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OBITUARIES CONTROVERSY INTERNATIONAL
A CHAMPION The inevitable Europe’s
OF WOMEN’S election coronavirus
EQUALITY nightmare second wave
p.35 Ruth Bader p.6 p.14 Boris
Ginsburg Johnson

THE BEST OF THE U.S. AND INTERNATIONAL MEDIA

The chaos
to come
By filling Supreme Court seat,
will McConnell open
a Pandora’s box?
p.4

OCTOBER 2, 2020 VOLUME 20 ISSUE 995

ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT EVERYTHING THAT MATTERS WWW.THEWEEK.COM

 Contents 3

Editor’s letter
“Of course, it’s 2020.” That was the first thought that entered my
mind last week when a news alert lit up my phone announcing
that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had died. That
the country would now be subjected to a brutal and divisive battle
over her replacement seemed a perfectly natural development in
a year that has thrown up a succession of anxiety-inducing news
stories. The year kicked off with the U.S. and Iran teetering on the
brink of war, following the assassination of Iranian Gen. Qasem
Soleimani by an American drone and retaliatory Iranian mis-
sile strikes on U.S. bases in Iraq. The impeachment trial of Pres-
ident Trump began days later, and a deadly new respiratory dis-
ease crept inexorably westward from China. Soon the world was
in lockdown, coronavirus victims were piling up in morgues, and
unemployment numbers were soaring. May brought the death of
George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police, sparking a na-
tionwide wave of protests and riots that in turn triggered a back-
lash against the Black Lives Matter movement. Natural disasters
added to the chaos, with an unprecedented derecho storm flat-
tening a swath of the Midwest and cataclysmic wildfires reducing
more than 5 million acres of California and Oregon to ashes.
Given all this turmoil, it’s perhaps not surprising that a recent
survey found about half of Americans report feeling some signs of
depression—double the share in 2018. But the next three months
will offer no mental relief. Partisan tensions will be pushed to new
highs as the fight over the Supreme Court plays out alongside an
election campaign that both Republicans and Democrats regard
as an apocalyptic struggle for survival. We could see ugly court
battles over contested election results and millions of Americans
marching in the streets. There’s an apocryphal quote attributed to
Vladimir Lenin: “There are decades when nothing happens, and
there are weeks when decades happen.” Well, Theunis Bates
2020 is shaping up to be quite the century. Managing editor

NEWS
4 Main stories
The battle to fill Ruth
Bader Ginsburg’s
Supreme Court seat; the
U.S.’s Covid-19 death toll
tops 200,000
6 Controversy of the week
Are we headed for
election chaos this
November?
7 The U.S. at a glance
Kentucky police officer
indicted over Breonna
Taylor shooting; wildfires
rage on in the West
8 The world at a glance
Barbados says goodbye
to royalty; Iran hit with
new U.S. sanctions
10 People
Carla Bruni’s paternal
shock; John Boyega won’t
be Star Wars’ token black
11 Briefing
Explaining America’s
yawning black-white
wealth gap
12 Best U.S. columns
The battle over the 1619
Project; the Big Ten puts
athletes at risk
15 Best international
columns
Turkey vs. Greece in the
eastern Mediterranean
16 Talking points
Attorney General William
Barr’s partisan push; the
AP, Newscom
Editor-in-chief: William Falk
Managing editors: Theunis Bates,
Mark Gimein
Assistant managing editor: Jay Wilkins
Deputy editor/International: Susan Caskie
Deputy editor/Arts: Chris Mitchell
Senior editors: Chris Erikson, Danny Funt,
Michael Jaccarino, Dale Obbie,
Zach Schonbrun, Hallie Stiller
Art director: Dan Josephs
Photo editor: Mark Rykoff
Copy editor: Jane A. Halsey
Researchers: Joyce Chu, Alisa Partlan
Contributing editors: Ryan Devlin,
Bruno Maddox
Chief sales and marketing officer:
Adam Dub
SVP, marketing: Lisa Boyars
Ginsburg’s casket arrives at the Supreme Court. (pages 4, 16 and 35)
Executive account director: Sara Schiano
West Coast executive director: Tony Imperato
Head of brand marketing: Ian Huxley
ARTS LEISURE
Director of digital operations &
advertising: Andy Price
22 Books 27 Food & Drink
How the church shaped A Venetian pumpkin
Chief executive: Kerin O’Connor
Chief operating & financial officer:
our WEIRD societies risotto; booze-free spirits Kevin E. Morgan
for your next mocktail Director of financial reporting:
23 Author of the week Arielle Starkman
Consumer marketing director:
David Chang’s anger 28 Consumer Leslie Guarnieri
management Five of the best beauty HR manager: Joy Hart
gadgets; three apps that Operations manager: Cassandra Mondonedo
24 Art & Music
Trevor Paglen improve teleconferencing
Chairman: Jack Griffin
Dennis Group CEO: James Tye
turns
BUSINESS
surveillance U.K. founding editor: Jolyon Connell
into art 32 News at a glance
Company founder: Felix Dennis
25 Film & As the clock runs down,
Home TikTok deal falls apart;
cable cuts at NBCUniversal
Media
A Schitt’s 33 Making money
Creek sweep The high-risk rush to Visit us at TheWeek.com.
at the 2020 reopen offices; new bans For customer service go to www
Emmys on cashless stores .TheWeek.com/service or phone us
at 1-877-245-8151.
34 Best columns Renew a subscription at www

curse of the gender reveal Facebook’s marriage of .RenewTheWeek.com or give a gift

party; is Middle East Carla Bruni convenience with Trump; at www.GiveTheWeek.com.
peace any closer? (p.10) how banks facilitate crime
THE WEEK October 2, 2020
4 NEWS The main stories...
Republicans race to fill Ginsburg’s seat
What happened tional justification. That overreach must
Just days after the death of Supreme Court be reeled back.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, President
Trump prepared this week to announce Republicans are making a naked “grab
his nominee for her seat and Republicans for partisan advantage” built on “con-
appeared to have lined up the votes needed trived and hypocritical logic,” said The
for a speedy confirmation. Trump, who Washington Post. When Antonin Scalia
said he’d name his pick Saturday, pushed died in February 2016, the election was
for a vote before Election Day, citing the 10 months away. Now the election is only
possibility that a dispute over mail-in ballots six weeks away. By casting principle to
might reach the Supreme Court. “We need the wind, McConnell and the Republicans
nine justices,” he said. “You need that with stand to “undermine public confidence in
the unsolicited, millions of ballots they’re the Supreme Court” and worsen “already
sending.” Any doubts that Senate Majority toxic relations” on Capitol Hill.
Leader Mitch McConnell could get 51 votes McConnell: Has the votes he needs
to confirm Trump’s nominee ended when What the columnists said
only two of the 53 Senate Republicans—Susan Collins of Maine This court fight “will test how fragile American democracy really
and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska—said they’d oppose a confirmation is,” said John Harris in Politico.com. McConnell, who announced
vote. Democrats had called on Republicans to honor the principle he’d fill Ginsburg’s seat 90 minutes after her death was announced,
McConnell laid out in 2016, when he refused to hold hearings is waging a battle “exclusively about power, with no whisper of
on Obama nominee Merrick Garland in an election year on the pretense that anything else matters.” America is bitterly divided
grounds that voters should decide which party got to fill the seat. and facing an election whose very legitimacy is likely to be ques-
Some Democrats spoke of ending the filibuster and expanding the tioned, and McConnell’s shameless power play may inflict “more
court in retaliation should they win the Senate and presidency; Sen- trauma than an already splintering country can withstand.”
ate Minority Leader Charles Schumer said “nothing is off the table
for next year” if Republicans rush through a nominee. “Are you kidding me?” said John Podhoretz in Commentary
Magazine.com. “This is maybe the most uncontroversial thing that
Trump met Monday and Tuesday with federal appeals court Judge has happened during the Trump presidency this entire year.” Both
Amy Coney Barrett, a favorite of religious conservatives who has parties practice “power politics when it comes to the judiciary,”
emerged as the clear front-runner. Appeals court Judge Barbara La- and “there’s one basic and unignorable fact here.” The Constitu-
goa, a Cuban-American from swing state Florida, was also said to tion spells out how this is supposed to work: “Trump nominates
be under serious consideration. (See Talking Points.) Republicans and the Senate advises and consents.” That’s exactly what the
said they expected to approve the nominee before the election. Republicans are doing.

Mourners honored Ginsburg, a liberal icon and pioneering Pack the court, said David Faris in NewRepublic.com. If the
women’s rights advocate who was scheduled to become the first Democrats “win resoundingly” in November, they should end the
woman in history to lie in state in the
Capitol on Friday. (See Obituaries.) What next?
In a Reuters/Ipsos poll, 62 percent of With Senate control hanging in the balance in
respondents said the seat should be
November, the court fight will certainly have an
filled by the president who takes office
impact—but nobody’s sure exactly how, said
on Jan. 20. Republicans, however, have
Amber Phillips in WashingtonPost.com. Re-
long dreamed of cementing a conserva-
publicans who’ve been dragged down by sour
tive majority on the nation’s highest
views of Trump’s handling of the pandemic hope
court and overturning Roe v. Wade.
the court flap will change the subject, and re-
“God created Republicans to do three
mind anti-Trump Republicans what’s at stake. It
things,” said Republican strategist Brad
“should juice our base,” said a Republican strat-
Todd. “Cut taxes, kill foreign enemies,
egist. On the flip side, in purple states where
and confirm right-facing judges.”
Trump is unpopular, including Colorado and
What the editorials said Maine, the issue could boost Democrats who’ve
Republicans won the right to fill “spent months trying to tie GOP senators to the
Ginsburg’s seat when voters gave them president.” That could doom Sens. Cory Gardner
control of both the Senate and the presi- and Susan Collins. Democrats might benefit
dency, said National Review. “It would from “a surge of enthusiasm among progres-
be perverse to give up the chance” to re- sives alarmed by the conservative hijacking of
verse the liberal activism through which the court,” said Tom McCarthy in TheGuardian
the court has “strayed so far” from its .com. But Trump and Republicans may also ben-
proper constitutional role. In Roe v. efit from energizing evangelicals and conserva-
Wade, the court overruled state laws and tive Catholics. It’s simply too early to tell “which
“trampled on the most fundamental of way the politics will break. ”
filibuster and add four justices. Yes, it’s
a “radical gambit,” but it’s “gloriously
legal,” and “justified by the fact that
America’s political institutions this
century have consistently translated
minority support for Republicans into
political majorities.” Keep in mind that
public support for the now-endangered
Roe v. Wade is “at record highs,” said
Christina Cauterucci in Slate.com. A
June CBS poll showed that only 29
percent want it overturned.
This won’t end well, said David French
in TheDispatch.com. The bond Gins-
burg shared with political adversary
Scalia “reminds us of a time when
deep friendship could flourish across
profound disagreement.” But now
“enmity rules,” and a polarized coun-
try faces “a cascading series of events
that could strain the constitutional and
cultural fabric of this nation.” Every
American has to wonder: “How much
more tension and division can this na-
Reuters

human rights,” without any constitu- tion take?”

Illustration by Fred Harper.
THE WEEK October 2, 2020 Cover photos from Getty, AP, Reuters
 ... and how they were covered NEWS 5

U.S. hits a grim pandemic milestone

What happened
The U.S. surpassed 200,000 coronavirus-
related deaths this week, days after Presi-
dent Trump publicly challenged the Centers
for Disease Control’s scientific advice on
masks and its timeline for a Covid-19
vaccine. Trump said CDC director Robert
Redfield had been “confused” when he
told Congress that a vaccine likely won’t be
“fully available” until the summer or fall of
2021. The president insisted that a vaccine
could be approved as soon as next month,
with 100 million doses ready by the end of
the year. Concern about the political pres- A memorial to Covid-19 victims on the National Mall
sure being exerted on the CDC grew after
the agency published and then removed new guidelines warning that
the virus can be transmitted via respiratory aerosols—tiny particles
that can linger in the air—as well as by larger respiratory droplets
that fall quickly to the ground. Trump this week gave his response
to the pandemic an “A plus,” and at a packed rally in Ohio where
few were wearing masks, he falsely said Covid-19 “affects virtually
nobody” except “elderly people with heart problems.”
Minnesota, Montana, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Wyoming, and Utah
set record highs this week for seven-day averages of new confirmed
cases, and 21 other states saw increases in infections. Olivia Troye, a Fear-mongering liberals are the real health threat, said Michael
former coronavirus task force adviser to Vice President Mike Pence,
spoke out emphatically against Trump’s handling of the pandemic,
saying he showed a “flat-out disregard for human life” and cared
only about his re-election. Troye, whom the White House called a
“disgruntled” ex-staffer, claims Trump once said, “Maybe this Covid turer,” and he cannot stop “medical authorities from giving their
thing is a good thing” because “I don’t have to shake hands with
these disgusting people”—meaning his supporters.
“Democrats often say they want to
emulate Europe,” said The Wall Street
Journal. “We can only hope this time they
mean it.” Because while Covid-19 is again
surging in Spain, France, Germany, and
the U.K., these countries aren’t shutting
down their economies. With death rates
lower than in the spring and hospitals
coping better, governments are “adopting
narrow, local lockdowns” and trusting
individuals to behave responsibly. We
should aim to be “similarly adaptable in
the face of an evolving pandemic.”
What the columnists said
The Trump administration is letting “politics distort science,” said
Claudia Wallis in ScientificAmerican.com. Leaked emails have
revealed how political appointees at the Department of Health and
Human Services have tried to slow the release of data that contradict
Trump, including a negative report on hydroxychloroquine—the
malaria drug the president touted as a Covid-19 therapy—and infor-
mation on children spreading the virus. With scientific findings being
run “through a political distortion field,” will the public be able to
“trust federal assessments of coronavirus treatments and vaccines?”
Brendan Dougherty in NationalReview.com. Democrats such as
vice presidential nominee Sen. Kamala Harris are fueling distrust
in a future vaccine by claiming that Trump is unsafely rushing the
approval process. But “Trump is not a pharmaceutical manufac-
opinion on it.” If and when a vaccine becomes available, it will be
those authorities that are “demanding your trust.”

What the editorials said
Mourn the 200,000 dead, said The Washington Post, “and be
angry—very angry.” This tragedy has been worsened by the presi-
dent, who has minimized the threat, refused to mobilize a large-scale
government response, dismissed the importance of mask wearing,
and prodded GOP states to reopen before viral spread was under
control. “Nothing more could have been done,” Trump has said
about coronavirus casualties. But there is work to do. “Wear a mask.
Social distance. Wash your hands. And vote.”
The U.S. is trapped in a pandemic “death spiral,” said Ed Yong in
TheAtlantic.com. Flu season is approaching, which will make it
harder to identify Covid-19 symptoms, and winter is not far away,
which will pack people indoors. Our failure to build testing capac-
ity and hire enough contact tracers means that many parts of the
U.S. could see a repeat of the horror that New York City suffered
this spring. Tragedy-numbed Americans might “stop treating the
pandemic as the emergency that it is,” and instead accept thou-
sands of daily deaths as “the unthinkable normal.”

