEEK August 12, 2022 Now there’s also Netflix, which has added The GOP’s war on Google’s spam filter ap- mobile games to its content library. It’s a great pears to be working, said Isaac Stanley-Becker “add-on to the service and a compliment to and Josh Dawsey in The Washington Post. Arcade.” The best part about the subscription A study published by researchers at North services? The developers get paid by Apple Carolina State University “found that Gmail and Netflix, and so are not counting on send- sent 77 percent of right-wing candidate emails ing you an endless stream of in-app purchases. to spam.” Republicans jumped on the find-



22 NEWS Health & Science America’s crisis of early death Every year, hundreds of thousands of and they were mostly working age, not Saying goodbye far too soon Americans die decades earlier than they elderly. The pandemic only worsened the would if they lived in other comparable disparity. In 2021, 1.1 million Americans the best health in the world,” says Steven developed countries, new research shows. died who wouldn’t have elsewhere, Woolf of the Center on Society and Health The study, led by Boston University reports The Atlantic. Americans die early at Virginia Commonwealth University, epidemiologist Jacob Bor, compared from gun violence, car accidents, heart who wasn’t involved in the study. “That is American mortality rates with the average disease, drug overdoses, and suicides in a gross misconception.” rate in Canada, Japan, and 16 Western greater numbers than in most equivalent European countries from 1933 to 2021. It countries. But another, underlying cause found that the U.S. began falling behind is the lack of the social safety net that those nations in the 1980s—creating other countries have, including universal excess deaths that it calls “missing health care. “A lot of Americans may be Americans”—and that by 2019, there under the impression that we had a bad were 626,000 such deaths. That is more go of it during Covid, and once the pan- Americans than died of Covid in 2020, demic is over, they can go back to having The Wuhan market: Ground zero Five drinks a week max Modern weed is more addictive Covid likely started at market If you don’t want to age prematurely, stick The potency of marijuana has been rising to five drinks a week or fewer. That’s the since the 1970s, with levels of THC—the Two new studies have found more evi- conclusion of a large new study by scien- chemical responsible for the drug’s psycho- dence that the Covid pandemic began in tists at the University of Oxford, reports active effects—increasing by an average spillovers from live animals—and there- The Daily Telegraph (U.K.). They found of 0.29 percent a year. Now a new study fore not from a Chinese laboratory. For that more than 170 ml of pure alcohol— suggests that the THC boost has made the first study, researchers examined data roughly five large glasses of wine or pints cannabis more addictive and more danger- about the earliest Covid patients, many of of beer—in a single week takes a toll on ous, reports NBCNews.com. Researchers whom were either linked to the Huanan telomeres, the caps on the end of our chro- examined data from 20 studies involving Seafood Market in Wuhan, China, or lived mosomes. Telomeres naturally shorten as a combined total of nearly 120,000 mari- nearby. They found that the novel corona- people age, a process that has been linked juana users. They found that those who virus appeared to spread outward from to Alzheimer’s and cardiovascular disease. had been using products with higher levels the market in an “insane bull’s-eye,” says The researchers examined genetic data of THC were much more likely to have lead author Michael Worobey from the from almost 500,000 people in the U.K. experienced episodes of psychosis, and to University of Arizona. Tellingly, research- They searched for telltale markers that have become addicted, than those using ers found multiple samples of the corona- showed how much alcohol each person the lower potency stuff. One study showed virus at the market in the area where live drank, then measured their telomere length a nearly sevenfold increase in risk of psy- animals were sold, and most early Covid from a DNA swab. Interestingly, those chosis, another a similarly large increase infections involved market vendors and who drank fewer than 170 ml a week in risk of addiction. “We know from customers. The second paper concluded showed no signs of genetic damage at all. animal studies that higher doses of THC from genetic evidence and computer model- “The dose of alcohol is important,” says are more likely to cause addiction than ing that the virus transferred from animals study leader Anya Topiwala. “Even reduc- lower doses,” says lead author Kat Petrilli, to humans on multiple occasions in late ing drinking could have benefits.” Why from the University of Bath in the U.K. 2019. Scientists who favor the “lab leak” alcohol accelerates aging is unclear. One “As people are exposed to higher doses of theory argue that the market could have suggestion is that breaking down booze THC through the use of higher-potency been a superspreader site—that an infected causes oxidative stress and inflammation, cannabis, this may increase the likelihood lab worker from the Wuhan Institute of both of which can harm DNA. that it can cause long-term changes.” Virology, where bat coronaviruses were studied, accidentally seeded the virus while Baby talk is universal one of those cultures, the parents spoke shopping. But Worobey says there is no to their infants much differently from evidence for the lab scenario, and lots of If you’ve ever found yourself saying evidence that the virus originated in the the way they talked to other adults. “We market. “When you put it all together,” he “coochee coochee coo” to a baby, you’re tend to speak in this higher pitch, high tells The Washington Post, “it’s the only not alone. A new study shows that using variability,” says lead author Courtney theory that actually explains all the data.” a singsong tone with infants appears to Hilton, from Yale, “like, ‘Ohh, heeelloo, be a behavior universal to you’re a baaybee!’” The research- humans all around the world, ers also found that these dif- reports The New York Times. ferences are perceptible to the Researchers analyzed more human ear across cultures. In an than 1,600 voice recordings online game they created, par- from 410 parents on six ticipants could tell with roughly continents, in 18 languages. 70 percent accuracy when a song The subjects were from all or passage of speech was being Getty, Alamy, Getty over: from hunter-gatherers aimed at babies—even when in Tanzania to metropolitan they were totally unfamiliar with moms in Beijing. In every Coo in any language. the language. THE WEEK August 12, 2022

ARTS 23 Review of reviews: Books Book of the week Putin: Playing the long game against the West eration with the U.S. rather than conflict, only to be let down or even humiliated. Putin Still, Short is “at his best when pushing “Ironies haunt the book,” as Short points us to see the world from a Russian per- to evidence that a younger Putin preferred by Philip Short spective,” said Angus Macqueen in The a Russia linked to Europe rather than bro- Guardian. “From Moscow, Putin watched ken from it. (Holt, $40) the U.S. openly intervene in elections when- ever it chose, encourage the breakup of Short doesn’t blame the turn entirely on As Vladimir Putin prosecutes his monstrous the sovereign state of Serbia using bombs, the West, said Carl Rollyson in the San war in Ukraine, along comes a 700-page invade Iraq on a tissue of falsehoods, and Francisco Chronicle. Suggesting that Putin biography that “gives him the benefit of then overthrow Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi was playing a deceitful long game, Short the doubt on many questions,” said Angela without any U.N. resolution.” Short’s Putin “skillfully shows how Putin gained the Stent in The Washington Post. Written by was a once-cautious political operator confidence of Western leaders because of Philip Short, a seasoned British author who who, after his career as a KGB case officer his criticism of the former Soviet Union and was a Moscow correspondent for the BBC and a rising government bureaucrat in because he seemed not all that concerned in the 1970s, the book labels the current St. Petersburg and Moscow, sought coop- with the expansion of NATO—until, of war a mistake and accepts that Putin has course, he was.” Disturbingly, when the ordered at least two political assassina- book touches on Putin’s reputation for tions. But it portrays its subject as a prag- corruption and murderous dispatching of matist who’s rightfully aggrieved that the personal political threats, Short “almost U.S. has rejected his bids for cooperation always exonerates him, writing that much and expanded its sphere of influence into of what his critics have said about him is Eastern European territories that he consid- no more than hearsay or rumor.” But he at ers Russian “turf.” While it’s “refreshing” least recognizes that Putin’s relentlessness to read a book on Putin that treats him as and the brutality of Russia’s army make a more than a cartoon villain, said Edward terrifying combination. “As Short makes Lucas in The Times (U.K.), this one proves clear, the Russian military has never been “lamentably indulgent.” Seasoned observers able to fight a war without committing of Russia will raise their eyebrows at Short’s crimes against humanity.” “dismissals of well-founded suspicions about Putin.” Sergei Guneyev/Getty Novel of the week The Sewing Girl’s Tale: A Story “To present an accurate depiction of The Daughter of Doctor of Crime and Consequences in Lanah’s reality,” said Leah Tyler in The Moreau Revolutionary America Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Sweet “paints a detailed portrait of America’s by Silvia Moreno-Garcia by John Wood Sweet (Holt, $30) 18th-century moral temperature.” Walking to work each day, the teenager was subject (Del Rey, $28) When 17-year-old to harassing catcalls. After Bedlow attacked Lanah Sawyer her, he was the first gentleman charged with Silvia Moreno-Garcia will never be able took her rapist to sexual assault in the U.S., and yet the crimi- to actually write a 19th-century novel, court in 1793, it nal trial became “more about the victim, but she’s created “a flawless replica,” “caused worlds to and society’s perceptions of her morality.” said Colleen Abel in the Minneapo- collide,” said Fergus After Lanah bravely testified in court, the lis Star Tribune. In this “ingenious” Bordewich in The all-male jury acquitted Bedlow, but observ- reworking of H.G. Wells’ 1896 sci-fi Wall Street Journal. ers were disgusted. Hundreds immediately classic, The Island of Doctor Moreau, The accused, Harry marched to the brothel and tore it to the Moreno-Garcia keeps the period set- Bedlow, was a New ground. ting but relocates the action to the war- York City wealthy torn Yucatán Peninsula and recenters rake. Sawyer was “The acquittal did not mark the end of the the story on Moreau’s teenage daugh- a seamstress whose story,” said Tali Farhadian Weinstein in ter, Carlota. As in Wells’ story, the mad stepfather, a harbor pilot, “represented the The New York Times. Bedlow lost an ensu- scientist is using vivisection to create rising working and middle classes,” and it ing civil trial and landed in debtor’s prison human-animal hybrids, but by bringing was a shock that the family fought back. after being ordered to pay Lanah’s stepfa- out the racial and colonial implications But Bedlow had persuaded Lanah to join ther “staggering” punitive damages—the of Moreau’s research, Moreno-Garcia him for a stroll in Lower Manhattan and legal argument being that Bedlow, by steal- “enlarges Wells’ moral message.” then dragged her screaming into a brothel ing Lanah’s virginity, had robbed her step- Moreno-Garcia’s imagination is “a and tore off her dress. The resulting trial father of the value of her labor. It almost thing of wonder,” said Danielle Trus- “became a national sensation,” its outcome defies belief that Alexander Hamilton soni in The New York Times. Imagining triggering rioting. Historian John Wood entered the case at this point, to argue as Carlota as one of Moreau’s experi- Sweet has now turned the tale into “a mas- a lawyer for Bedlow’s side. “But in the ments, a child kept alive by injections terpiece of splendidly readable social his- post-Revolutionary New York that Sweet drawn from jaguars, the novel func- tory” that “opens a window on the tumul- revives,” and whose specters still haunt us tions as both a “mesmerizing” horror tuous world of the early republic.” today, “it makes all the sense in the world.” tale and “a compulsively readable story of a woman’s coming-of-age.” THE WEEK August 12, 2022