It wasn’t all bad
QA Connecticut teen’s heroism
saved a family from a burning
car. Justin Gavin, 18, was on a
walk when he saw an SUV on
fire. He immediately ran to the
vehicle, which had rolled to a
stop. He helped the mother out
of the car first, then opened
the back door and pulled out
her three kids, ages 1,4, and
9, moments before the flames
engulfed the car. “I just felt like
if I was in that situation, I would
Getty, Don Anderson
QWhen a North Dakota farmer had a heart attack, his neighbors QElias Aviles was used to work-
ing hard at his taco truck, but
teamed up to help him harvest his crops. While Lane Unhjem
was harvesting his wheat and canola, the combine caught fire. when the pandemic hit, hard
Unhjem went into cardiac arrest and was rushed to the hospi- work wasn’t enough. One day,
tal. While he was recovering, 60 farmers showed up at his place, Taqueria El Torito only brought in
determined not to let his crops go to waste. With 11 combines, $6. When his daughter Giselle, 21,
six grain carts, and 15 tractor-trailers, the group harvested over found out, she posted a plea on
1,000 acres of Twitter. The next day, her tweet
his crop in just had garnered 2,000 retweets.
seven hours. When the Humble, Texas, taco
“You help your truck reopened on Monday, a
neighbors out line of customers was waiting for
when they need it—some had showed up as early
it,” family friend as 6 a.m. It was so busy, Aviles
Jenna Binde had to shut down twice to restock

want somebody to help me out,” said, “and don’t ingredients. “It feels amazing,
Gavin said. “I guess my instincts expect anything because I was just trying to just
took over.” It takes a village—and lots of equipment in return.” help him,” his daughter said.

THE WEEK October 2, 2020

6 NEWS Controversy of the week
Election 2020: Trump’s plan to nullify mail-in votes
Beware the “Red Mirage,” said Trip Gabriel and declaring Trump the winner. They’ll then
in The New York Times. That’s what poll- send Trump-pledged electors to the Electoral
sters are calling the “doomsday scenario” for College. If Democratic governors of some of
Democrats—and our democracy—on elec- these states send Biden-pledged electors, we
tion night 2020. Polls show that about half of will be thrown into an unprecedented “con-
Democrats, who are more wary of the corona- stitutional crisis.” It’s even possible that on
virus, plan to vote by mail in the presidential Jan. 20, 2021, both Trump and Biden will
election; only 18 percent of Republicans say show up at the Inauguration claiming to be
they’ll mail in ballots. This makes it likely that, president. This year’s post-election chaos will
absent a Joe Biden landslide, President Donald make Florida in 2000 look tame, said Chris
Trump will hold the lead when polls close on Trump: Stop counting on election night
Smith in VanityFair.com. Democrats need to
election night, with millions of Biden votes tied be ready for “mass action” on the streets, a
up in slower-to-count mail-in ballots. Trump has been “pushing prolonged court battle, and all-out information warfare.
denunciations of mailed-in votes for months” and has already
made it clear that he will declare victory when the polls close—and Let me get this straight, said Michael Brendan Dougherty in
insist that any uncounted votes at that point are fraudulent and NationalReview.com. If Biden gets defeated, Democrats already
should be thrown out. In this claim he’ll have the loyal assistance “promise to be sore (and violent) losers,” with rioting on the
of Attorney General William Barr; the GOP legislatures in critical streets...but it’s Trump who’s the existential threat to democracy?
swing states Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Florida; and Both sides suspect the other of trying to steal the election, said
possibly a new 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court. Shadi Hamid in TheAtlantic.com, but it’s true that Republicans are
Given that he’s been trailing Biden in the national polls by about probably more likely than Democrats to accept a fair defeat. A sec-
8 percentage points for months, the Red Mirage might be Trump’s ond straight Electoral College win by Trump, after he’s trailed in
best hope of clinging to power. He all but admitted that last week, the polls all summer by large margins, “is the outcome most likely
saying he was “counting on the federal court system to make it so to undermine faith in democracy.” Enraged Democrats will react
that we can actually have an evening where we know who wins.” with mass demonstrations. Civil unrest may follow.

This is not a hypothetical, said Barton Gelman in TheAtlantic
.com. Trump won’t concede the election “under any circum-
stance,” and Republican operatives are already “laying the
groundwork” to invalidate as many mail-in votes as necessary to
get him a second term. GOP sources tell me the Trump campaign
is even formulating plans with battleground-state legislatures to
simply “bypass election results” by invalidating mail-in ballots
To make the Red Mirage less likely to happen, said Richard Pildes
in CNN.com, Democrats must now embrace three simple words:
“Vote in person.” Yes, this cuts against a year of principled fight-
ing for the right to vote by mail. But with Republicans now openly
scheming to have mail-in ballots tossed out, “no action is more
critical” than to strap on a face mask and go vote. The fate of our
democracy may depend on it.

Good week for: Pentagon used Covid

Only in America
QA Florida man is outraged
that school officials banned his
fifth-grade son from wearing
a Hooters-branded face mask.
“I don’t understand why it’s
‘inappropriate,’” says Steve
Golba, who says he and his
son Ian, 11, like the food at
the “breastaurant” franchise,
which features scantily clad
waitresses. “Do we feel wom-
en’s bodies are offensive?”
Golba asked. “I don’t.”
QSheriff’s deputies in Wil-
liamson County, Texas, were
allegedly given steakhouse
gift cards as a reward for us-
ing violence against civilians.
In an ongoing investigation,
several deputies have testified
that Cmdr. Steve Deaton (now
retired) would reward deputies
who used force by declaring
them a “WilCo badass” and
giving them gift cards. “They
had the intention that we were
all ‘WilCo badass,’” former
deputy Christopher Pisa said.
Virtual reality, after TV viewers heard Philadelphia Eagles quar-
funds for jets, drones
terback Carson Wentz get showered with boos during the Eagles’ The Pentagon funneled
blowout home loss to the L.A. Rams, despite there being no Philly nearly $1 billion allocated by
fans in attendance. SportsIllustrated.com praised sound engineers Congress for the production
for “ensuring a more authentic experience for the fans at home.” of personal protective equip-
Rustic chic, after fashion house Gucci debuted faded denim ment to defense contractors,
The Washington Post reported
overalls with fake grass stains on the legs, selling for $1,400 a pair. this week. The money, part of
Dairy farmer Lauren Gitlin, 40, told the New York Post that the $3 trillion in aid intended for
grass stains should be “more knee-centric,” and that Gucci “should emergency spending, was in-
add s--- smears as well” for maximum authenticity. stead used to produce jet en-
Puppy love, with a new study showing that a puppy’s heart rate gines, drone technology, body
increases by around 46 percent when it hears the words “I love armor, and fabric for soldiers’
you” from its owner. uniforms. Democrats called
for an investigation after the
Bad week for: report, which was based on
contract announcements and
Bragging, after GOP Sen. Kelly Loeffler released a campaign ad
other public records, was
describing her as “more conservative than Attila the Hun,” in which
published, saying it was “un-
an actor portraying the 5th-century Mongol warlord grunts his conscionable” that pandemic
desire to “fight the government” and “eliminate the liberal scribes.” money was rerouted while the
Anglophones, with new research suggesting that English speakers country faced a severe short-
may transmit the coronavirus more readily than speakers of some age of N95 masks and other
other languages. The key factor could be English’s dependence on PPE. The Pentagon countered
the spittle-projecting “aspirated consonants” p, k, and t. that the expenditures were
not only legal but necessary
Dee-fense, after the coach of Ripdorf, a minor-league German soc- to protect ailing industries and
cer team, ordered his players to keep 6 feet of social distance away companies that are vital to
from the players of SV Holdenstedt II, who were recently exposed to national security.
the coronavirus. The final score: Ripdorf 0, Hodenstedt 37.
AP

THE WEEK October 2, 2020

 The U.S. at a glance ...
Yakima, Wash.
Postal slowdown:
A federal judge
has temporarily
blocked the U.S.
Postal Service from
making a series
Protesting service cuts of operational
changes that have
slowed down the delivery of the mail.
Judge Stanley Bastian said that the 14
states that had sued the agency had ade-
quately proven that President Trump and
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy orches-
trated “a politically motivated attack on
the efficiency of the Postal Service” that
would “irreparably harm the states’ ability
to administer the 2020 general election.”
DeJoy took over leadership of the USPS
in June, and since then on-time delivery of
first-class mail has fallen from above 90
percent to 83 percent, and much lower in
some regions. Among the changes on his
watch was an order for trucks to
follow schedules even if it meant
leaving mail behind. Bastian said
policy changes, including the
removal of sorting machines
and public collection boxes,
appeared to be part of an
“intentional” effort to “disrupt
and challenge” the election’s
legitimacy, and amounted to
“voter disenfranchisement.”
California
and Oregon
Still burning:
Shorthanded
fire crews con-
tinued to battle
one of the larg-
Battling the Bobcat Fire
est wildfires
to ever rage in Los Angeles County this
week as the Bobcat Fire rampaged across
some 175 square miles in the mountains
and desert northeast of the city. Officials
said 29 structures had been destroyed,
although more than 1,000 were threat-
ened, and the inferno itself remained only
17 percent contained. In all, nearly 19,000
firefighters were still battling 27 major
Getty, Hilary Swift/The New York Times/Redux, Reuters, AP
blazes across the state this week, part of
a historically destructive wildfire season
that has scorched a total of 5 million acres
and forced the evacuation of tens of thou-
sands from their homes. In Oregon, 10
major fires—down from 17—still blazed,
including the Lionshead Fire, which has
burned more than 200,000 acres. Some
of the summer’s unprecedented fires have
been contained, and residents of the San
Francisco Bay Area saw smoke-free skies
for the first time in several weeks.
Bemidji, Minn.
‘Good genes’: President Trump praised an
overwhelmingly white crowd of support-
ers last week for their “good genes” dur-
ing a campaign rally in Minnesota. “You
have good genes—you know that, right?”
Trump asked of those who had assembled
at an airport to hear him speak. “A lot
of it is about the genes, isn’t it, don’t you
believe? The racehorse theory.” Trump
has referred before to the idea that
humans could be improved by combining
superior genes, much as thoroughbreds
are mated to produce faster racehorses.
The speech elicited wide protests, includ-
ing from Jewish groups, who compared
it to discredited eugenics theories. Steve
Silberman, a Holocaust historian, called
Trump’s remarks “indistinguishable from
Nazi rhetoric that led to Jews, disabled
people, LGBTQ, Romani, and others
being exterminated.” The chair of the
local Republican committee dismissed the
remarks as “just a manner of speech.”
Louisville
No homicide charge: Following months of
protests, a grand jury indicted one of the
police officers involved in the fatal shoot-
ing of 26-year-old EMT Breonna Taylor
on three counts of wanton endanger-
ment, but declined to charge two others.
Former Louisville Det. Brett Hankison
was fired in June for “wantonly and
blindly” firing into Taylor’s apartment on
March 13 after breaking down her door
with Sgt. Jon Mattingly and Det. Myles
Cosgrove. The three were executing a
“no-knock” warrant in search of drugs
and a suspected drug dealer. They found
neither, but Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth
Walker III, fired one shot with a licensed
firearm, wounding Mattingly. Kentucky
Attorney General Daniel Cameron
said that while this was an “emotional,
gut-wrenching case,” the facts justified
charges only against Hankison. The
Taylor family’s lawyer, Ben Crump, called
the lack of a murder or manslaughter
charge “outrageous and offensive.”
NEWS 7
Washington, D.C.
Mueller post-mortem:
A top deputy who
served on special
counsel Robert
Mueller’s
investigation
of Russian Weissmann: Mueller missed
election interference says Mueller let the
country down by not directly stating
that his investigation found Trump had
committed crimes and could be charged
with obstruction of justice. Andrew
Weissmann argues in his new book,
Where Law Ends: Inside the Mueller
Investigation, that the special counsel
and other top aides did not push hard
enough for evidence, failed to subpoena
Trump and his family members for face-
to-face interviews, and decided against
probing the president’s financial dealings
with Russia—all for fear that doing so
would anger Trump sufficiently that he
would fire Mueller and throw the coun-
try into crisis. “Had we given it
our all...we could have done
more,” Weissmann wrote,
adding that Mueller was also
naïve to trust Attorney General
William Barr not to spin the
report and that Barr, in misrepresent-
ing its conclusions, “betrayed both
friend and country.”
Florida
Voting rights: Former New York City
Mayor Michael Bloomberg said this week
he’d raised more than $16 million to
pay the court fines and fees that blocked
almost 32,000 Floridians with felony
convictions from voting in November. The
contributions, which come from individu-
als and foundations, not Bloomberg’s own
$50 billion fortune, will add to $7 million
raised separately by the Florida Rights
Restoration Coalition (FRRC) from some
44,000 contributors across the nation. A
2018 referendum known as “Amendment
4” returned voting rights to Florida fel-
ons; a year later, Republican lawmakers
passed a law prohibiting them from vot-
ing before paying all fines and penalties.
Almost 800,000 felons in Florida could
potentially be disenfranchised by that law,
which was upheld in September
in federal court. Among others
who also donated to FRRC’s
effort are NBA superstars
LeBron James and Michael
Jordan and musician
John Legend. Rep. Matt
Gaetz (R-Fla.) accused
Bloomberg of try-
ing to buy votes for
Democrats. Bloomberg
THE WEEK October 2, 2020
8 NEWS The world at a glance ...
London Vatican City
Quid pro quo? WikiLeaks founder Deal with China: The Vatican is preparing
Julian Assange was offered a to sign a two-year extension of its 2018 agree-
presidential pardon on the condi- ment with the Chinese government regarding
tion that he help cover up Russia’s the appointment of bishops—a deal that U.S.
involvement in the 2016 hack- Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said last week
ing of Democratic Party emails, would endanger the Holy See’s “moral author-
Assange’s lawyer told a London ity.” For decades, the Catholic Church in China Pope Francis
A protest ad outside the court court last week. Assange is battling was split between a Beijing-appointed clergy and an underground
extradition to the U.S., where he faces life in prison on espionage church loyal to the Vatican. But under the 2018 deal both authori-
charges. The lawyer, Jennifer Robinson, said she witnessed then– ties were given a say in bishopric appointments in China. In an
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher and Trump associate Charles Johnson editorial for the Catholic journal First Things, Pompeo noted that
making the offer in an August 2017 meeting at the Ecuadoran the church had once helped topple Communist regimes in Eastern
Embassy in London, where Assange was holed up to evade arrest. Europe. “The same power of moral witness,” he said, “should be
Rohrabacher and Johnson stated President Trump “had approved” deployed today with respect to the Chinese Communist Party.”
of the meeting, said Robinson. James Lewis, a lawyer for the U.S.
government in the extradition case, told the court, “We obviously
do not accept the truth of what was said by others.”