24 ARTS The Book List Best books…chosen by Kevin Nguyen Author of the week Kevin Nguyen is the features editor at The Verge and the author of New Waves, a Safia Elhillo novel, now out in paperback, about friendship, grief, and the internet. Below, he recommends six other books that are both funny and ambitious. Safia Elhillo is talking back, and she doesn’t care who’s lis- The Haunting of Hajji Hotak and Other anism is up to the reader to discover.) But tening, said Jeevika Verma in Stories by Jamil Jan Kochai (2022). I remem- beneath the cutting dialogue lies a story about NPR.org. The award-winning ber reading “Playing Metal Gear Solid V: The the gap between what we say and how we actu- Sudanese-American poet Phantom Pain” and wondering how a story ally feel. started working on her new about a kid losing his mind playing a video collection shortly after winning game made it into The New Yorker. Three years Bear by Marian Engel (1976). A slim novel acclaim for her first, 2017’s later, the rest of Kochai’s inventive collection, about a woman who makes love to a big bear. which excavates the emotional side effects of Pretty self-explanatory. The January the war in Afghanistan, has the same stunning, Children. With darkly comedic effect. Nevada by Imogen Binnie (2013). Maria is the notoriety poor, but also unambitious. Can she just live? had come a Memorial by Bryan Washington (2020). This New York’s answer to that, often, is “nah.” wave of abu- slacker novel splits its time—and its central char- This is a book that binds a meandering plot sive online acters, Benson and Mike—between Houston with a charming voice, where the self-loathing is messages and Osaka as a long-distance relationship a delight and the self-reflection is a lark. A cult from men deteriorates before finding its footing again. classic of trans literature, Nevada was recently she didn’t Washington is one of today’s best writers when reissued and is as funny and vibrant as the day know—many from her own it comes to the textures of communication. At it was first released. Sudanese, Muslim, Arabic- times scathing and at others moving, this is speaking community. “I probably the contemporary novel I revisit most. Mr. Boop by Alec Robbins (2022). What wasn’t saying much,” she would it be like to be Betty Boop’s husband? says. “I was just existing on Post-traumatic by Chantal V. Johnson (2022). Alec Robbins’ homage to early-aughts web the internet as one does. And How does one handle family trauma? For comics quickly spirals into a sharp criticism of I would just receive the most Vivian, an accomplished lawyer, she jokes about intellectual property law and a self-referential disgusting DMs, like day-in it over drinks, constantly, with friends. (Whether yarn about internet fandom. It’s smart, but also and day-out.” Elhillo, now 31, that’s a cathartic experience or a coping mech- mostly deranged. realized that she had to begin writing poems that called out Also of interest...in books about books such misogyny, because play- ing the “purity game” had A Factotum in the Book Trade The Novelist done her no good. Until then, she says, she believed “that if I by Marius Kociejowski (Biblioasis, $19) by Jordan Castro (Soft Skull, $24) was the correct kind of Muslim woman and well-behaved “Used book dealers, in my experi- “A more annoying premise for a enough, then nobody would ence, tend to be darkly witty,” said book is, frankly, hard to imagine,” want to do me harm.” Dwight Garner in The New York said Kate Knibbs in Wired. Jordan Times. Antiquarian bookseller Castro’s new novel expends all of Girls That Never Die, Elhillo’s Marius Kociejowski is no excep- its pages on a single morning in the new collection, announces its tion. In this “dyspeptic” memoir, life of a writer who simply opens his intent in its title. It addresses he describes his career in rare books, recalling laptop and fritters away time on social media, violence committed against famous customers while skewering obnoxious fiddling here and there with some novels in women—including honor kill- ones. “Like the kinds of bookstores Kociejowski progress. But The Novelist is funny—“a rare and ings and genital mutilation— admires, his book has a lot of nooks and cran- cherishable quality in contemporary literature”— while imagining women rising nies,” and it’s also “an account of a life well, and it’s “stingingly exact” in its depiction of above the forces keeping happily, and grouchily lived.” being online. I highly recommend it. them down. “The threat of death and the fear of death— How to Read Now Circus of Dreams those are so often used to govern and to control,” she by Elaine Castillo (Viking, $27) by John Walsh (Constable, $37) says. “So if the girls never die, if the girls won’t die, maybe “How to Read Now is not for every- Readers couldn’t ask for a better they’re free from that gover- Matt Martin, Aris Theotokatos body, but if it is for you, it is clarify- guide to the British literary boom nance and from that control. ing and bracing,” said Zan Romanoff of the 1980s, said Kathryn Hughes And then what could that look in the Los Angeles Times. In eight in Air Mail. John Walsh, onetime like?” Though Elhillo knows essays that “burn bright and hot from literary editor of London’s Sunday she risks reenforcing stereo- start to finish,” author Elaine Castillo Times, was fully immersed in the types about Muslim men, said prescribes how to read for the right reasons while scene, thrilled by the groundbreaking work of Jireh Deng in the Los Angeles trashing several “insipid and self-serving” reasons Martin Amis, Julian Barnes, and others but also Times, she felt obligated to the literary world promotes. Though she’s fiercely plugged into the scene’s party and gossip cir- speak out. “If harm is being opinionated, Castillo presents her views as a con- cuits. Circus of Dreams bounces between those done, harm is being done,” versation starter. She’s “less intent on issuing com- planes, and “it is this mixture of high and low, she says. “Me keeping quiet mands than on provoking responses.” sacred and profane, that makes it such a joy.” about it is not going to make the harm disappear.” THE WEEK August 12, 2022



26 ARTS Review of reviews: Art & Music Exhibit of the week Man Ray’s ‘Luisa Casati (Marquise Casati),’ 1922 that this show, in the heart of a city chok- ing on politics, is above all about tender- The Double: Identity and off the constant, elated feeling that you are ness, humor, invention, and love.” Difference in Art Since 1900 getting two for the price of one.” There are also “surprises galore,” with the versatility Above all, “The Double” showcases the National Gallery, Washington, D.C., of the theme giving curator James Meyer a sheer range of artistic and emotional effects through Oct. 31 reason to gather works by artists as diverse that doubling can have, said Peter Saenger as Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, and Diane in The Wall Street Journal. Man Ray’s “Of the exhibitions generating buzz this Arbus. Though the show purports to be 1922 long-exposure photograph of an summer, The Double is particularly spe- about “identity and difference,” its defini- Italian heiress depicts her with four eyes, cial,” said Maya Garabedian in MutualArt. tion of doubling turns out to be much more a “powerfully unsettling” image that sug- Doubles forms—split images, reflections, fluid, taking the concept “to weirder, more gests “a woman with clashing personas.” diptychs, dual portraits, and other ways provocative, more philosophical places.” Glenn Ligon’s politically charged neon of dividing the image and the viewer’s All are rooted in curiosity, and “it’s a relief sculpture Double America depicts the attention emerged in the 20th century as word “America” in white letters with a “a prevalent feature of modern and con- mirror reflection in black letters, highlight- temporary art.” Surprisingly, “no such ing division in American society. Janine exhibition has come before this, which Antoni’s 1994 photograph Mom and Dad inevitably gives the show a lot to unpack.” is “simply funny,” relying on images of her The National Gallery’s groundbreaking actual parents—using wigs and prosthet- exhibition is up to the challenge. Consisting ics to resemble each other—to sneak in of more than 120 works showcasing the “some quiet observations about gender variety of ways artists have used doubling roles, parenting, and marriage.” Despite in their work since 1900, this showstopper the exhibition’s impressive range, the invites patrons to “consider how and why eerie and uncanny ultimately dominates. artists have made use of doubled formats to In hiding after escaping a concentration explore and depict perceptual, conceptual, camp in the early 1940s, Felix Nussbaum and psychological themes.” painted himself as an organ grinder whose instrument had turned into bones; he was “The Double” is “concise, rigorous, funny, found and killed shortly after. In the end, and heartfelt,” said Sebastian Smee in The “it is the darker images of the double that Washington Post. “Better yet, it’s groaning linger longest.” with great art.” Walking through the galler- ies, you may find yourself “unable to shake Beyoncé Maggie Rogers Amanda Shires Man Ray Trust/Artists Rights Society Renaissance Surrender Take It Like a Man ++++ ++++ ++++ All those rumors about Maggie Rogers’ second Amanda Shires is Beyoncé “making a album delivers her something of “a disco, dancehall, and/ “soulful pop” laced modern-day country or house album were with a new “feeling of outlaw,” said Lindsay true,” said Allegra Frank hopeful exuberance,” Zoladz in The New in The Daily Beast.The said Matt Collar in York Times.The “wildly 28-time Grammy win- AllMusic. The 28-year- underrated” singer, ner spent her pandemic old singer-songwriter songwriter, and fiddle downtime delving into the history of club blew up in 2016 thanks to her viral folk- player doesn’t shy from speaking her mind music. Her “hyper-detailed” seventh LP— tronica single “Alaska,” but after her 2019 about women’s rights—even if doing so the first of a planned trilogy—is “an ode debut LP earned her a Best New Artist means that country radio denies her air- to the Ballroom scene of the 1980s” that Grammy nomination, she took a break time. “If there’s any justice in the world, or pays homage to various styles of dance from recording to attend Harvard Divinity maybe just in Nashville,” the veteran alt- music rooted in queer Black subcultures. School. Now she’s back with “a big, hooky country musician’s “electrifying” seventh Beyoncé mostly shirks the sort of personal pop album” whose cathartic mix of “dance solo album will make her a household narratives that grounded her 2016 mas- music, edgy alt-rock, and singer-songwriter name. A “misty melancholy” permeates terpiece Lemonade, but her more celebra- lyricism” suggests spiritual transcendence the record, especially in songs about tory new record will no doubt provide by way of “thick, fuzz-tone basslines and marital strife.That “raw, unfiltered truth” is “the soundtrack to every party for the rest crisp, sparkling guitar riffs.” Rogers “now “goosebump-inducing” on “Fault Lines,” of 2022.”Yet this is not simply mindless seems leagues more comfortable in her the album’s centerpiece ballad, said Andrew background music, said Jumi Akinfenwa own skin,” said Bobby Olivier in Spin, Sacher in Brooklyn Vegan. Shires’ husband, in Stereogum. It’s “Beyoncé at her most allowing herself playfulness and explora- Jason Isbell, plays guitar throughout, while playful,” giving “a call to arms for joy in a tion in her songwriting. The seventh track, indie-pop producer Lawrence Rothman time that has been noticeably devoid of it.” “Shatter,” for example, is “a rollicking rock concocts “a casually genre-defying mix of The pop auteur has long been famously banger with heavily distorted guitars wor- earthy folk, horn-fueled soul, jazzy balladry, perfectionist, but here, “she has completely thy of a Wolf Alice or Arctic Monkeys jam.” swaggering rock, and more.” But it’s Shires’ let loose,” allowing a few rough edges to It will be thrilling to see Rogers take these “towering vocal ability” that is the real star show. “After all, if you go clubbing and “vibrant and provocative” songs on tour of Take It Like a Man, said Henry Carrigan in don’t get a little bit messy, you’re not doing this fall, as they’re clearly “designed to No Depression. “It’s her best album yet, and it right.” blow people away.” one of the best of the year.” THE WEEK August 12, 2022



28 ARTS Review of reviews: Film & Home Media Pitt: Battling assailants in every seat legend Hiroyuki Sanada.There are so many, Hall, a major talent, plays a tightly wound in fact, that the film is interrupted by “too businesswoman whose life unravels when Bullet Train many flashbacks” to their backstories. Leitch her abusive ex returns to stalk her.That has a talent for fight choreography, though, familiar setup leads to some unexpectedly ++ and his set pieces “defy logic and physics twisted places, and “after watching so so breezily” that the over-the-top violence many movies mine a woman’s trauma for David Leitch’s latest caper “gives high-gloss, “plays almost like a winsome ballet,” said cheap thrills, it’s satisfying to see one so late-summer nonsense a bad name,” said Leah Greenblatt in Entertainment Weekly. eager to move beyond that.” (In theaters; Alonso Duralde in The Wrap.The director “BulletTrain doesn’t have a moral impera- $7 on demand) of John Wick and Deadpool 2 fancies him- tive other than mayhem,” but for those of self an heir to the stylish, pulpy gorefests us who enjoy such distractions, the movie Ali & Ava popularized by Guy Ritchie and Quentin “largely delivers.” It’s a “manic neon candy- Clio Barnard’s new romantic drama is Tarantino. But Leitch “leaves no cliché of gram stuffed with cameos and smash-cut refreshingly messy, said Chloe Walker in this subgenre unturned” with BulletTrain. chaos, hurtling breathlessly toward its Paste. Adeel Akhtar and Claire Rushbrook, It’s a “glib, self-satisfied” action-comedy gonzo end.” (In theaters only) R two mainstays of British film andTV, “radi- set in “such a vacuum of smug artificiality ate tremendous warmth” as a lonely man that nothing that transpires could possibly Other new movies on the verge of divorce and the older matter.” At least Brad Pitt is having fun, widow who finds solace in his gregarious said Brian Truitt in USA Today. He “does a D.C. League of Super-Pets company. “A lovely thing to witness,” their killer job” as a dopey, bucket-hatted hitman Parents, feel free to skip this one, said Kyle odd-couple courtship skirts weighty issues who’s instructed by handler Sandra Bullock Smith in The Wall Street Journal. Warner involving class, race, and mental illness. to retrieve a briefcase from a high-speed, Bros.’ “latest misadventure in corporate “But if anything, that makes it feel all the Kyoto-bound train. Naturally, the train is brand extension” adapts the goofy 1950s more true-to-life.” (In theaters only; on crawling with a rogue’s gallery of assas- comics that gave us Krypto the Superdog demand Aug. 23) Not rated sins, including a Mexican outlaw played and Ace the Bat-Hound. “It’s a dim rework- by reggaeton star Bad Bunny and a sword- ing of The Secret Life of Pets,” and despite Bodies Bodies Bodies wielding sage played by Japanese film a stellar voice cast—including Dwayne The new Gen Z horror-comedy starring Johnson, Kevin Hart, John Krasinski, Marc Amandla Stenberg and Pete Davidson “has Maron, Kate McKinnon, Keanu Reeves— all the impact of aTikTok video,” said Jeff “the jokes that are supposed to please Sneider in Los Angeles magazine. When a adults are even weaker than the slapstick.” party game goes terribly wrong, a group of (In theaters only) PG rich, unlikable 20-somethings must identify the murderer among them. “The cast actu- Resurrection ally does a pretty good job” with a subpar This “impressively deranged” psychodrama script. “But Bodies Bodies Bodies isn’t par- starring Rebecca Hall andTim Roth “tran- ticularly scary or funny, it’s just annoying scends the guilty pleasures of a typical and all too predictable.” (In theaters only) R thriller,” said David Ehrlich in IndieWire. New and notable podcasts The Video Archives Podcast A Little Bit Culty Edge of Reality Stitcher Acast Audible Edge of Reality might “Podcasting has “A Little Bit Culty builds Sony Pictures make you think twice proved to be the ulti- an empathetic and about your reality- mate medium for film humanized understand- TV habit, said Eloise nerds talking nerdily ing of why people join Hendy in Dazed. “I about films,” said Fiona cults,” said Tara Vidisha usually hate the term Sturges in the Financial Ghose in Podcast ‘guilty pleasure’ for its Times. “The difference Review.There’s a reason snobby puritanism,” here is that the nerds for that: Hosts Sarah but listening to this podcast made watching in question are director QuentinTarantino Edmondson and Anthony “Nippy” Ames, a Love Island feel “grubby” and toxic. In the and the screenwriter and producer Roger married couple, are former members of the eight-episode series, investigative journal- Avary.” In The Video Archives Podcast, NXIVM cult. Now they channel their experi- ist Jacques Peretti examines how cheap- Tarantino and Avary both reminisce and ence into candid interviews with experts, to-produce reality shows like Survivor re-create their pre-fame days working at a fellow cult survivors, and others who have expanded “the parameters of culture and video rental store in Manhattan Beach, dis- fallen victim to cults or groups that use the meaning of celebrity.” But the podcast’s secting and debating old movies like John cult-like techniques.The result is a show real subject is the genre’s collateral dam- Carpenter’s Dark Star and Ulli Lommel’s that “provides much-needed commentary age. By examining more than 40 suicides Cocaine Cowboys. “The pair naturally bring about a world that is poorly understood directly linked to the deceased’s experience a wealth of knowledge to the discussion,” and often misrepresented.” Cult stories are with a reality program, the podcast serves and dig deep into the films’ “technical mer- as overrepresented in the podcasting world as “an admission of guilt and an urgent, its,” though their discussions are long and as true-crime tales, but what makes A Little affecting request for change.” Listening to formless. Still, this podcast, “nostalgic but Bit Culty different is that “it’s less about this podcast, “it’s hard to not to feel like a not at the sacrifice of minute detail,” feels teasing out horrific details and more about schoolchild learning about Victorian bear- like “a fitting addition toTarantino’s corpus,” publicly processing life after brainwashing,” baiting for the first time,” said Amelia Tait in said Nick Newman in The Film Stage. If said Rachel Syme in The New Yorker. It also British GQ. As Edge of Reality reveals, “real- the concept ofTarantino waxing rhapsodic helps that Edmondson and Ames’ “light- ityTV doesn’t just dehumanize contestants, about old movies appeals to you, it will also hearted approach helps their guests delve it takes the humanity out of us.” appeal at his “mile-a-minute enthusiasm.” into some truly dark places.” THE WEEK August 12, 2022



30 ARTS Television Streaming tips The Week’s guide to what’s worth watching For climate dispatches... I Just Killed My Dad Foxx and Snoop hang loose in ‘Day Shift.’ When 17-year-old Anthony Templet shot and The Last Tourist killed his father, Burt, in 2019, evidence sup- sitcom magic. Available Friday, Aug. 12, Netflix Global tourism is beyond ported the teenager’s claim that he had acted in broken, as this alarming doc- self-defense. But the shooting wasn’t the result of Children of the Underground umentary shows. Visiting a single clash. Director Skye Borgman, who also Faye Yager appeared, at a glance, to be a heroic dozens of spectacular des- made the recent hit Girl in the Picture, has now crusader. Having fled a husband who’d sexually tinations, the film exposes built a limited series around a jaw-dropping tale abused her young daughter, she built an under- the economic and environ- of abduction—this one stretching across a decade ground network to help other women hide their mental damage wrought by plus and beginning when Anthony was kidnapped children from abusive spouses and courts that cruise lines, luxury resorts, at age 5. Available Tuesday, Aug. 9, Netflix failed to protect the kids. But in 1992, Yager her- and voluntourism, then of- self was charged with kidnapping. A new docu- fers a few ideas about how A League of Their Own series examines whether Yager’s vigilantism went travel can change. Hulu It’s a whole new ballgame for the Rockford too far. Begins Friday, Aug. 12, at 8 p.m., FX Peaches. The real-life women’s baseball team that The Human Element inspired the 1992 movie have now inspired a Other highlights Photographer James Balog series reboot, with co-creator Abbi Jacobson of Rogue Agent once aspired to focus on na- Broad City leading the cast. Once again, it’s the In a fact-based thriller that’s also new to the- ture’s wonders. He pivoted, 1940s, and dozens of talented women gather for aters, a woman falls for a con man who poses as though, when he realized tryouts for a new professional women’s league. an MI5 agent to take control of his lovers’ lives. that humanity can’t be writ- But the adventures and trials that follow this Gemma Arterton and James Norton co-star. ten out of any portrait of life time will raise issues that the film elided. D’Arcy Available Friday, Aug. 12, AMC+ on our planet. This arresting Carden and Chante Adams co-star, while Nick documentary follows Balog Offerman plays the Peaches’ cantankerous man- This Fool as he catalogs the changes ager. Available Friday, Aug. 12, Amazon Prime Comedian Chris Estrada leads a new offbeat we’ve wrought and how comedy series about a hapless do-gooder in they impact our lives. Tubi Day Shift South Central L.A. who works for a charity that What’s summer without a celebrity-driven splat- tries to rehabilitate gang members. Available 2040 ter comedy? Jamie Foxx answers the call by Friday, Aug. 12, Hulu Worried about the future playing a pool cleaner whose makes his real awaiting his 4-year-old, film- money hunting vampires and blasting them to The Princess maker Damon Gameau used smithereens. But he’s fallen out of favor with the A brilliantly edited documentary from filmmaker this 2019 documentary to vampire hunters union and, with his wife threat- Ed Perkins turns archival footage of Princess travel the world talking to ening to leave L.A., has one last chance to prove Diana into a wrenching retelling of her tragic people who are pioneering he can toe the line as a zombie assassin. Dave story. Saturday, Aug. 13, at 8 p.m., HBO environmental solutions ca- Franco and Snoop Dogg co-star. Available Friday, pable of producing a much Aug. 12, Netflix happier 2040. Documentary Mania.com Never Have I Ever Devi has a new problem in this lovable high No Impact Man school comedy series. No longer a girl trying to In 2009, writer Colin Beavan get noticed, she’s now dating one of her school’s released a book about living biggest hunks as Season 3 begins, and is catching a year without using a car, envy from all sides. Better for viewers, she still toilet paper, or eventually, has a divided heart, which means the only way to electricity. Today, his project find out if she sticks with Paxton or dumps him looks more like a blueprint for Ben is to start streaming new episodes and than a crazy stunt. Tubi watch star Maitreyi Ramakrishnan as she works David Attenborough: A Life Pine and Smith: Caregivers under pressure Show of the week Netflix, Apple TV on Our Planet If anyone can testify to Five Days at Memorial just how severely climate change has altered the When Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, planet, it’s Attenborough. In one hospital faced impossible challenges. In a this documentary, the leg- miniseries based on Pulitzer Prize–winning re- endary BBC naturalist offers porting, writer-directors John Ridley and Carlton a powerful witness state- Cuse revisit a nightmare that unfolded across ment, its bleakness offset by days and ended with 45 patients dead. Doctors his belief that the worst ef- and nurses, working without power, had man- fects can be averted. Netflix aged to evacuate hundreds of patients. But lethal doses of morphine had been administered to I Am Greta some left behind, resulting in murder charges Though overlong, this 2020 against three staffers. With Vera Farmiga, Rob- portrait of Greta Thunberg, ert Pine, Cornelius Smith Jr., and Cherry Jones. whose climate activism Available Friday, Aug. 12, Apple TV+ made her a 15-year-old global icon, captures why she’s was so admired. Hulu THE WEEK August 12, 2022 • All listings are Eastern Time.