Paris
Stay home, Dad: France is going to force new fathers to bond with
their infants. The country will double its paid paternity leave from
14 to 28 days, President Emmanuel Macron announced this week,
and seven of those days will be mandatory. Studies show that
under the current, noncompulsory system, only two-thirds of new
fathers take any leave for the birth or adoption of a child. French
mothers are allowed to take 16 weeks of leave, half of which is
compulsory. The new measure, which will extend to any partner of
a new mother, married or not, will cost at least $585 million a year
and take effect next summer.

Bridgetown, Barbados
No more queen: Barbados is set to remove Britain’s
Queen Elizabeth II as its head of state next year. “The
time has come to fully leave our colonial past behind,”
said Governor-General Sandra Mason, delivering
a speech written by Prime Minister Mia Mottley.
“Barbadians want a Barbadian head of state.” Anti-
monarchists have long agitated for the country to Elizabeth II: Losing currency
become a republic, but this year they got a boost from
the global Black Lives Matter movement, which has spurred locals
to demand the removal of colonial-era statues. It’s been nearly
30 years since a former British colony dumped the queen, but
Buckingham Palace had a muted reaction, saying it was a matter
for Barbadians to decide. Locals took to social media to point out
that they still had a queen in Barbadian-born pop star Rihanna.
Paramaribo, Suriname
Oil and politics: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo swept through
four Latin American nations this week, looking to shore up Concepción, Paraguay
support for Trump administration efforts to oust Venezuelan Is he alive? The family of kid-
President Nicolás Maduro. Pompeo visited Brazil, Guyana, and napped former Paraguayan Vice
Colombia—all of which border Venezuela—as well as Suriname. In President Óscar Denis is asking the
Bogotá, he announced nearly $350 million in funding for displaced rebel Paraguayan People’s Army for proof
Venezuelans who have fled to Colombia. In of life before it hands over any more ran-
Guyana and Suriname, which recently dis- som money. Denis and a staff member
Denis’ family delivers food.
covered huge oil reserves, Pompeo warned were kidnapped from his ranch by the tiny
officials against partnering with China Marxist guerrilla group earlier this month; the staffer was released
to extract the oil. “We’ve watched the after five days. The 74-year-old ex-VP suffers from diabetes and
Chinese Communist Party invest in had tested positive for coronavirus just before his kidnapping.
AP (2), Alamy, AP, Shutterstock

countries,” he said at a press confer-
ence with Surinamese President Chan
Santokhi, “and it all seems great at the
front end, and then it all comes falling
down when the political costs con-
Pompeo and Santokhi nected to that becomes clear.
THE WEEK October 2, 2020
His family has given $2 million worth of food and supplies to 40
indigenous communities in ransom but has heard nothing from the
abductors. The kidnapping came a week after the Paraguayan army
carried out a raid on a guerrilla camp and claimed it had killed two
militants. In fact, the dead were young girls—ages 11 and 12—
who’d been visiting their fathers at the camp.
 The world at a glance ...
Helsinki
Covid-sniffing dogs: Finland this week deployed sniffer dogs to
Helsinki Airport to check fliers for the coronavirus. During a four-
month trial, air travelers will be asked to provide a sweat sample
swabbed from their necks. A dog will then sniff the sample
for 10 seconds and give its verdict by scratching a paw,
barking, or giving another canine signal. Whether passengers
test positive or not, they will be urged to take a standard
polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test, so the sniffer dogs’
accuracy can be monitored. A similar trial conducted
in Dubai this summer found trained dogs could
detect the virus with 90 percent accuracy. Finnish
researcher Anna Hielm-Bjorkman said the dogs
can even identify people who “are not yet PCR pos-
itive but will become PCR positive within a week.”
But because training sniffer dogs is expensive and
A canine tester time-consuming, the animals won’t be widely used.
Ren: Xi is a ‘clown.’
Kaduna, Nigeria
Pedophiles to be executed: A Nigerian state has passed a law that
will punish child rapists with castration and possibly death. Men
found guilty of raping children under age 14 in Kaduna will have
their testicles cut off before execution; those found guilty of rap-
ing children over 14 will be castrated but not executed. The new
punishment comes amid a national rape crisis. According to official
government statistics, 2 million women and girls in Nigeria are sex-
ually assaulted each year. Since the coronavirus lockdown began,
Reuters, Getty, AP, Getty
gang rapes of girls and young women have shocked the nation,
including an assault by four masked men on a minor in her home
and the gang rape and murder of an 18-year-old. Critics of the new
law say it could lead to fewer rapes being reported, particularly if
the rapist is known to the victim.
NEWS 9
Krasnoyarsk, Russia
Cult leader arrested: Russian special forces helicop-
tered into a remote Siberian camp this week to arrest
a notorious cult leader who claims to be the rein-
carnation of Jesus. Sergei Torop, 59, known to his
5,000 followers as Vissarion, was a former traffic cop
who had an epiphany in 1990, just before the Soviet
Union collapsed, and began preaching that the end of
the world was nigh. He founded the Church of the
Last Testament and ordered adherents to follow him
to Siberia, adopt veganism, and celebrate his January
birthday in lieu of Christmas. Torop was arrested
along with his right-hand man, Vadim Redkin, a for- Torop
mer drummer in a boy band, and will be charged with running an
illegal religious organization. Authorities say the cult has extorted
money from followers and subjected them to emotional abuse for
decades. But officials only moved against it now, Russian media
said, because the cult was in a dispute with local business interests.
Beijing
Tycoon jailed: A Chinese real estate mogul who criticized President
Xi Jinping’s response to the pandemic has been sentenced to 18
years in prison. Ren Zhiqiang, former head of the state-owned
Huayuan Group, was detained in March after writing a blistering
critique of Xi’s performance during a videoconference involv-
ing thousands of Communist Party officials. “I saw not an
emperor standing there exhibiting his ‘new clothes,’” Ren
wrote, “but a clown who was stripped naked and insisted on
continuing being emperor.” Ren, 69, was convicted of cor-
ruption, embezzlement of public funds, and abuse of
power, charges that were almost certainly trumped
up. The sentence is likely meant as a warning that
criticism of Xi will not be tolerated.
Lanzhou, China
Disease leak: Several thousand people in northwestern China have
tested positive for the bacterial disease brucellosis, which causes
headache, fever, and fatigue, following a leak at a biopharmaceu-
tical factory. The disease, also called Malta fever, mainly infects
cattle, pigs, and goats and typically spreads to humans through
unpasteurized milk or undercooked meat; human-to-human trans-
mission has not been seen. It usually responds to antibiotics, but up
to 10 percent of sufferers can develop chronic organ damage. In a
report this week, the Lanzhou Health Commission said contami-
nated waste gas leaked from the factory—which was producing
vaccines for cattle—between late July and late August last year.
Dozens of workers at the Lanzhou Veterinary Research Institute,
downwind of the factory, fell ill, and over the following months
more than 3,000 people in the wider region were sickened.
Tehran
New sanctions: President Trump signed an execu-
tive order this week that places new sanctions on
Iranian officials and entities, as well as on those
that sell them weapons, under the terms of the
2015 Iranian nuclear deal. Because the U.S. unilat-
erally withdrew from the United Nations–backed
deal in 2018, most U.N. members believe the
U.S. has no legal standing to enforce those sanc-
tions. In a recorded video sent to the virtual U.N.
General Assembly this week, Iranian President
Hassan Rouhani compared his nation to George
Floyd, the black man killed by Minneapolis police
in May, saying, “We instantly recognize the feet
kneeling on the neck as the feet of arrogance on
the neck of independent nations.” A mural in Tehran
THE WEEK October 2, 2020
10 NEWS People
Why Boyega is down on Disney
John Boyega wasn’t happy with his role in the
new Star Wars trilogy, said Jimi Famurewa
in GQ-Magazine.co.uk. He played a storm-
trooper who joins the Resistance, but after a
fairly prominent role in the first of the films,
his character wasn’t developed further and was
sidelined. Boyega came away feeling Disney
had cast him as a token African-American in
a one-dimensional role. “What I would say to Disney,” he says,
“is do not bring out a black character, market them to be much
more important in the franchise than they are, and then have
them pushed to the side. It’s not good. I’ll say it straight up.” The
British actor was very active in this summer’s Black Lives Matter
protests in London, and after that awakening, he is now much
more openly addressing issues of race in the film industry. “What
they want you to say is, ‘I enjoyed being a part of it. It was a
great experience...’ Nah, nah, nah.” The white actors in the series,
he says, were given central roles with more complex characters.
“They gave all the nuance to Adam Driver, all the nuance to Daisy
Ridley,” he says of his co-stars. “Let’s be honest. Daisy knows this.
Adam knows this. Everybody knows. I’m not exposing anything.”

Steinem’s unfinished business

At 86, Gloria Steinem has no plans to retire from activism, says
David Marchese in The New York Times. “The progress we’ve
made is not sufficient,” says the feminist icon. “But there is an
advantage to being old. I have a role to play in the movement
by saying, ‘Here’s when it was worse.’” With Donald Trump in
office and left- and right-wing activists clashing in the street, aren’t
things pretty bad for progressives now? “We are at a point of a
backlash because we are winning,” she says. “Most Americans
agree with what social justice movements have been saying. But
that means 40 percent of the country feels deprived of their posi-
tion in an old hierarchy, and they’re in full backlash.” Of all
the internal struggles in the feminist movement, Steinem is most
regretful about the supposed clash between white and black femi-
nists. “The public image of the women’s movement as white is a
problem,” she says. “It was led by black women! Sometimes it’s
hard for us to see that because we have a pretty racist view of his-
tory, and we tend to see white people as leaders.” As she soldiers
on, Steinem credits her tenacity to her late husband, who taught
her to live in the moment. “I have to keep reminding myself that
even if I live to 100, which I have every intention of doing, it’s not
that long left. I just hope that I don’t die saying, ‘But! Wait!’”
Bruni’s paternal surprise
Carla Bruni was in her 30s when she learned the shocking truth
about her parentage, says Andrew Billen in The Times (U.K.). Born
in Italy, the 52-year-old model turned singer moved to France when
she was 3, because of her wealthy family’s fear of being kidnapped
by the Red Brigades or the Mafia. She suffered from mild agora-
phobia in her teens, but generally had a happy childhood. Her
mother was a concert pianist, her father a successful businessman.
But when he was dying in 1996, her father told her a secret: Her
biological father was a Brazilian millionaire with whom her mother
had had a six-year affair. Was she devastated? “No, I was relieved.
I said, ‘That’s why I am so complicated and anxious.’” Surely,
though, she was angry she hadn’t been told sooner? “No, no, no.
The way they did it was really nice. My father said, ‘Please, don’t
tell your mother I knew. I wouldn’t want to offend her.’ That was
kind. And my mother said, ‘I can’t believe your father knew. He
didn’t tell me anything in 40 years.’” Bruni is very devoted to her
own husband, former French President Nicolas Sarkozy. But she
makes it clear that, unlike her father, she wouldn’t tolerate infidel-
ity. “I told him if he cheats on me, I’ll cut his throat. He knows that.”

Q Kim Kardashian is reportedly
mulling a divorce from husband
Kanye West after the rapper’s latest
meltdown. The reality star and
aspiring lawyer, 39, “has the whole
divorce planned out,” a source tells
NYPost.com, adding that “she’s
waiting for him to get through
his latest episode.” West, 43, last
week posted a video of himself
urinating on one of his 21 Grammy
awards while calling for greater
artists’ ownership over their work. In
another tweet, he made a cryptic com-
ment about “going to war” and having
“out of” his life. A source tells UsMagazine
.com that West—who has said he’s been di-
agnosed as bipolar—hasn’t been “abiding to
terms of his care plan” and that Kardashian
is weary of his manic episodes.
Q Daytime talk queen Ellen DeGeneres
used her new season’s opening episode to
acknowledge allegations that she oversaw
“a toxic work environment” and that “things
happened here that never should have
happened.” DeGeneres, 62, apologized to
those “who were affected” after several
former employees said they’d experienced
racism, sexual harassment, and intimidation
while working for her show. Three produc-
ers were fired. DeGeneres insisted that she
actually is the nice “person that you see on
sometimes angry, adding, “I am working on
all of that.”
Q Martha Stewart is expanding her brand-
ing empire to CBD products. The domestic
goddess, 79, has partnered with Canopy
Growth to launch a line of cannabidiol (CBD)
gummies, oil drops, and soft gels for pets
and humans ranging from $34.99 to $44.99.
Stewart joined the company as an adviser
in 2019 after being introduced to its founder
by her pal the rapper Snoop Dogg. Stewart,
known to gobble as many as four CBD
gummies an hour, said of the hemp-derived
product, “It’s not high like a marijuana high.
It’s a CBD high, like, relaxed.” Stewart said
she became intrigued after getting a contact
high from Snoop in 2015. “Snoop must have
Getty, AP (2)

his daughter North West—one of his TV.” But she also conceded, “I am also a lot smoked 10 giant fat blunts, and I inhaled all
four children with Kardashian—taken of other things,” including “impatient” and that smoke,” she said. “I felt really good.”

THE WEEK October 2, 2020

 Briefing NEWS 11

The black wealth gap

Decades after the civil rights movement, African-Americans still hold a fraction of the wealth of white Americans. Why?