LEISURE 31 Food & Drink A Punjabi-style fish fry: Catfish in a spiced chickpea coating Battered and deep-fried fish is beloved all An Indian snack transplanted to the U.S. tar. Transfer to a shallow bowl. Add chick- over the world, said chef Vishwesh Bhatt pea flour, garlic, ginger, cilantro stems, chile, in I Am From Here (Norton). In Punjab, ½ cup rice flour or cornstarch paprika, ajwain seeds, and 1 tsp salt. Add carp dredged in a spiced chickpea batter Chaat masala (store-bought or homemade), ½ cup water; whisk to combine. If batter and fried in oil stained yellow by turmeric seems too thick, whisk in another ¼ cup is a popular roadside snack. In my home for garnish water, to get the consistency of waffle batter. state of Mississippi, where catfish is king, I Thinly sliced red onion, for serving developed this adaptation using recipes bor- Lime wedges, for serving Heat oil to 350 in a cast-iron skillet or rowed from two chefs with roots in Punjab. Dutch oven. While oil heats, set up for fry- Fortunately, “catfish took to the spicy Combine turmeric, 2 tsp salt, cayenne, and ing. To left of stove, line up catfish, rice chickpea-flour batter like a fish to water,” lemon juice in a non-reactive bowl. Add flour or cornstarch in a shallow bowl or and at Snackbar, my restaurant in Oxford, fish fillets, flipping to coat. Refrigerate 20 baking dish, and batter. To right of stove, Miss., I soon had a dining room full of to 30 minutes. place a sheet pan lined with paper towels. happy guests. Toast coriander seeds in a small, dry pan Working one fillet at a time, remove fillet Recipe of the week over medium heat for about 1 minute. Add from marinade, gently shaking off excess Punjabi-style fried catfish cumin seeds and cook, shaking pan gently liquid. Place in rice flour or cornstarch, so seeds toast evenly, until both spices are then dip in batter, turning each time to coat. 2 tsp turmeric fragrant, about 1 more minute. Remove Gently lower into hot oil. Repeat with two 3 tsp salt, divided from heat; grind in a spice grinder or mor- or three more fillets, avoiding crowding. 1 tsp ground cayenne pepper 3 tbsp fresh lemon juice After 3 to 4 minutes, use a slotted spatula 6 catfish fillets to gently turn fillets. Cook another 3 to 1 tsp coriander seeds 4 minutes, until golden brown and crispy 2 tsp cumin seeds and fish is cooked through. Transfer to ½ cup chickpea flour paper towels. Repeat with remaining fillets, 1 tbsp minced garlic making sure oil temperature returns to 350 1 tbsp minced ginger between batches. 1 tbsp minced cilantro stems, plus chopped Sprinkle fish with chaat masala and cilantro leaves for garnish chopped cilantro leaves, and bring to table 2 tsp minced serrano chile with sliced red onion and lime wedges for 1 tbsp paprika squeezing. Serves 6. 1 tsp ajwain seeds 2 cups neutral oil, such as peanut or canola A new ‘world’s best’: Should anyone care? Spirits: Craft corn whiskey Goodbye, Noma; hello, Geranium, said Adam Reiner in Bon Appétit. With the recent “Corn whiskey is hardly new,” said Fred release of the latest World’s 50 Best Restaurants list, a new No. 1 has just been Siggins in Punch. But as craft distill- crowned—another exclusive refuge in Copenhagen that serves an ultra-seasonal ers emphasize fine raw ingredients, Scandinavian tasting menu, this one priced at a “modest” $437 per person. So “here’s whiskeys made from a mash bill that’s my proposal”: Instead of treating this is as big news, “let’s start treating the 50 Best at least 80 percent corn are emerging List like food media’s rich out-of-touch uncle.” For the kind of guy who’s allowed to around the world. Below are three to try. vote for the list, Asia and Africa barely exist, Europe is the center of the world, and Balcones Baby Blue ($48). Balcones $437 is “a small price to pay for the privilege of loading up his iPhone with fancy food threw a spotlight on heirloom grains porn to impress his jet-setting friends.” The 50 Best List is supposed to be the product with the 2008 release of this whiskey of a comprehensive global search, but instead it’s “often a curated collection of dining made from Texas blue corn. The whis- opinions amassed by judges who went on some very flashy press trips.” key has “a rich buttery texture” with flavors of honey and banana bread. Ironically, “the list was intended to be something of an antidote to Michelin’s staid New Southern Revival Straight Bourbon Whiskey ($80). South Caro- system of stars,” said Alan Sytsma in NYMag.com. Two decades after its launch, “it’s lina’s High Wire Distilling Co. uses only Jimmy Red heirloom corn in Angie Mosier, Niels Ahlmann Olesen/Scanpix/Imago begun to feel as exclusionary as the tire guide it was meant to replace.” On some this bourbon, which has “a nutty, dark chocolate character” and “a level, we all understand that the list is silly, more sweet tea finish.” Abasolo El Whisky de Mexico “cheerleading” than a serious critical enterprise. ($40). The unique character of nixtamalized Cacahuazintle corn But given that the kitchens of the world’s elite “punches through” in this whis- key, which is lighter and more restaurants are now being regularly exposed floral than a traditional bourbon. as workplaces that abuse their underpaid, overworked staffs, “it might be time to wonder whether these places really are the be-all and end-all of culinary excellence.” Surely, there’s a better model, one in which a luxury experience doesn’t “trump all other considerations.” Copenhagen’s Geranium restaurant THE WEEK August 12, 2022

32 LEISURE Consumer The 2022 Mercedes-Benz EQB: What the critics say Motor Trend power output is 225 hp in the EQB300, or A stealth electric, from $54,500 288 hp in the EQB350. Similarly priced “The electrification of Mercedes-Benz Volvo, Kia, and Hyundai EVs are “far more even in enthusiastic driving.” A long-range is off to a good start.” Following up on powerful,” and because the EQB is built on version is promised, but the EQB appeals the successful launch of its flagship EQS a 400-volt architecture, its recharge rate is from the start simply because it’s “refresh- sedan, the German automaker has now also “considerably” slower. Still, the baby ingly normal.” A boxy beauty in a sea of im- rolled out the EQB, a “roomy and practi- Benz “makes a very strong case for itself.” practical, tapered-roof crossovers, “it feels cal” electric SUV that “drives like a real The five-seat model “provides a stunning bigger inside in ways that actually matter.” Mercedes.” The “perky” compact cross- amount of room for stuff.” And of course, over can fit an optional third row—a rarity “it is indeed more luxurious than the Hyun- in this segment. And while the EQB shares dais, Kias, and Teslas of the world.” its structure with the gas-powered GLB, the EV power train delivers greater refine- Green Car Reports ment and performance. EPA range estimates haven’t been released, Autoblog but our testing of the EQB “assures a real-world range of more than 200 miles, On paper, some specs underwhelm. Total The best of...fun in the sun Igloo KoolTunes Cressi Palau SAF Set Discraft UltraStar Premier Kites Impala Sportsdisc Paradise Bird Kite Lightspeed Party like it’s 1989 Skip the resort rent- Impala, a Melbourne- with Igloo’s classic als with a snorkel set Move over, Frisbee. This “beautiful, high- boombox cooler, which that’s “solid, simple, The official flying disc quality” kite is easy to based brand, makes returned this year with and robust.” The short, of USA Ultimate is see from across the affordable, candy- Bluetooth connectiv- adjustable fins are “loved by both profes- park or beach. “It’s colored rollerblades that ity. 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To take on your next hike QRinse before swimming. Salt, minerals, QThe QAllTrails charts more than 300,000 trails and chlorine gradually break down the new around the world for hiking, running, or polymers in swimwear fabrics. People often Roadster mountain biking. More than 35 million shower after a swim, but rinse beforehand from people use the app to log their travels, share too, because saturated swim fabric won’t Vintage tips, and recommend routes. The $30-a-year absorb as much ocean or pool water. Electric Bikes is “so next-level” in power pro version lets you view maps offline. QWash promptly. Wash suits after every and build, “it’s almost unfair to label it an e- QFarOut features an array of detailed guide- swim with cool water and a mild detergent. bike.” The Santa Clara, Calif., manufacturer’s books for thru-hikers and other long-distance Handwashing is gentlest, but most suits can top-of-the-line two-wheeler is powered by backpackers. Guides are purchased individu- be safely machine-washed on “delicate.” Use a 72-volt battery—the most potent on the ally and downloaded for offline use. Some mesh bags to protect straps and bra cups. market—and it propels the stylish cruiser are free; others cost up to $80. QAir dry. “Steer clear of the dryer”—unless to speeds up to 40 mph. You can pedal the QCairn focuses on hiker safety by making yours has a no-heat “air fluff” option. sturdily constructed 86-pound Roadster, but it easy to share plans and location data Instead, remove excess water by rolling the you’ll be tempted to leave all the propulsion with your emergency contacts. The app suit in a towel, then lay it flat, away from to the thumb throttle, which taps into five can send you alerts about trail hazards, and sunlight. A fan can aid air circulation. levels of e-assist—“from gentle to zippy to it provides cellular service maps that help QMind the sunscreen. Swimwear fabrics downright bonkers.” So grab the leather when you need to make a call. retain oily lotion stains. Pretreat spots with handgrips and hit the open road. “Just QPeakVisor uses augmented reality to help detergent before washing. If your home has remember to wear a helmet.” users visualize their adventures. “Just point hard tap water, switch to a mineral sun- $6,995, vintageelectricbikes.com your camera at surrounding peaks, and the screen to avoid yellow-brown staining. app tells you all about them.” Source: Robb Report Source: Wirecutter Source: HiConsumption THE WEEK August 12, 2022