How big is the gap? which funneled the benefits away from
It’s staggering. The net worth of a typi- blacks. And the 1956 Federal Highway
cal white family in 2016—including Act that helped create the suburbs
home, retirement accounts, and all bulldozed and isolated black neighbor-
assets—was nearly 10 times greater hoods, creating ghettos.
than that of a black family, at $171,000
to $17,600. This gulf even includes Didn’t the Civil Rights Act help?
African-Americans whose households The 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibited
are headed by college graduates, who discrimination and strengthened vot-
actually have less net worth than white ing rights and the desegregation of
households headed by high school schools. But even as it “struck down
dropouts. Wealth begets wealth through legal barriers,” says historian Leon
generations, and African-Americans Litwack, “it failed to dismantle eco-
have missed out on that transfer for nomic barriers.” The wealth gap was
centuries. Just 8 percent of black fami- already so large that even if blacks
lies receive an inheritance from parents A tenement next to a new high-rise in Chicago, 1963
were paid the same as whites for the
or grandparents. For someone with no same job—and they were not—they
buffer of savings and no family member who can help, any finan- were unable to catch up. Meanwhile, the era of mass incarcera-
cial emergency—a sudden illness or job loss—is a catastrophe. tion had begun. By the 1980s, black men were 11 times as likely
to be incarcerated as whites, thanks partly to laws punishing use
How did the gap start? of crack cocaine an order of magnitude harsher than powder
After the Civil War, Reconstruction was supposed to begin mak- cocaine, which was favored by wealthier whites. Our educational
ing up for the hundreds of years of slavery during which African- system also perpetuates black poverty: Unlike in most other
Americans had wages, property, and even spouses and children advanced nations, schools are funded locally and are tied to the
stolen from them. But the “40 acres and a mule” promised by local tax base, which means that people growing up in poor
Gen. William Sherman was yanked away by Abraham Lincoln’s neighborhoods go to inadequate schools. Far from shrinking, the
successor, President Andrew Johnson, and the little land that had racial wealth gap has in fact grown over the past few decades,
been parceled out was returned to the white former slavehold- particularly after the 2008 financial crisis, which wiped out much
ers. Most blacks in the South after the war were forced to toil as of the progress blacks had made (see Box). While median white
sharecroppers, perpetually in debt to white landowners. Blacks household incomes rose by a third from 1983 to 2016, typical
who managed to succeed despite all this fell victim to white terror- black household incomes actually dropped by 50 percent.
ism, as in the 1898 Wilmington, N.C., massacre that wiped out a
black-led government in the nation’s only successful coup, or the But don’t some black people succeed?
1921 Tulsa massacre in which jealous whites attacked, burned, Yes, but individual efforts to “bootstrap” one’s way up the eco-
and even bombed from the air a thriving neighborhood known as nomic ladder face enormous obstacles. A 2019 Georgetown
Black Wall Street. With segregation and University study showed that wealth
Jim Crow laws depriving them of the How Covid-19 worsened the gap in youth is a better predictor of suc-
vote and of economic opportunity, many When the coronavirus hit this year, black cess than intelligence. Racism in
blacks abandoned the South in the Great Americans were still reeling from the 2008 hiring persists, as numerous studies
Migration, only to find more-subtle dis- financial crisis. That downturn had wiped out 53 have shown that pit a résumé with a
crimination waiting in the North. percent of all black wealth, largely because sub- “black-sounding” name against a simi-
prime lenders had targeted black communities lar one with a white name. Marriage
What kind of discrimination? with loans on bad terms. Then came the Covid- and stable families help create wealth,
The New Deal was meant to help the 19 shutdown. While 22 percent of all U.S. busi- and married black women have more
poor across America, but it had racism nesses shuttered between February and April wealth than single black women. But
baked into it. Rather than overturning this year, 41 percent of black-owned businesses many black men with low incomes
racial covenants that kept blacks out closed. Many African-American business own- do not feel marriageable; moreover,
of desirable neighborhoods, the new ers couldn’t access the Payroll Protection a 2017 DuBois Cook Center study
Federal Housing Administration pro- Program, because loans tended to go to large showed that wealth differences persist
moted them. The government Home firms that had existing relationships with major between the races despite marriage sta-
banks. One study found that white owners who
Owners’ Loan Corporation marked tus. Structural racism leaves African-
went in person to a bank to ask for a PPP loan
majority-black districts in red on maps, Americans trapped in a wealth gap
fared much better than blacks who did so, even
so banks would not extend government- when the black owners had better financial
that is actually widening, not narrow-
insured loans there—suppressing both profiles. And many black-owned businesses are ing. “It is as though we have run up a
black homeownership and business sole proprietorships, which weren’t covered. As credit-card bill and, having pledged to
development. The corrosive effects of a result, fewer than half of all African-American charge no more, remain befuddled that
that “redlining” persist to this day. After adults now have a job. “The pandemic is falling the balance does not disappear,” black
World War II, the G.I. Bill, which paid on those least able to bear its burdens,” said intellectual Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote
for college or vocational training for Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. “It is a in The Atlantic. “The effects of that
veterans and offered subsidized mort- great increaser of inequality.” balance, interest accruing daily, are all
gages, was administered by the states, around us.”
AP

THE WEEK October 2, 2020

12 NEWS Best columns: The U.S.
Americans need “a new national narrative” about our history, said
Revising Max Boot. That narrative should “reject the extremes of both the Left It must be true...
American and Right” and not embrace either the simplistic picture painted by
The New York Times’ 1619 Project or President Trump’s proposal last
I read it in the tabloids
history week to create a “patriotic” and “pro-American curriculum.” Trump is
right “to criticize the 1619 Project,” which distinguished historians said
Q An angry beefalo—half
steer, half buffalo—made a
Max Boot erred in two major contentions: that our founding actually occurred mad dash for life while being
The Washington Post when African slaves arrived in America in 1619 and that protecting led to his slaughter in late
slavery was a principal cause of the American Revolution. The Times August and has been hiding
has quietly removed these claims from the online version of the project, out in the woods around
implicitly conceding these were errors. But the project provided a ser- a Connecticut town ever
vice in revising the work of generations of white historians that played since. Nicknamed “Buddy”
down the horrific crimes “committed against African-Americans, Native by the Plymouth residents
who have rallied around his
Americans, and other people of color.” Schools should find “a middle
cause, the 900-pound male
ground that fully acknowledges the sins of U.S. history—which continue has so far managed to evade
to haunt us to the present day—while also showing that generations of capture, after several inde-
Americans have struggled, sometimes at great personal cost, to realize cisive skirmishes with the
the highest ideals of the Founders.” Both of these stories are true. police. Katie Adkins, owner
of Plymouth Meats, said she
isn’t surprised by Buddy’s
It was “the darkest day in Big Ten sports history,” said Christine Bren-
The Big Ten nan. The conference of prestigious academic institutions that prided
free spirit, explaining, “I
mean, it’s half buffalo.”
sells out itself as being more than a collection of football factories announced
last week it was reversing its decision to cancel the football season and Q A Minnesota man
says he’s trying “to stay
its athletes would play after all, starting in October. President Trump had strongly
pressured Big Ten university presidents to play football in spite of an humble” after setting the
world record for the tall-
Christine Brennan ongoing pandemic, and so had several “loud-mouthed” coaches and est mohawk, at nearly
USA Today local politicians who value the money to be made more than they do 43 inches. Joseph
the health of student athletes. So the Big Ten “got scared. It choked.” Grisamore began
Consider the climate into which the conference is launching a college growing his hair
football season. Michigan State was just hit with 342 new coronavirus into the off-beat
cases, and fraternities and sororities have been ordered into mandatory style in 2007,
quarantines. The virus is spreading rapidly in Midwestern states that and today, he
are home to many Big Ten schools. To contain outbreaks, the teams requires only a
will administer thousands of daily tests to players—tests that will not good, solid
be given to the elderly, schoolchildren or teachers, or their universities’ teasing from
students, because they evidently matter less. The Big Ten has “decided his stylist to
to sell its soul for a few football games.” make his
do stand
up straight.
President Trump is running as a law-and-order candidate, said Liz Doorways are a problem,
Trump’s Plank, but there’s one type of crime to which he obviously doesn’t ob- he concedes, and “cars are
impossible to get into.” But
26th woman ject: sexual assault. Last week, former model Amy Dorris became the
26th woman to credibly accuse Trump of sexual assault or rape, say- people’s reactions, he says,
make it all worth it. “The
accuser ing he cornered her in a luxury box at the U.S. Open in 1997, rammed
his tongue down her throat, and put his hands—“like tentacles”—all crowd,” he says, “usually
comes to me.”
Liz Plank over her body. She was 24; her mother and therapist corroborate that
NBCNews.com she told them of the attack at the time. Trump has denied her allega- Q A mistaken UFO sighting
tion, as he has denied all of them. The number of accusers is now “the brought traffic on a New
size of a major league baseball roster,” and Trump admitted his life- Jersey highway to a near-
long pattern of predatory behavior with women in the Access Holly- standstill as shocked motor-
ists pulled over and began
wood tape. Writer E. Jean Carroll says she even has proof that Trump
filming. The video, which
raped her, in the form of a semen-stained dress she wants tested for briefly sparked a viral sensa-
Trump’s DNA. Attorney General William Barr has intervened in her tion, shows a man filming
lawsuit to make sure that test doesn’t occur before Election Day. what appears to be a circular
For any other public official, these would be huge scandals. So why object hovering in the dis-
doesn’t any of it matter? tance with a blinking light.
“Look, the whole street has
stopped!” the man shouts.
Viewpoint “Thanks to reforms accelerated by the pandemic, 2020 will be the first presi-
“It’s a f---ing flying space-
dential election in which there really is no Election Day. In 49 states, the first
Guinness Book of World Records

ship!” Hours later, a myth

Tuesday after Nov. 1 is no longer the day when everybody votes. Instead, it is a deadline—the last
buster with a high-definition
day on which Americans can vote. In seven states, you can vote in person right now, while election
officials have already begun mailing out ballots in at least 23 states. Residents of these states who camera shattered the illusion
wait until Nov. 3 to cast a ballot are placing their most precious right in jeopardy. Election Day no and revealed the flying ob-
longer exists, and election season has already begun.” ject for what it actually was:
Mark Joseph Stern in Slate.com the Goodyear blimp.

THE WEEK October 2, 2020

 Discover the unsearchable
Discover the forest

Find a trail near you at

DiscoverTheForest.org
14 NEWS Best columns: Europe
The French government could soon ban doctors
FRANCE from issuing so-called virginity certificates, said
Mélinée Le Priol. These quack medical documents
Where doctors are sometimes requested by Muslim families of
North African origin ahead of a marriage cer-
claim to certify emony, as proof that the young bride-to-be has an
intact hymen and—so the flawed thinking goes—is
virginity a virgin. Yet hymens can stretch or break for a
range of reasons unrelated to sex, so the test is ef-
Mélinée Le Priol
fectively meaningless. Because there’s no insurance
La Croix
code for this procedure, it’s unclear how many
women undergo virginity tests. But the gynecolo-
gists I spoke with report being asked to provide
such a document “two or three times a year.”
French medical groups have previously called on
practitioners to refuse to carry out such tests, saying
they have “no medical justification” and violate the
rights and privacy of the women forced to undergo
them. But last week, a group of 10 French doctors
argued against criminalization, saying that in fact
doctors often simply issue the certificates without
examining the patient at all, and that “doing so
can actually save the lives of women threatened by
their families or their future husbands.” Banning
the practice, they warn, won’t eradicate it—instead,
it will just drive virginity testing underground.

AUSTRIA Is it really fair to mock President Donald Trump
for claiming that Austrians live in “forest cities”?
Not really asked Andreas Schwarz. Trump invoked our na-
tion while ranting about the alleged mismanage-
a land of ment of California’s forest by state authorities, say-
ing that Austria is heavily forested and has “more
exploding trees explosive trees” that spontaneously combust, yet
avoids the kinds of devastating wildfires now rip-
Andreas Schwarz
ping through the Golden State. Amused Austrians
Kurier immediately took to social media. One posted a
photo of a fog-shrouded woodland captioned “the
Vienna skyline”; another image, labeled “Austrian
in home office,” showed a man sitting on a log
with his laptop. Other users put up actual photos
of Vienna, showing a city of close-packed build-
ings extending for miles without a tree in sight. But
let’s look at the facts. Austria really does have a lot
of forests, and Trump got that right! Remember,
this is a leader who once called Belgium a “beauti-
ful city” and asked whether Finland was “part
of Russia.” A man who was amazed, while in
London, to discover that NATO member Great
Britain is a nuclear power. So we should be proud
that, if you overlook the exploding trees, he got
a factoid about Austria more or less correct.
“At least he didn’t mention kangaroos.”

Europe: Sickened by a second viral wave

As Covid-19 cases rise across Europe, and experts warn that if we register
Spain is once again on the front lines 4,000 a day for a full month, “our
of the pandemic, said Mónica García health system will start to col-
in El Diario (Spain). A strict three- lapse.” That’s why indoor events
month lockdown suppressed one of are being banned and face masks,
the Continent’s worse coronavirus already needed to enter stores, will
outbreaks earlier this year, but Spain be required in schools. If we don’t
is now recording some 10,000 cases a “act vigorously and quickly,” we’ll
day. Whole neighborhoods in Madrid look the way Italy did in the spring,
are back under lockdown. It didn’t with morgues overflowing and the
have to be this way. New York City entire country locked down.
was hit as hard as the Spanish capital,
but it has since kept its caseload low. That’s where Britain is heading,
The key difference is that New York said Andrew Rawnsley in The
reopened cautiously, while Madrid Observer (U.K.). We’ve registered
authorities did “everything possible In Madrid, preparing for another lockdown some 42,000 coronavirus deaths so
to rush a full opening” without investing in testing and tracing. far this year, Europe’s highest toll. Now, with new cases doubling
Now the city’s conservative government is blaming the uptick every seven days, we could hit a staggering 50,000 cases a day
on the poor, whose crowded neighborhoods are virus hot spots, by mid-October. Yet we are inexcusably short of tests, and even
saying their “lifestyle” is spreading disease. The pandemic is stir- teachers and other essential workers exposed to Covid-19 are
ring up class warfare, said Raquel Vidales in El País (Spain). A told “they will have to travel hundreds of miles to get a swab.”
performance of Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera at Madrid’s Teatro The government claims the current surge was unforeseeable. In
Real was canceled last week after operagoers in the cheap bal- fact, “it was both predictable and predicted,” the obvious result
cony seats discovered they had to sit shoulder to shoulder, while of policies “urging people to return to the office and bring bustle
those in the pricey orchestra seats were appropriately socially back to high streets.” The fault lies squarely with Prime Minis-
distanced. The booing from the gallery “was so loud that Italian ter Boris Johnson, who is “cavalier about detail and bored by
conductor Nicola Luisotti left the theater.” complexity.” He likes to spout terms such as “moon shot” and
“game changer” about the government’s Covid-19 plans. Yet his
Even the Czech Republic, once Europe’s star in the fight against bold strategy to curb the current surge is telling pubs they have
Covid-19, thanks to its early adoption of masks, is facing a to close at 10 p.m. and banning gatherings of more than six
terrifying autumn, said Martin Komarek in Denik (Czech people—unless it’s for a wedding, a museum tour, a grouse hunt,
Republic). We, too, reopened too soon. Now this nation of or another of the many exempt activities. Johnson’s fecklessness
11 million people is recording up to 3,100 positive cases daily— will cost more lives.
Getty

THE WEEK October 2, 2020

 Best columns: International NEWS 15

Turkey: Seeking dominance in the Mediterranean

A deepening dispute over natural-gas Empire by the allies at the end of World
reserves in the eastern Mediterranean War I unfairly deprived his country
has pushed NATO members Turkey of its rightful maritime claims. Earlier
and Greece to the “brink of armed this month, Erdogan made it explicit,
confrontation,” said Eléa Pommiers saying, “Turkey is strong enough politi-
in Le Monde (France). Over the past cally, economically, and militarily to
decade, several massive gas fields have tear up immoral maps and documents.”
been discovered in the region, and Ath- The Turkish leader is trying to whip up
ens and Ankara have made rival mari- nationalist fervor to improve his flag-
time claims to the hydrocarbon riches. ging domestic support, but he also truly
The two powers nearly came to blows believes his rhetoric. An increasingly
in August, when Turkey deployed the alarmed French President Emmanuel
seismic prospecting vessel Oruc Reis, ac- A Greek jet on patrol over the waters near Crete. Macron has rushed to the defense of
companied by military frigates, to probe Greece, a fellow member of the Euro-
waters between Cyprus and the Greek island of Crete. Greece sent pean Union, dispatching warships to the region and warning that
warships to shadow the flotilla, and a Greek and a Turkish vessel Turkey is indulging in “fantasies of its own history.”
were involved in a minor collision during a standoff. European
mediation helped calm things temporarily, but the quarrel over Erdogan’s “adventurism matches that of Xerxes,” the Persian king
these contested waters is sure to flare again. Athens says the gas who tried to conquer Europe in the 5th century B.C., said Alexan-
fields lie within its maritime boundaries because its territorial wa- dros Mallias in Kathimerini (Greece). Greece is once again play-
ters extend out from the many Greek islands that dot the eastern ing the role of defender of the West against a tyrant who insists
Mediterranean—including Kastellorizo, a tiny rock just a mile that free peoples accept his terms or face war. Make no mistake:
off the coast of Turkey. But Ankara says its continental shelf ex- “2,500 years after the battles of Thermopylae and Salamis, Hel-
tends out past some of those islands, and it also claims the waters lenes have the will and the capabilities to defend their homeland.”
around the Turkish portion of Cyprus, an island it partly annexed It’s not just Greece that is upset at Turkey’s “unchecked energy
in 1974. In such disputes, “international law invites states to ne- piracy coupled with gunboat diplomacy,” said Arnab Neil Sen-
gotiate bilateral agreements” to mark their economic zones, but gupta in Arab News (Saudi Arabia). Erdogan’s “neo-Ottoman
Greece and Turkey have been at odds over borders for a century. worldview has put Turkey on a collision course with Sunni Arab
powers.” Turkey’s military is currently involved in Libya, Syria,
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan wants to revive his na- and Iraq—all former Ottoman provinces. Erdogan once pursued a
tion’s past glory, said Patrick Wintour in The Guardian (U.K.). foreign policy known as “zero problems with neighbors”; his new
He believes that the treaties forced on the defeated Ottoman strategy seems to be “zero neighbors without problems.”