34 Best properties on the market This week: Homes in the Hudson Valley 1 Stuyvesant 2 Ancram The Sleeve House stands on 46 acres 20 minutes Across the road from from the town of Hudson. Designed by Adam Dayem, the the Hudson River, this solar-powered three-bedroom home comprises two long spaces: four-bedroom home is a charred accoya-wood “sleeve” containing a living room with also less than an hour’s wood-burning fireplace, stepped-up dining room, kitchen, and drive from the Catskills half-bath, and a smaller, glass-walled structure inside it with the and the Berkshires. The bedrooms, two bathrooms, and balconies at either end; both restored 1850 Italianate spaces include curated new and midcentury furnishings. Outside house features wide- are a roof deck, terrace, meadows, woods, a pond, and sweeping plank wood floors, views. $2,275,000. Raj Kumar, Four Seasons Sotheby’s Interna- updated original floor- tional Realty, (201) 689-0533 to-ceiling windows, wood-burning fireplaces in the drawing room and pri- mary bedroom, and a marble-clad chef’s kitchen with French doors to the wraparound porch. On the 7.8-acre lot are lawns, willow and catalpa trees, an antique barn, a smokehouse, and a two-car garage. $2,800,000. Annabel Taylor, Four Seasons Sotheby’s International Realty, (518) 763-5020 3 Hudson This modern double A-frame house sits at the end of a private drive atop Mount Merino; the shops and restaurants of Hudson are five minutes away. Built in 2010, the four-bedroom home has an open chef’s kitchen; double-height living-dining room with floor-to- ceiling, slate-clad gas fireplace and oversize windows framing forest views; and a first-floor primary suite with fireplace and walnut built- ins. The 7.3-acre property includes gardens, lawns, an orchard, and a detached two-car garage with flex space. $2,808,000. Nancy Felcetto, Brown Harris Stevens, (917) 626-6755 THE WEEK August 12, 2022

Best properties on the market 35 4 Beacon Walking distance from Main Street, this three-bedroom Victorian is also a short drive from the waterfront and the DIA Beacon art museum. A gut renovation updated the 1880 painted lady with new HVAC, chef’s kitchen with walk-in pantry, primary suite with soaker tub, and library with custom shelves; details include period door hardware, crown molding, a carved- wood staircase, and the 16th-century carved door to a guest room. Outside are a covered porch, a one-bay garage, and a stone back patio landscaped with flower beds. $849,900. Kundi Glasson, Compass Greater NY, (917) 841-6224 New York 1 3 5 2 4 6 5 East Durham This three-bedroom log house sits on 20 rural acres with access to Catskill Creek; shopping, hiking, and the Zoom Flume Water Park are nearby. The 2005 home has chestnut-wood floors, a living room with a Finnish tulikivi woodstove, an eat-in kitchen with soapstone sinks and counters, and living and dining rooms with glass doors to covered porches. On the wooded property are a heated green- house, a new barn, and a glass-doored, heated three-car garage that incorporates an artist’s studio with windows, stove, and a storage level. $2,175,000. Richard Vizzini, Corcoran Country Living, (845) 389-7879 Steal of the week East Durham: Farley Pierson, Rhinebeck: Walker Esner Photography 6 Rhinebeck: Set on a quiet country road, this two- bedroom home is two miles south of the Village of Rhinebeck. The Cape Cod–style house, built in 1920, features a new roof, gutters, insulation, and central air-conditioning; the original fir floors in the bedrooms; a full bathroom with slate floors; a renovated kitchen with exposed brick, small island, and custom cabinetry; a living room with window benches; a dining room; and a sun porch. The 0.33-acre property has trees, a lawn, a wood deck, and a separate storage building with an attached one-car garage. $419,000. Karolina Czekaj, Corcoran Country Living, (845) 781-6598 THE WEEK August 12, 2022

36 BUSINESS The news at a glance The bottom line Energy: Oil giants reap windfall profits QThe U.S. stock market “The nation’s biggest oil compa- Big Oil’s priorities have shifted, in July delivered its best monthly performance nies, ExxonMobil and Chevron, said Liam Denning in Bloomberg. since November 2020. The S&P 500 rose 9.1 percent in saw their profits roughly triple Despite their second-quarter the month, while the tech- heavy Nasdaq recorded a in the second quarter” while windfall, “combined capital 12.3 percent gain, its best showing since April 2020. In consumers struggled to afford expenditure” between Exxon the first six months of the year, the S&P fell 21 percent the high prices at the pump, said and Chevron “was just $7 bil- and the Nasdaq 29. Financial Times Aaron Gregg in The Washing- lion, less than half the outlay in QNearly $3.6 billion has been ton Post. Those two companies the summer of 2014.” The mind- spent on political and issue ads so far this year, putting plus BP, Shell, and France’s set for both companies then was the 2022 elections on pace to obliterate 2018’s record as TotalEnergies collectively earned to focus on “enormous, multi- the largest midterm election year by ad spending. nearly $60 billion in the past More cash, less exploration year growth projects.” They Axios three months as sanctions on faced a reckoning when prices QThe aver- Russian oil sent crude prices soaring above collapsed. Today, “the future is clouded by the age cost for a family of $120 per barrel. “Industry insiders say it will take twin challenges of climate change” and a looming four to at- tend a Major years” to bring enough new supply online to fill recession. Current investments are primarily in League Baseball the void left by Russia. The oil giants “are pump- shale fracking and natural gas, where the long- game (including 4 tickets, 4 hot dogs, 2 beers, 2 sodas, ing more,” but are also “sending billions to Wall term demand prospects are clearer, while “their and parking) is $204.76. Adjusting for inflation, that’s Street through share buybacks and dividends.” appetite for exploration” has diminished. roughly double what the same family would have paid Airlines: JetBlue wins deal to buy Spirit Listerine’s perpetual Getty (2) in 1960. profit machine The Hustle Capping a contentious takeover battle, JetBlue reached a deal to buy Spirit Airlines after convincing shareholders to reject a rival offer from A provision in a QCredit-card balances Frontier, said Niraj Chokshi in The New York Times. JetBlue said last 19th-century contract increased $46 billion in the week it will pay $33.50 per share in cash, “significantly more than signed by the creator second quarter, a 5.5 percent Spirit’s current price.” Spirit’s board had pushed for a merger with of Listerine keeps increase from the first quar- Frontier, consolidating two low-budget carriers, but the offer “fell short royalty payments ter. The 13 percent year-over- of JetBlue’s by about $1 billion.” A merger would create the nation’s from the mouthwash year increase from 2021 to fifth-largest airline, although regulators, “who have taken an aggressive fortune flowing, said 2022 was the biggest such stand against corporate consolidation,” could still block the deal. Michael Waters in The jump in more than 20 years. Hustle. In 1881, when a The Washington Post The long game: Uber turns the corner on cash flow Baltimore pharmacist licensed the formula for QSo far this year, retailers After more than a decade in operation, Uber is finally taking in more Listerine from the doc- in the U.S. have announced money from customers than it spends to drive them around, said Sara tor and chemist Joseph 4,432 store openings and O’Brien in CNN.com. After burning through roughly $25 billion, the Lawrence, the deal 1,954 closings, a net gain of ride-hailing giant said this week “it had become cash-flow positive”— included a provision 2,478 stores—up from a gain though that still excludes capital expenditures and losses from its sour- paying Lawrence and of just 68 last year. ing investments. Including those, Uber’s net loss exceeded $2 billion, his “heirs, executors, CNBC.com though revenue in the past three months hit $8.1 billion, “more than or assigns” $6 per 144 doubling from the year prior.” bottles. There was one QA Texas jury ordered issue: “The two men Charter Communications China: Ma agrees to hand over Ant Group reins never specified an end.” to pay $7 billion in punitive After Lawrence died damages to the family of an Mogul Jack Ma plans to relinquish control of Ant Group, the Chinese in 1909, the Listerine 83-year-old woman mur- fintech giant he co-founded, said Jing Yang and Raffaele Huang in The royalty trust began to dered by a cable technician. Wall Street Journal. Ma, once China’s richest man, made his fortune splinter. One heir sold Charter was accused of using with e-commerce giant Alibaba and was poised to accumulate similar his stake to the Catholic a forged document to try to power in financial services. But after he gave a 2020 speech criticizing Archdiocese of New force the lawsuit into arbitra- Chinese regulators, “authorities halted Ant’s $34 billion IPO at the York, which “earned tion and limit damages to the eleventh hour.” Ant owns a payments network,“with more than 1 bil- $13 million in less than amount of the final cable bill. lion users,” along with an investing platform and a lending business. 16 years.” After Lister- ArsTechnica ine’s sale to Johnson Publishing: King testifies at publishing trial & Johnson in 2008, THE WEEK August 12, 2022 the same royalty terms Author Stephen King testified for the government this week in an stood. Today’s holders antitrust trial seeking to block a publishing merger, said Jennifer Zhan of shares in the trust in New York magazine. The Department of Justice is arguing that include Fisk University Penguin Random House’s proposed $2.2 billion acquisition of King’s and former New Jersey publisher, Simon & Schuster, creates a “monopsony,” in which a Gov. Chris Christie, who shrinking number of publishers in the market lower compensation for earned $24,000 from authors. “Consolidation is bad for competition,” said King, the best- a fractional Listerine selling novelist. “That’s my understanding of the book business, and share in 2015. I’ve been around it for 50 years.”