Canadian history is undergoing a racial reckoning,
CANADA said Aaron Hutchins. In Wilmot, Ontario, “what
was once a well-meaning project” to create a path
Should we lined with bronze sculptures of all 23 Canadian
prime ministers “has become a politically charged
honor racist minefield.” The primary target of protesters’ ire—
and the primary recipient of the red paint thrown
leaders? on statues to symbolize blood—is John A. Macdon-
ald. Canada’s first prime minister was the main ar-
Aaron Hutchins
chitect of the “shameful” residential school system,
Maclean’s
“which forcibly removed indigenous children from
their families.” Protesters in Montreal decapitated
a Macdonald statue in August. Wilmot has now
put its Macdonald bronze into storage. But “if rac-
ism is a disqualifier,” then other statues should be
rethought, too. What about our prime minister dur-
ing World War I, Robert Borden, whose campaign
slogan was “A White Canada”? Or World War II
leader William Lyon Mackenzie King, who turned
away a boatload of Jews fleeing the Holocaust and
interned Japanese-Canadians? By putting up statues
to these men in public parks, says indigenous pro-
fessor Lori Campbell, we are effectively telling some
citizens to stay away. I would not “have a picnic,”
she says, “in front of the man who caused the death
of tens of thousands of my ancestors.”

BOLIVIA Bolivia’s first indigenous national leader was over-
thrown last year under false pretenses, said Mark
Turns out Weisbrot. After the country went to the polls in
October, the U.S.-backed Organization of Ameri-
Morales can States accused incumbent leftist President Evo
Morales of rigging the vote. Early election returns
didn’t cheat from cities gave the lead to Morales’ opponent,
but as ballots came in the next day from his rural
Mark Weisbrot
strongholds, the vote swung in his favor. Pushed by
The Guardian (U.K.) the Trump administration, the OAS said that was
suspicious—and it kept saying so despite the lack of
evidence that a single vote had been counted incor-
rectly. After weeks of protests by opposition mem-
AP
bers citing the OAS allegations, Morales was forced
out. His toppling amounted to a coup by a “white
and mestizo elite.” They sought to “revert state
power to the people who had monopolized it” be-
fore Morales launched poverty-reduction programs
that “disproportionately benefited indigenous
Bolivians.” Now U.S. researchers are criticizing the
OAS’s vote-rigging claims as deeply flawed. But it’s
too late. In the intervening 10 months, Bolivia “has
descended into a nightmare of political repression
and racist state violence,” largely directed against
the indigenous. “The wheels of justice grind much
too slowly in the aftermath of U.S.-backed coups.”

THE WEEK October 2, 2020

16 NEWS
Noted
QFBI Director Christo-
pher Wray told the House
Homeland Security Com-
mittee last week that the
FBI has detected “very ac-
tive efforts” by Russia to
subvert the 2020 election,
to “sow divisiveness and
disorder” and “denigrate
Vice President Biden.”
Wray also told lawmakers
that antifa was “more of
an ideology than an or-
ganization,” undercutting
President Trump’s insis-
tence it’s a major terrorist
group. “I did not like his
answers,” Trump said.
NBCNews.com
QJoe Biden and Demo-
cratic groups supporting
his election now have
$466 million in the bank,
after raising a record
$365 million last month.
That gives Biden $141 mil-
lion more on hand than
President Trump, whose
campaign has run short
of cash and cut back on
TV ads in August, when
Biden outspent him 2 to 1.
Politico.com
QAn internal U.S. Postal
Service memo revealed
that a price hike of 50 to
400 percent on package
shipping
would
effectively
price the
agency
out of the
market.
President Trump has
demanded that the USPS
raise prices “approximate-
ly four times,” particularly
on Amazon packages. The
memo said the agency
made $1.6 billion in profit
last year on Amazon.
The Washington Post
QMarried same-sex
couples now account for
568,110 households in
the U.S., according to the
Census Bureau—a 70 per-
cent rise since 2015, when
the U.S. Supreme Court
legalized such marriages
in every state.
Associated Press
THE WEEK October 2, 2020
Talking points
Barrett and Lagoa: Their judicial philosophies
And then there were two,
said James Hohmann in The
Washington Post. President
Trump said this week he
is considering five women
for his nominee to fill Ruth
Bader Ginsburg’s Supreme
Court seat, but White House
insiders say there are two
real finalists: federal appeals
court Judge Amy Coney
Barrett, a social conservative, Barrett: A favorite of pro-life conservatives Yes, but her rulings seem to
and federal appeals court Judge Barbara Lagoa
of Florida, the daughter of refugees from Fidel
Castro’s Cuba. Barrett, 48, is considered the front- can’t sue prospective employers for age discrimi-
runner. She’s the favorite of Mitch McConnell and nation, and refused to halt the deportation of an
many other Senate Republicans, who see her as
a sure vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. But Trump
and some advisers are intrigued by Lagoa, 52,
because they think her Cuban heritage and Flor-
ida roots may boost his chances of winning that
critical swing state. In her 14 years as a state and
federal judge, Lagoa has often sided with busi-
nesses, employers, and Republican officials, and is Ahmari in NYPost.com. She’s interprets laws and
described by supporters as “very pro-life.”
Barrett would be “a home run” for conser-
vative Christians opposed to abortion, said
Elizabeth Dias and Adam Liptak in The New
York Times. She was the late conservative icon
Antonin Scalia’s favorite young clerk, attended
and taught at the University of Notre Dame, and be “a most worthy successor to RBG.”
Barr: The most dangerous man in politics?
Attorney General William Barr “has gone too far
before, but never this far,” said Ruth Marcus in
The Washington Post. Last week, Barr reportedly
pushed federal prosecutors to consider charging
violent protesters with “seditious conspiracy”—
the rarely invoked crime of attempting to “over-
throw” the government. He also has explored
whether the Justice Department could file criminal
or civil charges against the Democratic mayors
of Seattle and Portland for allowing persistent
protests. The Justice Department actually did
designate Seattle, New York City, and Portland as
“anarchist jurisdictions” and said they could have
their federal funding cut off. In a speech at conser-
vative Hillsdale College, Barr mocked the Justice
Department’s tradition of letting prosecutors work
independently, saying it “might be a good philoso-
phy for a Montessori preschool.” He also claimed
that “other than slavery,” pandemic restrictions
are “the greatest intrusion on civil liberties in
American history.” Really?
Barr’s speech was an easy target for “partisan
distortions,” said The Wall Street Journal in an
editorial. In truth, Barr argued that “the awe-
some power of prosecutors” must be checked by
senior officials appointed by an elected president
is such a devout Catholic
that Sen. Dianne Feinstein
famously noted, “The
dogma lives loudly within
you.” Barrett and her hus-
band belong to a “relatively
obscure” charismatic Cath-
olic group called People of
Praise, which believes in
divine healing, prophecy,
and speaking in tongues.
lack Christian charity, said Mark Joseph Stern in
Slate.com. She’s ruled that older job applicants
asylum petitioner who credibly feared torture
from gangs in El Salvador. If she’s confirmed,
she’ll join a far-right court faction that will strike
down Roe, the Affordable Care Act, and environ-
mental and business regulations.
Liberals will “demonize” Barrett, said Sohrab
the Constitution as they’re written, and her “pro-
life bona fides” are unwavering and manifest in
her own life. She has seven kids, including one
biological child with intellectual disabilities and
another two who were adopted from Haiti. Bar-
rett presents “an inspiring vision of what it means
to be an American woman in 2020,” and would
and confirmed by the Senate. The Left, on the
other hand, seems to believe “that career prosecu-
tors ought to have free rein” to throw the book
at their political enemies, as long as they’re part
of “the Resistance” to President Trump. There’s
also nothing outrageous in Barr’s idea of charging
protesters with sedition, said Andrew McCarthy
in NationalReview.com. “Anti-American radicals”
are rioting, torching government buildings, and
attacking police officers. Sounds like a plot to “use
force against the government,” doesn’t it?
Barr’s agenda is clear, said Dahlia Lithwick in
Slate.com. He wants Americans to fear “an enemy
within” so they’ll back authoritarian crackdowns.
He’s also openly laying a foundation to challenge
the results of the election, saying that mail-in
voting will allow “selling and buying votes,” sug-
gesting that postal workers will be paid to destroy
ballots. If Trump appears to have won a state,
Barr said, Democrats will announce, “Oh, wait a
minute! We just discovered 100,000 ballots.” Barr
is “the most dangerous man in American politics,”
said Michael Cohen in The Boston Globe. “He
understands how the levers of the federal govern-
ment work.” In his flagrantly partisan efforts to
AP (2)
keep Trump in office, “what line won’t he cross?”
 Talking points NEWS 17

Gender reveal parties: Are they cursed? Wit &

A mishap that sparked a dev- “increasingly extravagant”
astating California wildfire affairs reflect the “bizarre Wisdom
has cast a harsh spotlight pressures parents face” in the “If you want to know
on “gender reveal” parties, age of “sharenting.” That what God thinks of
said Taylor Lorenz in The means not only custom cakes money, just look at the
New York Times. A couple’s and confetti cannons but also people he gave it to.”
use of a pyrotechnic device parents who “wrangle alliga- Dorothy Parker, quoted in
the Montreal Gazette
to announce their unborn tors, kick exploding footballs,
baby’s gender sparked an shoot clay pigeons, or jump “Truth is stranger than
inferno that’s burned more from airplanes.” It’s no acci- fiction, but it is because
than 34 square miles, setting dent, said John Paul Bram- fiction is obliged to stick to
possibilities; truth isn’t.”
off a backlash against a new A 2017 gender reveal that led to a wildfire mer in WashingtonPost.com, Mark Twain, quoted in the
breed of parties that have that these “events sprang Minneapolis Star Tribune
“turned the private experience of family making up just as society really started wrestling with
into a public spectacle.” Since a blogger named an expanded conception of gender.” Telling the “For what do we live,
Jenna Karvunidis started the trend by posting world before your child is born what private parts but to make sport for our
neighbors, and laugh at
photos of a 2008 family party where she cut into he or she has is a way of doubling down on tradi-
them in our turn?”
a cake with pink icing, gender reveal parties have tional gender norms: My kid is a boy, so there! Jane Austen, quoted in
become increasingly elaborate productions, some- The Observer (U.K.)
times featuring “over-the-top” events that have The woman who started the trend is among those
“There is nothing
gone dangerously awry. In recent years a crop- who wish it would die a quick death, said Laura more truly artistic than to
dusting plane loaded with pink water crashed in Bradley in TheDailyBeast.com. As Karvunidis’ love people.”
Texas, an Iowa woman was killed by “a device humble celebration has given way to professional Vincent van Gogh, quoted
meant to shoot out colored smoke,” and an Ari- videographers and Instagram “influencers” pro- in BuzzFeed.com
zona party ignited a fire that caused $8 million in moting commercial sponsors, she’s aghast at what “Young men are apt to
damages. “Are gender reveals cursed?” she’s wrought. Not incidentally, the 11-year-old think themselves wise
daughter for whom she threw the original party enough, as drunken men
Blame the “attention economy” for these spec- now shuns pink and dresses and prefers boys’ are apt to think them-
tacles, said Jenna Drenten in the Chicago Sun- clothes. “Stop having these stupid parties,” she selves sober enough.”
Times. As a sociologist who studies social media, recently wrote on Facebook. “For the love of British statesman
Lord Chesterfield, quoted
“I’ve watched gender reveal parties become their God, stop burning things down to tell everyone in Forbes.com
own mini-industry over the past decade.” The about your kid’s penis. No one cares but you.”
“To be led by a coward
is to be controlled by all

Middle East: Is peace any closer? that the coward fears.

President Trump has pulled off another “victory
for peace” in the Middle East, said Washington
Examiner.com in an editorial. Just weeks after a
historic deal in which the United Arab Emirates
agreed to become only the third Arab nation to
recognize Israel’s sovereignty, another Gulf state—
this time, Bahrain—agreed to join the so-called
Abraham Accords. Once again, the president
convinced a Sunni Arab nation that its common
interests with Israel—trade, tourism, and the
containment of a malign Shia Iran—outweigh
any long-running disputes over contested Palestin-
ian territory in the West Bank. “Were President
Barack Obama or a President Hillary Clinton
presently in the Oval Office, the columnist calls for
Nobel Peace Prizes would be deafening.” Let’s not
forget the role that Trump’s son-in-law and senior
adviser Jared Kushner played in this achievement,
said Rich Lowry in the New York Post. After
being portrayed as “a hopeless ignoramus,” Kush-
ner finally pulled off what all the experts couldn’t:
a genuine step toward peace in the region.
Progress toward peace is “a mirage,” said Roger
Cohen in The New York Times. The threat to
Israel’s long-term security does not come from
the Gulf states, but rather from its bitter conflict
AP
To be led by a fool is to
be led by the opportunists
with the Palestinians. And yet the Palestinians who control the fool.”
“were scarcely mentioned at the White House Author Octavia Butler, quoted
ceremony” at which Trump hailed the deal as in BrainPickings.org
“the dawn of a new Middle East.” By proposing “It’s so hard to forget pain,
that the Palestinians surrender much of the West but it’s even harder to
Bank and Jerusalem, the administration has done remember sweetness.
nothing but make “a mockery” of prior efforts We have no scar to show
to achieve a two-state solution. Indeed, the deal for happiness.”
suggests “a misleadingly optimistic picture” of Author Chuck Palahniuk,
quoted in GoodReads.com
where the region is headed, said David Ignatius in
The Washington Post. The truth is that the U.S. is
losing influence after repeated troop drawdowns;
Syria remains a nightmare, and Turkey is expand- Poll watch
ing its influence throughout the vacuum we’ve Q46% of Americans
left—all while cozying up to a resurgent Russia. believe the presidential
The Palestinians, meanwhile, will never accept “a election will not be “free
Trump peace plan that ratifies their defeat.” and fair,” including 50%
of President Trump’s sup-
Still, “immense changes” are underway, said porters and 37% of Joe
David Harsanyi in NationalReview.com. Arab Biden’s supporters. 61%
states are entering into investment and trading of Trump supporters be-
relationships with Israel, and Saudi Arabia seems lieve that “the only way
to be inching closer to establishing formal ties, Donald Trump is going to
too. It is no longer Israel but the Palestinians who lose in November is if the
are isolated in the region. Either their corrupt and election is rigged.”
incompetent leadership accepts half a loaf and Yahoo! News/YouGov
peace or “they’ll continue to be left behind.”