Making money BUSINESS 37 Real estate: Demand crumbles as mortgage rates rise The red-hot housing market had to ers have disappeared off the face of cool off at some point, said Emily the earth.” The same thing is hap- Peck in Axios—and that point ap- pening in Denver, Salt Lake City, pears to be now. The steep increase and Tacoma, Wash. But even as the in mortgage rates over the past few price of buying may be ready to months is finally slowing the biggest fall, the cost of rent is shooting up, housing boom in 15 years, and the said Somesh Jha in the Los Angeles days of frenzied bidding wars and Times. Would-be buyers priced out buying houses sight unseen are over. by rising mortgage rates are turning Home sales fell 8.6 percent from to rentals, fueling a vicious cycle of May to June, the National Associa- inflation. “The average price of a tion of Realtors said last week. “That new lease has increased more than was well above what economists 11 percent versus last year.” were predicting, and a 20 percent In ‘Zoomtowns’ like Boise, buyers have suddenly disappeared. If home sales keep falling, the drop from last year.” Applications for new mortgages are “at their lowest level of activity since $4 trillion real estate industry could end up playing “a star- February 2000.” Prices are “coming down in some pockets, and ring role in the next economic recession,” said Prashant Gopal analysts expect that to continue” as anxious builders and sellers in Bloomberg Businessweek. Builders are still busy finishing search harder for buyers. For now, rising rates have “crushed de- projects already under development. But if sales deteriorate fur- mand” for homes. Just keep in mind that “many Americans so ther, the “malaise” will spread and we will see the effects ripple desperately still want to own a home” and the U.S. is “suffering through construction companies and down even to “furniture from a long-term housing shortage.” stores, landscapers, and moving companies.” Brokerages are already letting employees go. Part of the problem is that home “Zoomtowns” are experiencing the fiercest whiplash, said price growth “tends to be sticky.” Rather than cut prices, sellers Nicole Friedman in The Wall Street Journal. The areas that keep their houses off the market. So instead of housing becom- experienced the biggest surge in demand once people realized ing more affordable, all the gears grind to a halt. Mark Zandi, they could work remotely are now “cooling off the fastest.” In chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, says that “prices will start Boise, Idaho, until recently one of the country’s hottest housing to flatten and potentially decline in areas where the pandemic markets, one real estate agent says it now seems like the “buy- boom was strongest,” but it won’t happen quickly. Getty What the experts say tance of their employees “feeling revitalized” Charity of the week after a break, so some are now instituting Still a good time to switch jobs “dark” periods—essentially forcing the of- Formerly known as fice to close. Accounting and consulting firm The Actors Fund, More Americans are switching jobs and reap- PricewaterhouseCoopers started giving its the Entertainment ing the benefits, said Julia Carpenter in The 60,000 U.S. employees added “two annual Community Fund Wall Street Journal. According to the Federal company-wide, week-long breaks—one in July (entertainment Reserve Bank of Atlanta, wages have gone up and one in December” to regular vacation time. community.org) about 4.7 percent for those who have stayed “It’s a way of saying it’s OK,” said PwC senior has been helping to in their job for the past three months. By partner Tim Ryan, “we want you to do this.” meet the needs of contrast, “those who switched jobs received the country’s per- a raise of 6.4 percent,” the largest gap in two No more tuition freezes forming artists—on decades. Despite recession fears, the labor stage and screen, as well as behind the market remains strong and those workers who College tuitions are going back up this fall, scenes—since 1882. The charity offers “aren’t getting a large enough pay increase at said Joanna Nesbit in Money.com. After hold- services including emergency financial their current job to keep up with inflation” are ing prices flat for the past couple of years, assistance, affordable housing, health looking for better pay elsewhere. Hiring man- trustees at numerous institutions have voted in care and insurance counseling, secondary agers say there is “tacit acknowledgment” that recent weeks to raise their cost of attendance career development, and senior care to new hires will require big raises. Companies to keep pace with inflation. After a 5 percent people working in theater, film, television, are trying to offer alternative incentives, “but price hike at the University of Southern Cali- radio, music, dance, opera, and circus. the question of pay is paramount.” fornia, for example, tuition now costs about The Entertainment Community Fund aims $63,468 per year. Schools say they are strug- to provide a safety net for performing The company-wide vacation week gling with higher costs for things like food arts and entertainment professionals. In and payroll while also combating enrollment the first year of the pandemic, the fund More employers are implementing company- drops. In states where universities are subject distributed more than $19 million in wide holidays when all workers are off at the to a tuition cap, some colleges are pricing in direct cash assistance to over 15,000 indi- same time, said Stephanie Dhue and Sharon their hikes in other areas. Western Washington viduals, with an additional 25,000 artists Epperson in CNBC.com. Many workers University imposed “the state’s maximum receiving other forms of assistance. struggle to disconnect even when they’re on increase” of 2.4 percent—and also raised the vacation. One of the primary reasons is the Student Health Services Fee by 17.9 percent. Each charity we feature has earned a “fear of missing out,” and modern technol- four-star overall rating from Charity ogy makes it easier to stay plugged in. But Navigator, which rates not-for-profit employers are also recognizing the impor- organizations on the strength of their finances, their governance practices, and the transparency of their operations. Four stars is the group’s highest rating. THE WEEK August 12, 2022

38 Best columns: Business The R-Word: Is this what a recession feels like? Let’s call it what it is, said The Wall do so. But they’ve never bought the Street Journal in an editorial: The U.S. “six months of declining real GDP” is in a recession. Everyone can see this¸ rule of thumb that the press often re- except President Biden and the Demo- peats. In fact, the economist who has crats, who want “to pretend the bad leads the eight-member committee news isn’t happening.” But the num- calls that measure “irrelevant.” bers don’t lie: Last week’s GDP data showed that the economy contracted The “scare headlines are misleading,” by 0.9 percent in the second quarter, said Robert Shapiro in Washington following a 1.6 percent decline in the Monthly. At the same time that first three months of the year. Two GDP was contracting, “employment quarters of the economy shrinking is grew rapidly,” outpacing “even the the common definition of a recession, best periods of recent expansion.” and what Americans see around them Biden: Ignore pundits’ ‘chatter’ about a recession. No recessions on record have begun bears this out. Inflation is eating into amid such a strong labor market. wages and has caused consumer spending to slip “to its slowest The U.S. economy is “the strongest and most resilient in the rate since the pandemic.” Everywhere, “businesses are bracing world” said Dennis Kneale in The Wall Street Journal. There are for cooling demand.” Yet Biden dismisses the data as “chatter” plenty of signs the economy has room to grow. GM, for instance, from pundits and is determined to claim that the last quarter has 100,000 cars already built and ready to ship to showrooms “showed ‘signs of economic progress.’” That’s out of touch. as more microchips become available. “U.S. households had “The president “inherited a growing economy primed to roar $4.2 trillion more cash at the end of last year compared with back from the pandemic, and in barely a year and a half he has 2019.” That’s a lot of cushion against an economic decline. dragged America back to the 1970s.” “Are we in a recession?” is the wrong question to ask, said Derek Does it really look to you like the U.S. is in a prolonged eco- Thompson in The Atlantic. “The U.S. economy is shaped by the nomic slump? asked Allan Sloan in The Washington Post. “It decisions of several hundred million people.” What difference doesn’t look like that to me.” Unemployment is still at 3.6 per- does it make “if eight oracles have muttered the word recession” cent, wages are rising, and, at least in the crucial area of gas or not? It doesn’t change the price of your coffee or the income prices, inflation has started to fall. It’s not just Biden who doesn’t in your pocket. “The reality of this economy is that high inflation think we are in a recession. “The official arbiter of when reces- is making people feel poorer, rising interest rates are discouraging sions begin and end is the Business Cycle Dating Committee, some investment, and it’s all happening in the context of incred- which is part of the National Bureau of Economic Research.” ibly low unemployment.” Does that meet the definition of a re- They have not made a judgment yet, and may take into 2023 to cession? It doesn’t matter. Ransomware Ransomware attacks on small businesses don’t at- than 15 million SEC filings dating back to 1993. comes for tract headlines. But for victims, they are life-changing Though his data was stored on a cloud server, that Main Street events, said Michael Hiltzik. Fran Finnegan, 71, never was no help against hackers using his password. They imagined he’d be a target of digital extortion. For the taunted him with “a skull-and-crossbones image and Michael Hiltzik past 25 years, he’s been the sole proprietor of a utili- an email address to learn the price he would have to tarian website, SEC Info, that provides subscribers pay” to regain control. But paying off his attackers Los Angeles Times with all the financial documents filed with the Securi- was pointless—they had trashed his operational soft- ties and Exchange Commission in a searchable and ware. So Finnegan began the long process of rebuild- well-organized form. But starting last June, “hackers ing all the programs he had written. He estimates he pinged his system 2.5 million times with stolen Yahoo lost his half his subscribers, costing him at least six passwords, finally hitting on the right one.” Once figures of income. He finally relaunched the site on inside, the attacker encrypted all his files—more July 18, but the scars remain. The airlines’ The airline industry needs to learn from this sum- many workers temporary leaves of absence.” Now Getty summer mer’s travel meltdown, said The Washington Post. they are struggling to bring them back. It’s a good nightmare According to the travel data company FlightAware, time to reevaluate how to retain workers in airport 22 percent of flights by U.S. carriers in the past two jobs “that are often low-paying and labor-intensive Editorial months—more than 260,000 flights in total—have with unattractive schedules.” It’s also important to been delayed. More than 30,000 flights were canceled note that a “pilot shortage was a concern even before The Washington Post just between Memorial Day weekend and mid-July. the pandemic.” Some of this could be alleviated if Inclement weather isn’t that persistent. Airlines them- carriers and the federal government found ways “to THE WEEK August 12, 2022 selves are the biggest culprit here. They got $54 bil- lower the barriers to entry to training programs and lion in pandemic aid to keep workers employed. Still, certification, which are time-consuming and costly.” “overestimating how long it would take for travel to There are no easy solutions to smoothing out air scale back up” after pandemic fears receded, “they travel. By acting now, though, the industry could be- offered older employees retirement packages and gave come “more resilient in the face of future crises.”