THE WEEK October 2, 2020

18 NEWS Pick of the week’s cartoons

THE WEEK October 2, 2020 For more political cartoons, visit: www.theweek.com/cartoons.
Pick of the week’s cartoons NEWS 19

THE WEEK October 2, 2020

20 NEWS Technology

Nikola: Will zero-emissions claims go up in smoke?

Electric-truck maker Nikola is battling cility,” despite Milton’s claims about pro-
fraud accusations that have “drawn ducing hydrogen at an “incredible” $3 a
comparisons with Theranos,” said Peter kilogram. And the company’s director of
Campbell in the Financial Times. Both hydrogen production is Milton’s younger
the Securities and Exchange Commis- brother, Travis, whose previous work ex-
sion and the Department of Justice have perience was in “driveway pouring.”
begun looking at allegations that the
technologies hyped by the zero-emissions The one bright spot for Nikola, said
truck maker simply don’t exist. Lofty Chris Bryant in Bloomberg.com, is that
visions of Nikola’s semis powered by so far its partners have tolerated its exag-
electric batteries and hydrogen fuel cells gerations. German auto-parts supplier
have made Nikola the “stock market Bosch has stuck by it, and GM isn’t run-
Nikola: pinning hopes on the GM-built Badger
sensation of the summer”—surpassing ning away yet, either, possibly because
Ford in market value “without having sold a single vehicle.” But it was only hoping that “hitching a ride on Nikola’s coattails”
many of the claims pressed by Trevor Milton, the founder of would generate enthusiasm among investors. Just don’t count on
Nikola—named, like Tesla, after 19th- and early-20th-century GM to rescue Nikola, said Timothy Lee in ArsTechnica.com: It
electrical pioneer Nikola Tesla—have evaporated. General has a “one-sided” deal that “poses very little risk” for the auto-
Motors just signed a deal to make fuel-cell Nikola pickups by maker. Essentially, GM is having Nikola build its Badger pickup
2022, but it will use its “own hydrogen system” rather than truck—and pay for the privilege. “GM isn’t investing a dime in
Nikola’s. Milton abruptly resigned from the company this week. Nikola; instead, all the money will flow the other way.” Nikola
will pay GM $700 million to create the production line for the
The doubts about Nikola were set off by a report from Hinden- Badger. Then it will pay more to GM to build each vehicle.
burg Research that blew up “a massive pillar Nikola has been The battery-powered version will be based on GM’s batteries,
banking on,” said Sean Szymkowski in CNET.com: Hindenburg, “which GM will presumably sell to Nikola at a profit.” And
a short seller that looks for corporate fraud, says the company the hydrogen-powered version will be based on GM’s fuel-cell
simply “stenciled hydrogen decals” onto the body of its first technology. “These are technologies that GM was planning to
prototype truck, Nikola One, which actually held natural-gas develop anyway,” and if Nikola’s few remaining “true believers”
turbines. Nikola still “does not operate a hydrogen production fa- are willing to subsidize that, GM is happy to take the money.

Innovation of the week Bytes: What’s new in tech

A startup called Auctify is building a
set of “anti-procrastination” glasses
that will monitor what you’re pay-
ing attention to, said James Vincent
in TheVerge.com. Marking a new
frontier in self-surveillance, the
so-called Specs use a camera in
the frame “to identify what you’re
looking at, whether that’s a laptop,
book, or a fellow human being.” You
can record and cut apart the results.
“You can simply get a breakdown
of how you’ve spent each day,”
or go much further with sound or
light alerts “when you’re looking at
the wrong thing.” While the Specs
seem to be the product of a “work-
obsessed culture,” the creators
say they’re designed to keep you
on track for 20 different activities,
including reading and—somewhat
surprisingly—doing yoga.
Autonomous vehicle homicide charges problems are self-inflicted, and its Fortnite can
A “safety driver” in an Uber autonomous return to iOS any time—“just as soon as Epic
vehicle was charged last week in the death of removes the custom in-app payment system
a pedestrian in 2018, said Kate Conger in The that triggered the game’s removal” from the
New York Times. Rafaela Vasquez has been App Store last month. “Epic started a fire,”
charged with negligent homicide in what is be- the brief says, “and poured gasoline on it, and
lieved to be “the first pedestrian death caused now asks this court for emergency assistance
by self-driving technology.” Investigators say in putting it out.”
Vasquez was in the car “watching a video on
her phone” when the vehicle struck Elaine Digital gap proves hard to span
Herzberg while traveling at about 40 mph. “In A massive effort to close the “digital divide” in
2019, an Arizona prosecutor’s office said Uber California is “hardly making a dent,” said Issie
would not face criminal liability for the inci- Lapowsky in Protocol.com. Tech CEOs have
dent,” although regulators faulted “an inade- donated many millions of dollars “to cover the
quate safety culture” at Uber at the time. Days cost of laptops and internet access” for stu-
before the crash, a departing Uber engineer had dents who need them. But “six months later,
emailed the head of the company’s self-driving with schools back in session, only a fraction of
program to say the cars “shouldn’t be hitting the devices those contributions were supposed
things every 15,000 miles.” to purchase are actually in students’ hands.”
The California Department of Education says
Apple fires back at Fortnite maker it has used donations to deliver 73,065 com-
Fighting Epic Games’ efforts to get around puting devices, but “it’s still waiting on a ship-
App Store fees, Apple suggested Epic started ment of 20,000 Chromebooks that have been
its legal battle to “draw attention to a flagging back-ordered for months.” Meanwhile, some
franchise,” said James Vincent in TheVerge. mobile hot spots used to provide free internet
com. Epic had sued Apple, alleging it was vio- to students in Los Angeles don’t have enough
lating antitrust law by requiring a 30 percent bandwidth to support multiple siblings, so
commission on in-app purchases. In a brief some students are getting marked absent be-
Nikola

filed this week, Apple responded that Epic’s cause they can’t log in to classes.
THE WEEK October 2, 2020

Humanity wiping out animal populations
Wildlife populations around the world have
plummeted by more than two-thirds in the
past 50 years—a “catastrophic decline”
that shows no sign of slowing. That’s the
dispiriting conclusion of a major new study
by the World Wildlife Fund that analyzed
populations of 4,400 mammal, fish, bird,
reptile, and amphibian species, reports
The Washington Post. The report points to
habitat destruction—such as the razing of
rain forests for farming—as the key cause
of decline. But overhunting, pollution, and
climate change are also driving the losses.
Overall, the wildlife populations dropped
by an average of 68 percent from 1970 to
Trauma can cause lasting damage to the brain. stars
PTSD’s link to dementia
People who have experienced post-traumatic To simulate how heat and pressure inside
stress disorder are much more likely to
develop dementia later in life, a new study
suggests. About 1 in 25 people worldwide
are thought to suffer from PTSD, a mental
health disorder triggered by highly stressful, pressure. The experiment’s results suggest
frightening, or distressing events. To assess
the condition’s link to dementia, scientists
at University College London analyzed the
results of 13 previous studies involving
some 1.7 million people across four conti-
nents. Overall, it found that people diag-
nosed with PTSD had a 61 percent greater
risk of developing dementia up to 17 years
later. Intriguingly, military veterans didn’t
have the highest risk of developing the
degenerative brain disorder. Ordinary civil-
ians with PTSD—from physical or sexual
abuse, car accidents, or other trauma—
were more than twice as likely to develop
dementia as adults with no such diagnosis.
Veterans with PTSD, meanwhile, were
1.5 times more likely to develop dementia
than vets without PTSD. The researchers
speculate that this may be because former
military personnel have better access to
treatment, reports The Times (U.K.). It
remains unclear why the two conditions
appear to be linked. Flashbacks of the
trauma—a symptom of PTSD—can flood
AP, Getty, AP
the brain with stress hormones, which may
cause damage over time.
Health & Science
2016, but some areas and species have
been hit particularly hard. In Latin America
and the Caribbean, monitored species pop-
ulations fell by an average of 94 percent.
And the destruction of wetlands has caused
global populations of freshwater species to
drop by an average of 84 percent. There’s
“unequivocal evidence that nature is unrav-
eling and that our planet is flashing red
warning signs,” says WWF Director General
Marco Lambertini. The report echoes other
research on biodiversity loss; the United
Nations warned last year that human activ-
ity had pushed 1 million plant and animal
species to the verge of extinction. Yet the
A gem of a planet
It sounds like something from a sci-fi movie: Researchers say they have found an unlikely
a planet made of diamonds. But a new study treatment to ease the pain of knee osteo-
suggests such sparkly worlds may actually
exist, reports CNN.com. Because planets are of Curcuma longa, a plant in the ginger
formed from the disk of gas and dust that
surrounds a star, a world’s elemental com-
position is unique to its star. Our sun has a
low carbon-to-oxygen ratio, which is why
Earth has a low diamond content—about
0.001 percent. But exoplanets that circle
with higher carbon-to-oxygen ratios
are more likely to be carbon-rich and, if
they have water, could be diamond-heavy.
such exoplanets might create diamonds,
the researchers compressed silicon carbide
(which contains silicon and carbon) and
water between diamonds at extremely high
diamond planets could form in the right con- ture. Lead author Benny Antony, from the
ditions, though their atmosphere would be
hostile to life. “This is one additional step in was a small study and that the effect on pain
helping us understand and characterize our
ever increasing and improving observations
of exoplanets,” says lead author Harrison
Allen-Sutter, from Arizona State University.
A bear frozen in time
In the latest discovery to
emerge from the melting Arctic
permafrost, reindeer herders
in Siberia have unearthed the
perfectly preserved remains of
an Ice Age cave bear. Found
on the Lyakhovsky Islands,
in Russia’s far north, the car-
cass has an intact nose and
a full set of teeth, reports the Found in the permafrost ers found the remains, but
Los Angeles Times. “This is the
first and only find of its kind—a whole
bear carcass with soft tissues,” says
Lena Grigorieva, a researcher from the
North-Eastern Federal University in
Yakutsk. It has “all internal organs in
NEWS 21
A Brazilian jaguar in wildfire-scorched wetlands
study’s authors insist that all hope isn’t lost.
They say urgent changes—most notably
land conservation efforts and an overhaul
of food production—could mitigate or
reverse the damage.
Can turmeric help arthritis?
arthritis. Turmeric—found in the root
family—contains the chemical compound
curcumin, which has long been used in
traditional Chinese and Indian medicine. In
a 12-week trial, researchers gave 70 people
with knee arthritis two capsules a day of
either curcumin or a placebo. They mea-
sured knee pain and function with follow-up
visits, questionnaires, and MRI scans. The
researchers found that the people who took
the extract saw improvements in pain, stiff-
ness, and function compared with those who
had the placebo. Yet the MRI scans revealed
no differences between the two groups in the
amount of excess fluid in the knee’s synovial
cavity, and no difference in cartilage struc-
University of Tasmania, acknowledges that it
levels wasn’t huge, reports The New York
Times. But considering the limited effective-
ness of current drugs for osteoarthritis, he
says, “a modest effect may be helpful.”
place.” Preliminary analy-
sis suggests the cave bear
lived 22,000 to 39,500 years
ago, although radiocarbon
analysis will determine its
exact age. The species,
Ursus spelaeus, became
extinct around 15,000 years
ago. Scientists haven’t
yet been able to visit the
isolated site where herd-
they hope to make more
discoveries in the area. In recent years,
melting permafrost has exposed the
well-preserved remains of several long-
extinct beasts, including mammoths and
woolly rhinos.
THE WEEK October 2, 2020
22
Review of reviews: Books
Book of the week
The WEIRDest People in the
World: How the West Became
Psychologically Peculiar and
Particularly Prosperous
by Joseph Henrich
(Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $35)
“If you are reading this, you are very prob-
ably WEIRD,” said Daniel Dennett in The
New York Times. Don’t be offended: In
social science lingo, the acronym describes
anyone who is Western, educated, industrial-
ized, rich, and democratic, and as Harvard
anthropologist Joseph Henrich has argued
before, WEIRD people comprise just 12 per-
cent of humanity but are so overrepresented
in psychological research that our
understanding of human nature has been
skewed. In his “extraordinarily ambitious”
new book, Henrich identifies an unexpected
origin for the WEIRD mind, arguing that
humanity’s prevailing clan-oriented mentality
was dismantled in the West when the early
Roman Catholic church began prohibiting
marriage between cousins. Soon enough,
states replaced tribes and law replaced cus-
Novel of the week
Piranesi
by Susanna Clarke (Bloomsbury, $27)
Susanna Clarke first novel, 2004’s
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, estab-
lished the 44-year-old British author as
a great fantasy writer, said Lila Shapiro
in New York magazine. Her second
novel, though delayed, is “set to place
her in the pantheon of the greats, no
modifier necessary.” Clark’s narrator,
nicknamed Piranesi, lives in a vast,
labyrinthine house with statues in every
nook, clouds in the upper floors, and
ocean tides that sweep the lower levels.
Though he has little memory of his
past, he is certain he is a scientist with
a duty to bear witness to the wonder
of his surroundings. Art history majors
might recognize the name Piranesi as
that of an 18th-century artist who made
etchings of fantastical prisons, said Ron
Charles in The Washington Post, and we
come to see him as imprisoned, too.
“But this is the abiding magic of Clarke’s
novel: We’re as likely to pity Piranesi for
his cheerful acceptance of imprison-
ment as we are to envy him for his ready
appreciation of the world as he finds it.”
To linger in the pages of this book “is to
find oneself happily detained in awe.”
THE WEEK October 2, 2020
ARTS
A church marriage: The key to the West’s rise?
tom, creating a new type of human. The
case Henrich lays out is beyond fascinating.
It’s “brimming with evidence.”
“Henrich’s ambition is tricky,” said Judith
Shulevitz in The Atlantic. He wants
to explain why the West rose to world
dominance while he simultaneously tames
Western arrogance. To do so, he insists that
we recognize that culture, defined broadly,
changes the way the brain functions—
cultivating certain capabilities while pushing
aside others. He further contends that the
West’s ostensible crowning achievements,
Magdalena: River of Dreams
by Wade Davis (Knopf, $30)
Think of the Rio
Magdalena as
Colombia’s answer
to the Mississippi,
said The Econo-
mist. In his “often
enchanting” new
travelogue, author
Wade Davis traces
the 1,000-mile
river by boat, on
foot, by car, and
on horseback to
explain how it has
defined a rich national culture and how
it has sustained a land that’s arguably the
world’s most bountiful and biologically
diverse. “The author and his subject make
a perfect match.” The Canadian-born
Davis is an honorary Colombian citizen
and a National Geographic explorer-in-
residence who has been visiting Colombia
since he was 14. He knows and loves the
country deeply, and doesn’t shy from its
grimmer chapters.
“There are maps in the book—and you will
need them,” said Jenny Coad in The Times
(U.K.). As Davis makes his stops along the
such as democracy and the rule of law,
are less universal triumphs than chance
products of generations of proto-WEIRDs
hammering out effective ways to organize
and govern themselves. His conviction that
we all are swept along unaware by vast
cultural tides “can make a person feel pretty
helpless.” And yet his fresh perspective also
could facilitate the necessary work of con-
fronting the West’s legacy and “sorting out
what’s irredeemable and what’s invaluable.”
Don’t expect other scholars to concede
every point to Henrich, said Razib Khan in
the National Review. His engrossing narra-
tive is “filled with neat facts and insightful
theories” and should persuade many that
the transformation of European culture dur-
ing the Middle Ages was rooted in church
policies that undermined the power of kin-
ship ties. But he hasn’t settled the argument
among historians and others about whether
it was the scientific, democratic, capitalist,
or some other revolution that propelled the
West to dominance. In that context, “this
book is simply another volley in a long
game that will continue.” Still, the next few
years “promise many new revelations, and
perhaps an ultimate synthesis.”
Magdalena from its southern source in the
Andes all the way to the Caribbean Sea,
it’s easy to lose your bearings. His lyri-
cism, meanwhile, “at times goes too far,”
as when he dips his hand in the water and
invokes the creation of the universe. “His
passion for Colombia is better expressed in
the depth of information he delivers”—and
in his descriptions of the extraordinary
landscapes. Manatees glide beneath the
surface of the river; its banks are home to
165 species of hummingbird. The people he
meets also make lasting impressions, includ-
ing a pioneering botanist and a magnetic
tambora musician. I also won’t soon forget
the men who, when Colombia’s long inter-
nal conflict reached its peak of violence two
decades ago, defied the orders of paramili-
tary groups to fish countless bodies from
the river and provide proper burials.
“Davis ends his voyage on a hopeful note,”
said Jennie Erin Smith in The Wall Street
Journal. Though the country’s 2016 peace
agreement is faltering and decades of vio-
lence and mismanagement have left the
Magdalena deeply polluted, Davis’ book
“makes a compelling case” that the doom-
sayers won’t have the last word. “If a coun-
try’s spirit can be renewed through the grace
and resilience of its people, he argues, so,
Getty
too, can its river.”
 The Book List
Best books…chosen by Jenna Bush Hager
Jenna Bush Hager, a Today show co-anchor and best-selling author, hosts Today’s
book club, Read With Jenna. Hager’s new memoir, Everything Beautiful in Its Time,
pays fond tribute to her grandparents, Barbara and President George H.W. Bush.
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel
García Márquez (1985). The perfect book to
read now, as we think about what love might
mean in the time of coronavirus. It’s an epic
love story filled with the poetic words of Gabriel
García Márquez. I plan to reread it this fall!
The Comeback by Ella Berman (2020). This
compulsively readable novel ended my pan-
demic dry spell. It opens with a flashback before
returning to the present and the current life of
a onetime teen movie star who disappeared at
the height of her career. This book will give
readers their fix of both gossip and intellectual
stimulation—and it was my Read With Jenna
pick for August.
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara (2015). A
capacious coming-of-age tale about heartbreak,
friendship, and the journey to escape our past,
this novel and its characters consumed me.
Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White (1952). I read
Charlotte’s Web to my daughter Mila and we
wept together, moved not only by the friendship
between Wilbur and Charlotte but also by E.B.
Also of interest…in connection and fracture
Red Pill
by Hari Kunzru (Knopf, $28)
Hari Kunzru’s “twisty and disquiet-
ing” sixth novel offers a chilling por-
trait of our post-truth era, said Randall
Colburn in AVClub.com. A writer
attending a retreat in Germany bristles
at the operation’s surveillance meth-
ods, binge-watches a TV police series in his room,
and spins into paranoia when he meets the series’
creator and learns he’s a cynical white national-
ist. Kunzru “finds humor and humanity in it all,”
yet “never downplays the severity of the mental
derangement unfolding on both sides of the aisle.”
Break It Up
by Richard Kreitner (Little, Brown, $30)
“We think of secession and civil war
as something long settled,” said Eric
Herschthal in The New Republic. But
journalist Richard Kreitner’s provoca-
tive new book argues that there has
rarely been a moment when separat-
ism ceased to be a threat to the union. Kreitner’s
kitchen-sink account casts some secessionist move-
ments as “more serious threats than they were,”
AP, Andrew Bezek
but he offers useful insights—and his contention
that we lie to ourselves by imagining a lost age of
national unity is “certainly worth heeding.”
White’s wonderful writing. I’m not sure there
has ever been a more beautiful passage written
than “The crickets felt it was their duty to warn
everybody that summertime cannot last forever.
Even on the most beautiful days in the whole
year—the days when summer is changing into
autumn—the crickets spread the rumor of sad-
ness and change.”
An American Marriage by Tayari Jones (2018).
This story taught me so much about what it
means to love and to be loved. An American
Marriage is an intimate portrayal of a young
African-American couple whose marriage is
tested when the husband is accused of a crime he
didn’t commit.
Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi (2020).
Gifty is a character I wish I could sit down and
have dinner with. She struggles with her family’s
history of mental illness and addiction and copes
by studying the brain in a quest to understand
what she has suffered. My September Read With
Jenna pick wraps science, faith, and family into a
poignant story.
What Are You Going Through
by Sigrid Nunez (Riverhead, $26)
“The marvel of this novel is that it
encompasses so much sadness yet is
not grim,” said Heller McAlpin in
NPR.org. In a worthy follow-up to
The Friend, her 2018 award-winner,
Sigrid Nunez introduces another
smart, wry narrator: a woman who is invited on
a getaway by a terminally ill friend who intends
to take euthanasia pills. The pair do have fun,
though, and the novel evolves into “another
deeply humane reminder of the great solace of
both companionship and literature.”
Monogamy
by Sue Miller (Harper, $29)
Sue Miller “remains one of the fin-
est cartographers of the territory of
marriage,” said Lorraine Berry in The
Washington Post. In her incisive 11th
novel, a photographer learns shortly
after being widowed that her gregari-
ous husband of 30 years had engaged in an affair.
The revelation complicates the grief process for
Annie, who shares narrative duties with vari-
ous people in the couple’s orbit, all contributing
new insights. Miller’s skillfulness with the device
“makes a familiar plot into an original story.”
ARTS 23
Author of the week
David Chang
“When David Chang talks, the
food world listens,” said Beth
Kowitt in Fortune.com. And it
should, given that the founder
of the Momofuku restaurant
empire has remade that world
over the past 15 years. “Not
too long ago, if you told peo-
ple you want
to be a cook,
people were
like, ‘What
the hell are
you doing?’”
says the
43-year-old,
adding that
anyone making that choice
could expect questions about
whether they were bouncing
back from rehab or prison.
“Now you see Ivy League
kids cooking. It’s just the cra-
ziest thing.” Often, the new-
comers are trying to repeat
Chang’s success, which
began when he established a
downtown Manhattan noodle
bar that offered culturally
transgressive takes on ramen
and japchae. Chang just
hopes they don’t mimic his
early management style. As
he writes in his new memoir,
Eat a Peach, “My method, if
you can even call it that, was
a dangerous combination of
fear and fury.”
The raucous kitchen culture
of the time doesn’t fully
explain those flares of temper,
said Ana Calderone in People.
Just as his career took off,
Chang was diagnosed with
bipolar disorder—helping
him identify the source of his
mood swings and suicidal
thoughts. Still, he resists
using mental illness to excuse
his low points. “I hate that the
anger has become my calling
card. I wish I could convey
to you how hard I’ve tried to
fight it,” he says. He at least
has learned enough about
himself to persevere in the
face of difficult challenges,
such as the pandemic-related
business crisis that forced the
recent closing of two of his
restaurants. Though times
aren’t great, “I’m still at it,” he
says. “I’m still here.”
THE WEEK October 2, 2020
24 ARTS Review of reviews: Art & Music
Exhibit of the week AI perpetuate prevailing cultural
Trevor Paglen: Opposing biases that might be costly when
Geometries the software is asked to make life-
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh,
and-death decisions.
through March 14
Some Paglen images achieve a
Trevor Paglen’s best-known works haunting beauty, said Amanda
cannot be shown in a museum, said Waltz in the Pittsburgh City
Sophie Haigney in The New York Paper. The first wall of the
Times. “One of the foremost artists Carnegie show is papered in a
drawing attention to the power and broad floor-to-ceiling photographic
ubiquity of surveillance technol- image of “serene, innocuous”
ogy,” the 45-year-old California clouds. But closer inspection reveals
surfer, geographer, and recipient of faint lines and circles overlying
a MacArthur “genius grant” has the billows and wisps, because
famously put a sculpture into orbit Almost famous: Paglen’s Beckett and de Beauvoir (2019). the image has been analyzed by
and co-created a viral app, called an algorithm designed to identify
ImageNet Roulette, that showed users who his art is highly approachable, said Cody anomalies in scientific images. “To the
uploaded a selfie what categories AI might Delistraty in The Wall Street Journal. In machine, the cloud is imperfect, a thing to
assign them to, including “dweeb” and the Pittsburgh show, two large paired por- be scrutinized and marked.” Much of the
“offender.” But virtually every Paglen project traits were created by printing composite show expands on the theme, offering strik-
exposes the ways corporations and the state photographs that blended all the images that ing landscapes or portraits made uncanny by
extend their power through technology, usu- an AI program identified as being Simone the viewer’s realization that a mechanical eye
ally at the expense of the individual. A new de Beauvoir or Samuel Beckett. Because helped produce them. By contrast, the final
Paglen exhibition at Pittsburgh’s Carnegie AI sometimes errs, the resulting images piece in the show is “not much to look at.”
Museum does so by showing how photogra- of the two towering intellects are quasi- But Autonomy Cube, a modest computer
phy’s history is itself closely tied to expand- realistic, but “with an abstracted blur, as set inside a small plexiglass box, does supply
ing government might. Despite being mostly in a Gerhard Richter painting.” AI’s short- a minor balm. Because the cube routs Wi-Fi
a photography show, it has “particular comings are benign there, but elsewhere, traffic through a network that blocks data
resonance” at this moment, when Covid has including in a series based on mug shots that from being harvested, accepting the invita-
forced us to move more of our lives online. were secretly used to develop early facial tion to connect your phone transforms the
recognition software, Paglen aims to high- museum into a digital safe space—a rare
Despite the cerebral origins of Paglen’s work, light how the crude classification systems of refuge in today’s world.

Alicia Keys Thelonious Monk Samia

Alicia
++++
Alicia Keys “has made
a career out of play-
ing things straight
down the middle,” said
Sal Cinquemani in
SlantMagazine.com.
It can’t be a surprise,
then, that the singer-
songwriter’s first album in four years
“strikes a happy balance” between the R&B
piano ballads that made her famous and
the “loosely experimental” sound of 2016’s
Here. At times, when she steps away from
the piano, “the result is neo-soul formless-
ness that, generously, could be described
as ‘mood music.’” But when she stretches
slightly, as on the dub-infused “Wasted
Energy,” her musicality demands atten-
tion. Another highlight arrives with “Time
Machine,” whose spacey funk is “unlike
anything Keys has recorded,” said Andy
Kellman in AllMusic.com. The album’s most
affecting moments arrive late, with a moth-
er’s lament about a senselessly murdered
Palo Alto
++++
“The most astounding
jazz album of 2020 is
the handiwork of an
ambitious high school
senior,” said Andrew
Gilbert in the San
Francisco Chronicle. In
1968, Thelonious Monk
was coaxed into playing Palo Alto High
School by a 16-year-old who became a con-
cert promoter, and by luck, the janitor who
tuned the piano for Monk decided to tape
the afternoon show. The long-forgotten
47-minute recording finds Monk and his
quartet “swinging with joyous power,” and
though Palo Alto “doesn’t shed new light
on his genius,” it does provide “a thrilling,
unusually immediate experience of his
musical world.” The six-track set features
Monk’s greatest hits, including a “delight-
fully swaying” rendition of “Ruby, My
Dear,” said Mike Jurkovic in AllAboutJazz
.com. The solos that “canter, caper, and
pop” on “Well, You Needn’t” would alone
The Baby
++++
Every generation needs
a rock artist whose first
album becomes “a
welcome soundtrack
to the existential angst
of young adulthood,”
said Caitlin O’Reilly
in NME. Samia might
just be that figure for Gen Z, because the
23-year-old New Yorker’s debut is “an
exhilarating musical ride” that mixes alt-
pop with rock and “tries to make sense, or
at least accept the chaos, of growing pains.”
As a songwriter, Samia excels at “sardonic,
emotionally intense takes on the imperfect
everyday,” and she “isn’t afraid to take on
the anxieties and uncertainties that keep
you awake in the small hours.” Even so, the
“truly exciting” aspect of Samia’s 11-song
debut is her voice, said Ashley Bardhan in
Pitchfork.com. “It’s dark and smooth like a
melted caramel,” and “the flexibility of her
tone allows her to explore a wide range of
feelings, from anger to sarcasm to wry opti-
Carnegie Museum of Art