Obituaries 39 The defensive genius who transformed basketball Bill Bill Russell was basketball’s first Celtics eight consecutive titles, said The Washington Russell Black superstar—and the most pro- Post. That record has never been matched. “An lific winner in the game’s history. intense competitor,” Russell would throw up in the 1934–2022 Over a 15-year period beginning locker room before games, then go out and stun crowds “by shutting down opposing teams’ offenses in 1955, the goateed, 6-foot-9-inch center won almost single-handedly.” When Wilt Chamberlain entered the NBA in 1959, their “electrifying” two NCAA championships and an Olympic gold rivalry “became a highlight of the league,” with Chamberlain posting better personal stats but medal, then led the Boston Celtics to an astound- Russell claiming “most of the victories.” ing 11 NBA championships in 13 years—the last Russell’s relationship with Boston was fractious, said The Boston Globe. His court dominance made two while serving as both a player and the league’s him “both an icon and an irritant in a city unac- customed to a visible and vocal Black man.” His suburban home first Black coach. In the process, the five-time MVP was once vandalized by intruders who smashed up his trophies, scrawled racial slurs on the wall, and defecated in the beds. In his transformed the game, leveraging his preternatural memoir, Russell called the city “a flea market of racism,” and his refusal to sign autographs and a manner many perceived as aloof shot-blocking and rebounding ability to “control “made for a remote relationship with Boston’s predominantly white fans.” When the Celtics retired his No. 6 jersey in 1972, a game defensively” in a manner until then “com- he insisted on a private ceremony; in 1975, he declined to attend his own induction into the Basketball Hall of Fame in nearby pletely foreign to the NBA,” said former Celtics Springfield, Mass. teammate Tommy Heinsohn. A target of virulent racism in Boston, After retiring from the Celtics in 1969 and moving to an island near Seattle, “Russell had an eclectic career,” said the Los Angeles Russell distinguished himself off the court with his outspoken Times. He appeared in movies and commercials, worked as an NBA color commentator, golfed, and had “two more coaching support for civil rights. In the late 1950s, he accused the NBA of stints,” with the Seattle SuperSonics in the ’70s and the Sacramento Kings in the ’80s. In later years, he was showered with honors, keeping Black players down with a tacit quota system; in 1963, including an honorary Harvard doctorate, a Presidential Medal of Freedom bestowed by President Obama, and a statue unveiled he joined the March on Washington, and after civil rights leader in Boston’s City Hall Plaza in 2013. He remained wary of public adoration but acknowledged fierce pride in his court achievements. Medgar Evers was killed he opened an integrated basketball camp “If you can take something to levels that very few other people can reach,” he said in 1999, “then what you’re doing becomes art.” in Mississippi. “I don’t work for acceptance. I am what I am,” he said. “If you like it, that’s nice. If not, I couldn’t care less.” Russell was born in Monroe, La., where his father worked in a paper bag factory, said The New York Times. Despite “a warm home life,” his childhood was “seared by racism,” and when he was 9 the family left the South for public housing in Oakland. He didn’t start on his high school basketball team until he was a senior, but a scout saw his potential and he won a scholarship to the University of San Francisco. There he became a “phenom,” said Deadspin, “using his size, lengthy wingspan, shot-blocking prowess, and advanced instincts” to lead the team to consecutive national championships. After winning Olympic gold in 1956, he was drafted by the Celtics, becoming the team’s only Black player. In his debut season, Russell “helped lead the team to its first NBA championship,” beginning a winning streak that brought the The Star Trek actress who shattered stereotypes Nichelle Just a year after taking the role of was followed by “several small film and TV Nichols Lt. Uhura, Nichelle Nichols decided roles.” A guest spot on the 1963 drama The she’d had enough of Star Trek. While Lieutenant introduced her to Star Trek creator 1932–2022 she liked playing the Enterprise com- Gene Roddenberry, and the two had a brief romantic relationship. Nichols’ red minidress munications officer, one of the first Black female uniform in Star Trek “permitted her to flaunt her dancer’s legs,” said The Washington Post, but the television characters in a leading role, she had Enterprise’s sole female officer was usually crisp and businesslike. One exception was a 1968 epi- viewed the part as a stepping-stone to other work— sode in which she and Shatner’s Captain Kirk are forced by hostile telekinetic aliens to embrace, in preferably on Broadway. And star William Shatner’s “one of the first interracial kisses on American prime-time television.” ego was already grating on her. But at an NAACP Nichols went on to release three albums, but Lt. Uhura defined fundraiser, the organizer introduced her to someone her career, said People. She appeared in the first six Star Trek movies and became a key outreach ambassador for NASA, recruit- he called “your biggest fan.” A smiling Rev. Martin ing women and people of color as astronauts. Even after her 2018 diagnosis with dementia, Nichols frequently attended fan conven- Luther King Jr. spoke of how much he and his tions; last December, she was “seen waving, blowing kisses, and flashing Star Trek’s famous Vulcan salute” at L.A. Comic Con. family admired her work on the show. When she “I am still very proud of Uhura,” she wrote in her 1994 memoir, “and what she represented, not only in her time but in ours.” said she was leaving the cast, his face fell. “You can’t do that,” she recalled him saying. “Don’t you understand, for the first time we’re seen as we should be seen?” That conversation, she later said, convinced her that playing Lt. Uhura “was something more than just a job.” She stayed with the series until its end in 1969. Getty (2) The daughter of a chemist in suburban Robbins, Ill., Nichols first worked professionally as a singer and dancer in Chicago, said the Associated Press, starting at 14 and touring with Duke Ellington a few years later. Her big-screen debut in 1959’s Carmen Jones THE WEEK August 12, 2022

40 The last word The writer who walked away Gary Smith was the greatest sportswriter of his generation, said Joseph Bien-Kahn in Victory Journal. Then, at the height of his powers, he decided he’d had enough. GARY SMITH BOARDED the As Smith and I spoke again and first train out of Rome again this spring, the conversa- and took it to the end of tion would inevitably return the line. He crossed the street to: “Why retire?” But to try right as a bus pulled up and to place Smith in the world rode it to the end of the line of anxiety and striving of the too. Now, a little red car slid to modern journalist is a folly. In a stop beside his outstretched David Halberstam’s book on the thumb and a man with wild Vietnam War, The Best and the black hair and wild black eyes Brightest, he wrote of his appre- beckoned him to get in. hension in taking on the years- It was a linguistic scramble as long book project: “A journalist the man attempted to engage always wonders: If my byline Smith. Italian, then English, disappears, have I disappeared as and finally a slapdash mess well?” Smith smiled and closed of Spanish and French to get his eyes as he listened to the to the most pressing matter: quote. “You pour yourself into “Where to?” Smith with George Foreman and Muhammad Ali, 20 years after their match the writing, but it is not your- self,” he says, after a pause. “If “Wherever you’re going,” Smith responded. the small world of editors who vote for you let it get that sticky, you’re stuck.” And so, the man turned the key and they the National Magazine Awards and the GARY SMITH STARTED his career in set off, the Talking Heads’ “Psycho Killer” even smaller subset of Sports Illustrated journalism while he was still in high playing on repeat. Eventually, they pulled readers who pay attention to bylines, he is school. His older sister Sue (Gary is into a tiny village, Castel Viscardo, on the a nobody.” the fourth of nine Smith kids) had won the calf of Italy’s boot, 4,200 miles and a uni- verse from the Manhattan Sports Illustrated Smith existed apart from Sports Illustrated, Delaware Junior Miss pageant and sat on office. It was late summer, 1983. even when his writing was definitional for the judging panel the next year alongside the magazine. He looked like a member of the sports editor at the Wilmington News- Gary Smith stayed in town that night, and “John Denver’s backup band,” to use SI Journal. While there, Smith’s mother asked then for months thereafter, working at the writer Steve Rushin’s framing, and always for advice for her sports-obsessed 16-year- brickyard and picking the region’s famous lived far from New York City, in Charleston old son, and the editor said he should come grapes. He’d be back again with his wife for decades, with time in Bolivia, Australia, by the paper the next day. Smith got a job, and then three more times with children in and Spain peppered in between. He wrote taking on tasks like tracking down high tow. The magazine had paid his way across just four stories a year for three decades, school scores and typesetting horse race the Atlantic, but the train ride and the bus each a sprawling excavation of a sports fig- results. He went on to the Philadelphia ride and the months abroad had been for ure’s soul. Even then, during the magazine’s Daily News and then to Inside Sports, only him. None of it made the story. It was flush times, he was an anomaly. Newsweek’s experiment in literary sports never meant to. journalism, where he was hired on as the Last spring, I stood in front of a packed only staff writer. TWO YEARS AGO, a friend from café in Charleston’s French Quarter. Smith, Charleston mentioned a co-worker a lithe 68-year-old, rode up a few minutes The magazine folded after three years, and who taught mindfulness to elemen- late, waving and apologizing from the seat it was then, in 1982, that SI reached out, tary school students. A few years in, some- of a black beach cruiser. He wore a cerulean offering a coveted staff writing position. one finally asked that friend, “You know T-shirt, jeans, and sneakers. His smile cast Smith, just 28 years old, responded with a who that is, right?” It was the sportswriter lines around his bright blue eyes and his counteroffer: He would take half the money Gary Smith. thin beard was white, but he looked boyish. to be on contract to write four feature stories per year. “I was just feeling like a The image of Smith, winner of a record four National Magazine Awards, living It took a moment to find a lunch option for student of life at that point. There’s so much anonymously, was perfectly antithetical to Smith, who struggles with spicy foods and I want to see and learn that if I’m on the that of a grizzled sportswriter telling war is vegetarian. As we ate, our conversation wheel with deadlines I just won’t be able to stories from a barstool. The unassuming bounced from his first newspaper job to experience,” he says. legend with an unobtrusive name had seem- Al Davis’ coaching career to Smith’s rock ingly disappeared into an afterlife on the band, Post-Life Crisis. When it jumped Smith wrote under that contract for eight Carolina coast. to the precarious state of sports journal- years until the realities of adulthood—a ism, Smith leaned back in his chair. “This wife and kids and a mortgage—made health care and benefits a necessity. By that point, Ben Yagoda once wrote on Slate: “Gary sounds like it’s gonna be a mournful story,” he’d built up enough capital—penning semi- Gary Smith (2) Smith is not only the best sportswriter in he says, grinning. “The asteroid came and nal profiles of Mike Tyson and Muhammad America, he’s the best magazine writer in there’s one dinosaur left and he’s out in Ali, as well as portraits of Soviet pole vault- America. The only injustice is that, outside Charleston.” ers and eccentric aces—to come on staff at THE WEEK August 12, 2022

The last word 41 the higher rate while continuing the four- weight champ longingly reminisces about per story; now he spends four hours every stories-per-year structure. It was 1990. Gary robbing strangers to the actress Robin day basking in the novel’s world. “I don’t Smith had the best job in sports journalism. Givens as they ride through Brownsville, feel any need of a deadline to get me to The SI newsroom at 1271 Avenue of the Brooklyn, in a silver Lincoln stretch limou- produce something. I’d rather just work it Americas was the big leagues of sports sine. “Being profiled by Gary Smith would until it gets better,” he says. “The process media. Every week, journalists and pho- be like being paraded down Main Street is really what I love. The doing of it, not tographers would file from every corner of naked in a cage. Everyone sees everything having it done.” the sports world, and more than 3 million you are, warts and beauty,” Reilly says. 120-page glossy behemoths would land at “And you couldn’t really complain about it, So, perhaps that was the secret all along. newsstands and front doors. because he usually got you so right.” It’s what let him live for months in Italy a year into the SI gig others would die for. At the time, Rick Reilly was the more But Reilly’s framing distorts Smith’s actual It’s what let him stay put for three decades boisterous star of the magazine. The approach—the profiles are less parade than instead of chasing greener grass. It’s also grenade-lobbing writer USA Today called portraiture. As his SI colleague S.L. Price what let him walk away. Today, the most “the closest thing sportswriting ever had wrote when Smith retired in 2014, “Smith decorated sportswriter of his generation to a rock star” once appeared in a Miller had little interest in painting Mike Tyson or spends time teaching students at Title 1 Lite ad alongside Rebecca Romijn. Smith Allen Iverson as pure villains or Dean Smith schools mindfulness as a tool to be attentive was more like sportswriting’s Townes van as a pure hero. He knew better. His great and calm their nerves. He rarely shares a Zandt. SI contemporaries dubbed the soft- achievement was an inversion of sport’s Tyson or Tiger Woods anecdote. spoken Smith “the demon beat writer” for central allure—the way it reduces messy his uncanny ability to uncover each subject’s existence to clear winners and losers, good “It’s an incredibly complicated thing that hidden demons. His Tyson profile charted guys and bad guys.” we’re thrust into as human beings. You can either take it at face value and just scram- the path from a traumatic child- ble or survive, or you can try to hood to the heavyweight belt; understand as best you can what’s his Andre Agassi story traced the really happening here, inside of us, tennis player’s obsessive rebellion around us,” Smith says. His years back to an overbearing father. of reading, writing, and exploring Reilly and Smith had an unlikely were in the service of a goal: “To friendship—“sort of mismatched learn how to play this game most socks,” as Rushin puts it—and wisely, with the least amount of were inseparable while cover- suffering and the most amount of ing the Olympics or on the SI enjoyment.” retreats, dancing, drinking, and It wasn’t Smith who first shared singing karaoke. To Reilly, who the Castel Viscardo story. It was eventually took a lucrative deal Reilly. He brought it up, still a to move to ESPN in 2008, it was bit awestruck by his friend after fascinating to see how Smith lev- all these years. “He just wants eraged his industry capital into to explore the world until there’s more freedom, rather than more Smith in Africa, reporting ‘A Day in the Life of Mount Kenya’ no inch left,” he says. “When he money. “A lot of people would FOR SMITH, THERE was never pressure to explores it all, he says, ‘Wait a have probably been like, ‘Screw that. You chase clicks or move the salacious stuff minute, there’s about eight inches between guys love me. You need me. I’ll write more, to the lede. There were ESPN offers, my ears. Let’s see what that’s like.’ Now he but you’ve got to triple my salary,’” Reilly sure, but he valued the space and time explores that too.” says. “But no, he wants less work. You afforded by his SI gig. There were many know, ‘I’ll do the same salary, but a lot inquiries about book deals, but he’d already When I ask Smith about the trip, he corrects less work. So that I can pour myself even spent months pulling back the layers of an error in Reilly’s retelling: He’d been in deeper into these people.’” his subjects. So eventually for Smith the Rome, not Madrid. Then he’s off, telling calculus changed. me about the hand gestures at the crowded The athletes agreed to let that light be bar and how they baked bricks the old- shined on their darkest parts because the fashioned way in the afternoon sun. He’d illumination itself held value. “The trade “To find stories where I felt like I could been in Europe on assignment, profiling was: ‘You’ll explore some of my shadows in learn something and wouldn’t be repeating an Italian long-distance swimmer ahead of this piece, but out of it, I’ll get this coverage on a subject, that grew more challenging the 1984 Olympic Games. The interviews in a national forum that can be beneficial in the latter years,” he says. “There was a were done, so he headed to the station to for my career or what I want to do after,’” bit of a sense of not having as much desire ride the first train and then the first bus Smith says. As the magazine industry to go and fill all those notebooks. It wasn’t to the end of the line. “When I got to the shrank and the athlete’s pulpit grew, the as fervent a desire as the one that had been end of the line, I got off and put my thumb calculus inverted. The magazine needs the compelling me all the way up until that out,” he says. “Whoever picked me up, athlete now, not the other way around. “So, moment.” It was time to walk away. wherever they were going, that was where the shadows get shut down and the person Smith tells me he’s writing a novel: a heav- I was gonna land. And, you know, just see controls the whole thing. It’s a step of trust ily researched, imagined history of Walt what happened.” no longer necessary for celebrities to take. Whitman and Emily Dickinson. It’s been So why take it?” seven years and he’s still not certain when Adapted from a story that originally That now-legendary Tyson profile contains it’ll be done. But he’s sure it won’t be long appeared in Victory Journal. Used with a revelatory scene: At one point, the heavy- now. For decades, he’d had three months permission. THE WEEK August 12, 2022

42 The Puzzle Page Crossword No. 659: Sweet Treat by Matt Gaffney The Week Contest ACROSS 51 RBs try to gain them 26 Gobble up This week’s question: An Indiana-based personal trainer 1 Respond to a round of 52 Iconic Ben & Jerry’s 27 Capture runs on all fours like a dog for at least 30 minutes a applause 28 Birdie beater day, a routine he says has left him “crazy ripped.” If he 4 Behave badly flavor made with 29 Imperfection wanted to popularize this workout routine among other 9 Some sneakers banana ice cream 30 2022 Tour de France humans, what should he call it? 58 “Obviously!” 14 Sound a masseur 59 Since winner Jonas Last week’s contest: Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez hears 60 Cheese with a red rind Vingegaard, e.g. recently got married in a Las Vegas wedding chapel, 18 64 Moved stealthily 31 Backs of barges years after breaking their hyper-publicized first engage- 15 Served decoratively 66 Early Ben & Jerry’s 35 Quickly become part ment. If a rom-com were to be based on “Bennifer’s” 16 Final letter flavor, this one named of the group on-again, off-again romance, what should it be called? 17 Folded frozen for the master of 36 Suffix with spoon ceremonies at 37 Serious crook THE WINNER: “The Wedding Re-Planner” confection Woodstock 39 Person on your side Syl Zucker, Ashland, Ore. discontinued by the 70 Head bug 40 Out of control Klondike company 71 Have a good time with 41 Fun part of Florida SECOND PLACE: “Return Engagement” this month after nearly 72 Illuminated 44 Theater award Pierre Nizet, Santa Barbara, Calif. 40 years 73 Honors won recently 46 Toronto team, casually 19 Geometric spokes by Megan Rapinoe 47 [Laughing sound] THIRD PLACE: “Bennagain” 20 Camel feature and Shohei Ohtani 49 Pair for Nathan Chen LeRoy Gaintner, Paradise Valley, Ariz. 21 Sin in Se7en 74 Vacuum brand 52 Recurring process 23 “___ be back in a sec” 75 -like 53 Receive a ___ welcome For runners-up and complete contest rules, please go 24 Candy introduced in 54 Exhaust the supply of to theweek.com/contest. 1978; it skyrocketed DOWN 55 Used a John Deere in popularity after the 1 Mass man 56 ___ consequence (at How to enter: Submissions should be emailed to release of 1982’s E.T. 2 Home to most all important) [email protected]. Please include your name, 29 Medicine approver Hawaiians 57 “___ So Bad” (Tom address, and daytime telephone number for verification; 32 Wacky Aykroyd 3 For ___ the Bell Tolls Petty song) this week, please type “Dog workout” in the subject line. 33 Org. for roadside 4 In the past 61 Surreal Spaniard Entries are due by noon, Eastern Time, Tuesday, Aug. 9. assistance 5 Pettable purrer 62 Enterprise alternative 34 Candy named for the 6 “___-la-la...” 63 Fantastic story Winners will appear on the Puzzle Page jokes printed on each 7 “I give up!” 65 ___-ops next issue and at theweek.com/puzzles wrapper 8 Holy 67 Musical TV presenters on Friday, Aug. 12. In the case of iden- 38 Fail to avert your gaze 9 The Merchant of 68 “___-hoo!” tical or similar entries, the first one 42 No voters Venice wit 69 OB-___ (certain doc) received gets credit. 43 Wish undone 10 Theatrical Thurman 44 Skateboard trick 11 Field doc WThe winner gets a one-year HMRS 45 ___ Virginians subscription to The Week. 46 Candy brand that 12 Like parkour hit it big in the early practitioners Sudoku ‘80s when President Reagan expressed a 13 Emulates Moana Fill in all the fondness for it 18 Lifesaving letters boxes so that 48 “This ___ joke, right?” 22 Do a vet’s job each row, column, 50 “Absolument!” 25 Brand in the freezer and outlined square includes all the numbers from 1 through 9. Difficulty: hard Find the solutions to all The Week’s puzzles online: www.theweek.com/puzzle. ©2022. All rights reserved. The Week (ISSN 1533-8304)) is published weekly, except January 7, January 14, July 15, and September 16. The Week is published by The Week Publications, Inc., 135 West 41st Street, 7th Floor, New York, NY 10017. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY, and at additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send change of address to The Week, PO Box 37252, Boone, IA 50037-0252. One-year subscription rates: U.S. $199; Canada $229; all other countries $269 in prepaid U.S. funds. Publications Mail Agreement No. 40031590, Registration No. 140467846. Return Undeliverable Canadian Addresses to P.O. Box 503, RPO West Beaver Creek, Richmond Hill, ON L4B 4R6. The Week is a member of The New York Times News Service, The Washington Post/Bloomberg News Service, McClatchy-Tribune Information Services, and subscribes to The Associated Press. The Week is part of Future Publishing Limited (company number 2008885), registered in England and Wales. Registered office: Quay House,The Ambury, Bath BA11UA. THE WEEK August 12, 2022 Sources: A complete list of publications cited inThe Week can be found at theweek.com/sources.



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