son and a second ballad that salutes front-
line health workers. Despite the honest emo-
tion, Alicia remains “Keys’ most moderate
work, seemingly hedged with an objective to
appeal to as many listeners as possible.”
THE WEEK October 2, 2020
have been worth the $2 price of admission.
“The best live Thelonious Monk recording
ever? Probably not.” Still, it’s a treat to hear
the jazz titan set up on a high school stage
“and, well, rock the freakin’ house.”
mism.” She is often out front alone against
a spare interplay of drums and guitar, but
she has the presence for it, chronicling the
confusions of coming of age with “diaristic
clarity and precision.”
 Review of reviews: Film & Home Media
Rodriguez shows Wood the normal life.
Kajillionaire
++++
Miranda July’s latest dramedy “might
be her best film yet,” said Bilge Ebiri in
NYMag.com. Some may find the director’s
absurdist humor twee, but she remains “so
good at keeping us off-edge,” and even in
her two previous films there’s never been
anything precious about her characters’
longing to escape their awkwardness to find
some measure of happiness. Kajillionaire
features a family of petty grifters who’ve
survived so long on society’s fringe that
Old Dolio, a 26-year-old played by Evan
Rachel Wood, is practically feral. Because
the Dynes are perpetually behind on the
rent for an empty office space whose walls
are frequently overrun by pink foam that
spills out from an adjoining factory, their
existence “feels like an escalating anxiety
dream.” And then a cheery optician’s assis-
tant, played by Gina Rodriguez, joins the
trio, bringing a scam idea of her own, said
Anthony Lane in The New Yorker. Soon
the Dynes are defrauding elderly eyewear
clients as Rodriguez’s character develops
into an unlikely first friend for Old Dolio,
who finally starts to look more critically
at her parents, played winningly by Debra
Winger and Richard Jenkins. Aiming for a
mix of cerebral and irreverent, Kajillionaire
“doesn’t always find the most satisfying
way to juggle those dueling tones,” said
Eric Kohn in IndieWire.com. It does a better
job of calling family bonds into question
before building to a surprising takeaway:
“that everybody deserves a little tough
love.” (In select theaters) R
Other new movies
Ava
With a better script, Jessica Chastain’s
new action flick “could have been the
start of a female Bourne-type franchise,”
said Boyd van Hoeij in The Hollywood
Reporter. Chastain is “utterly convincing”
as an assassin who beats up her assailants
when her gun fails her, but every character
brings so much backstory drama to the
proceedings that “the whole exercise starts
to feel more than faintly ridiculous.” John
Malkovich, Geena Davis, Common, and
Colin Farrell co-star. ($6 on demand) R
The Last Shift
This “wonderfully sad” small-town drama
ARTS 25
features another fine turn from Richard
Jenkins, said Amy Nicholson in Variety.
Here, the “ever empathetic” actor plays a
veteran late-night fast-food worker who in
his final days on the job is asked to train
the young black man hired to replace him.
The characters are both victims of a fail-
ing American dream, and as much as you
ache for them to connect, The Last Shift
instead serves up “a gut punch with a side
of anguish.” (In select theaters) R
Alone
Sometimes the only elements a thriller
needs are a methodical predator, some
“gorgeous” Pacific Northwest scenery, and
“a woman who responds with unforeseen
grit,” said Kevin Crust in the Los Angeles
Times. A minimalist but clever script, smart
pacing, and “top-tier performances” from
co-stars Jules Willcox and Marc Menchaca
combine to deliver “98 minutes of heart-
pounding diversion.” (In select theaters or
$7 on demand) R
MLK/FBI
In an ordinary year, you’d have to attend
the New York Film Festival in person to see
any of its buzzworthy features, said A.O.
Scott in The New York Times. This year,
Sam Pollard’s “engrossing, unsettling”
documentary about the FBI’s surveillance
of Martin Luther King Jr. is one of many
festival films available online on a limited
basis to ticket buyers anywhere. ($15 at
virtual.filmlinc.org) Not rated

The 2020 Emmys: The year (almost) everything went to Schitt’s Creek
“Am I wrong to think that was the best
Emmys ceremony in years?” asked Daniel
D’Addario in Variety.com. Though any
fan would prefer seeing all of TV’s stars in
one room again, just because that’d mean
the pandemic is behind us, last Sunday’s
Emmy broadcast—the first major awards
show of the social-distancing era—“met its
moment with élan.” With Jimmy Kimmel
hosting from an empty Staples Center in
Los Angeles and the honorees beamed in
through 140 video feeds, the producers
turned the strangeness of the event into a A family thing: Eugene and Dan Levy in Toronto Josef Adalian, also in NYMag.com, old-
strength. Schitt’s Creek, a comedy launched
on Canadian television, swept up so many deserved awards that
the first hour grew tedious. But the acceptance speeches through-
out were more graceful than usual, and the night’s other big win-
ners, HBO’s Succession and Watchmen, are shows that garnered
their laurels at “exactly the right moment.”
Not that Schitt’s Creek’s triumph didn’t seem fitting, said Jen
Chanel in NYMag.com. The onetime niche comedy became a
popular pandemic binge-watch once its past seasons moved to
Netflix, and the fact that winners Daniel Levy, Eugene Levy,
Catherine O’Hara, and Annie Murphy were able to gather
in Toronto to celebrate their record-setting night “served as a
Focus Features, AP
all-white creative team and all-white cast,
later picked up the top drama prize and
three other honors. But in a year that’s
been “anything but” business as usual, a
record seven black actors won awards,
including 24-year-old surprise best actress
winner Zendaya (for the HBO drama
Euphoria), while the superb limited series
Watchmen, featuring Regina King as a
black female superhero, garnered 11 hon-
ors. And while the ratings declined com-
pared with past Emmy broadcasts, said
school ABC had to admit that the audi-
ence of 6.1 million was the biggest it has had since April. “Yay?”
And the winners were...
Best comedy: Schitt’s Creek
Best actress in a comedy series: Catherine O’Hara, Schitt’s Creek
Best actor in a comedy series: Eugene Levy, Schitt’s Creek
Best drama: Succession
Best actress in a drama series: Zendaya, Euphoria
Best actor in a drama series: Jeremy Strong, Succession
Best limited series: Watchmen

Best actors in a limited series or movie: Regina King, Watchmen,

subtextual reminder that other countries are doing much better and Mark Ruffalo, I Know This Much Is True
than America is right now.” Succession, a second series with an

THE WEEK October 2, 2020

26 ARTS
Streaming tips
How the West was watched...
Godless
If you only know Michelle
Dockery from Downton
Abbey, you need to see her
paired with Merritt Wever as
frontierswomen who face off
against a diabolical outlaw.
Jeff Daniels, surprisingly,
plays the baddie. Netflix
Gunsmoke
Arguably the best of TV’s
classic Westerns, Gunsmoke
debuted in 1955 and ran for
20 seasons, largely on the
strength of James Arness as
Matt Dillon, a towering fed-
eral marshal. CBS All Access
Deadwood
A settlement’s transition from
gold miners’ camp to town
becomes a microcosm of
the story of civilization in this
masterful modern Western—
like Gunsmoke but with
“c---sucker” in every other
line. Ian McShane plays a
swindling brothel owner and
Timothy Olyphant the town’s
reluctant sheriff. HBO Max
Justified
No matter the era, Olyphant
makes a fantastic lawman.
In this series, based on an
Elmore Leonard novella, the
actor plays a U.S. marshal
dispensing justice in his na-
tive eastern Kentucky and
finding a nemesis in an old
friend, played by Walton
Goggins, who has become a
charismatic criminal. Hulu
Lonesome Dove
An insanely good ensemble
cast—Robert Duvall, Tommy
Lee Jones, Anjelica Huston,
and Danny Glover—carried
this Emmy-sweeping seven-
part 1989 miniseries based
on Larry McMurtry’s novel.
To many fans, it’s the best
Western ever. Hulu
Hell on Wheels
Two other AMC series, Break-
ing Bad and The Walking
Dead, overshadowed it,
but the five seasons of this
drama set during the building
of the transcontinental rail-
road is required viewing for
Western fans. Anson Mount
plays a former Confederate
soldier who joins the railroad
while seeking revenge for his
wife’s death. Netflix
THE WEEK October 2, 2020
Television
The Week’s guide to what’s worth watching
2020 Presidential Debate
The first of three scheduled debates between
Donald Trump and Joe Biden will be a crucible.
Never since the dawn of the television era have
the presidential candidates of the two major par-
ties entered the stage having painted the conse-
quences of their opponent’s election in such apoc-
alyptic terms. Trump’s history of bold mendacity
complicates the dynamics. Which man, if either,
will be thrown off-balance by the other’s attacks?
Tuesday, Sept. 29, at 9 p.m., most major networks
American Murder: The Family Next Door
Chris Watts remains one of the most chill-
ing American murderers of recent years. In
August 2018, TV cameras caught him at home
in Frederick, Colo., two days after he killed
his pregnant wife and two young daughters
and disposed of their bodies. From his empty
five-bedroom home, a picture of contemporary
domestic bliss, Watts delivered emotional pleas
for his family’s safe return, only to be arrested
within hours. This unflinching documentary
details Watts’ crimes while examining the psy-
chology that makes such acts possible. Available
for streaming Wednesday, Sept. 30, Netflix
The Boys in the Band
A groundbreaking 1968 Broadway play returns
in a deft screen adaptation from TV savant Ryan
Murphy and Broadway director Joe Mantello.
Jim Parsons, Zachary Quinto, Matt Bomer, and
Andrew Rannells lead an incredible ensemble
cast in reviving Mart Crowley’s drama about
a gay birthday party in 1960s New York City
that turns emotionally dangerous when the host
challenges each guest to call his one true love
and confess his feelings. Available for streaming
Wednesday, Sept. 30, Netflix
The Glorias
Gloria Steinem’s life story is so big that director
Julie Taymor tapped two great stars to bring it to
the screen. Alicia Vikander and Julianne Moore
play the activist in her adult years, as she transi-
tions from accomplished journalist to the face of
the women’s liberation movement and co-founder
of Ms. magazine. Aside from a few tête-à-têtes
Johnson with Hawke: Freedom riders
Parsons with three other ‘Boys in the Band’
between the different Glorias, the story unfolds
in traditional fashion, enlivened by the cast and
by the empathetic warmth Steinem brought to
her fight. Available for streaming Wednesday,
Sept. 30, on demand and on Amazon Prime
Masterpiece: Flesh and Blood
A death on the rocks below a couple’s coastal
home opens this excellent four-part British mys-
tery, in which clues spill out after the widow
takes a new lover and a detective begins ques-
tioning her adult children. With Francesca Annis,
Imelda Staunton, and Stephen Rea. Sunday,
Oct. 4, at 9 p.m., PBS; check local listings
Other highlights
Whose Vote Counts, Explained
A look at how gerrymandering, the Electoral
College, and other practices affect U.S. election
outcomes. Available for streaming Monday,
Sept. 28, Netflix
Monsterland
October and monster season kick off with a
series based on Nathan Ballingrud’s masterful
story collection North American Lake Monsters.
With Kaitlyn Dever, Taylor Schilling, and
Ozark’s Charlie Tahan. Available for streaming
Friday, Oct. 2, Hulu
Saturday Night Live
SNL returns to its traditional live in-studio for-
mat and introduces Jim Carrey as Joe Biden, as
it launches its 46th season of late-night sketch
comedy. Saturday, Oct. 3, at 11:30 p.m., NBC
Show of the week
The Good Lord Bird
Ethan Hawke vows he’s never had a better role.
In this bewitching adaptation of a 2013 James
McBride novel, Hawke plays John Brown, the
abolitionist who tried to trigger a widespread
armed slave revolt in 1859. And because the
story is told by a 14-year-old freed slave Brown
mistakes for a girl, Hawke gets to play the trail-
blazer as both morally correct and half mad.
As the story begins, Hawke and Black-ish’s
Joshua Caleb Johnson head west to join the
Netflix, Showtime
bloody battle over slavery’s expansion into
Kansas. Hamilton’s Daveed Diggs plays Frederick
Douglass. Sunday, Oct. 4, at 9 p.m., Showtime
• All listings are Eastern Time.

Pumpkin risotto: A ‘bridge’ dish in the Venetian manner
Il primo, the course that acts as a bridge
in an Italian meal, is never to be taken
lightly, says Mimi Thorisson in Old World
Italian (Clarkson Potter). Often it consists
of pasta, and “there is no hiding; you must
deliver.” Because perfection is required,
“I have never, and will never, cook pasta
without a hint of fear and excitement.”
And risotto is the same: You have already
enjoyed the antipasti with a glass of great
wine. “Now there is a small amount of
rice in front of you,” as well as wine, and
if the risotto is right, “it’s not a filler; it’s a
delight—a few forks of pleasure.”
The risotto below is a go-to recipe for the
Venetian family who introduced us to their
city, and it’s “very much in the Venice tra-
dition.” Pumpkin and radicchio di Treviso
play a big part. But to approach perfection,
you do need to start with a good vegetable
stock, which is easy enough to make.
“When people ask me for cooking advice,
one of the first things I usually suggest is
making their own stock or broth. Lots of
it. All of the time.”
Recipe of the week
Risotto with pumpkin, radicchio, and
gorgonzola
For the stock:
2 onions, peeled and halved
LEISURE 27
Food & Drink
1 tsp grated fresh or ground dried turmeric
3 oz Gorgonzola cheese, crumbled
In a large stockpot, combine all ingredients
for the stock plus 2 quarts water. Bring to
a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce heat
to low and continue to simmer for 3 hours.
Halfway through, stir the vegetables. Strain
stock through a sieve. In a large saucepan,
return the stock to a simmer over medium-
high heat, then reduce heat to low, main-
taining a simmer.
Between other courses, ‘a few forks of pleasure’ In a separate saucepan, heat 2 tbsp olive oil
over medium heat. Add diced pumpkin and
3 carrots, coarsely chopped Treviso and season with salt. Cook until
4 celery stalks, coarsely chopped softened, 15 to 20 minutes. Spoon mixture
4 sprigs fresh thyme into a bowl and set aside. Wipe out pan.
1 bay leaf Add remaining 2 tbsp olive oil to saucepan
2 sprigs fresh parsley and heat over medium heat. Add shallots
1 tsp black peppercorns and cook until softened, about 3 minutes.
Add rice and stir well to coat. Sauté for a
For the risotto: few minutes. Add a ladle of hot stock along
5 cups vegetable stock with the pumpkin-Treviso mixture and
4 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil gently stir. Stir in turmeric. When liquid
1 lb pumpkin, seeded, peeled and cut into is mostly absorbed, add another ladle of
small cubes stock, stirring constantly and adding more
4 heads radicchio di Treviso (1 lb), finely once each addition is absorbed, to keep the
chopped rice covered at all times. Repeat process,
Fine sea salt stirring constantly, until rice is creamy but
8 shallots, finely chopped still al dente, 15 to 20 minutes. When rice
3 cups Rosa Marchetti, Arborio, or is done, stir in the Gorgonzola and adjust
Carnaroli rice salt. Bring to table immediately. Serves 8.

Restaurant tipping: Will ‘gratuity included’ survive the pandemic? Spirits: The zero-proof gang
The “No Tipping” movement has clearly arrived “Imagine a junipery, botanical bite of
at a tipping point, said Kathryn Campo Bowen gin that mixes effortlessly into G&Ts
in Eater.com. In mid-July, when onetime leader but without the buzz—or the hangover,”
of the cause Danny Meyer announced that he said Elizabeth Dunn in Bloomberg.com.
was ending his five-year “Hospitality Included” Nonalcoholic spirits are here, and big
experiment at his New York City restaurants, the sales are predicted. So far, many are
score was clear: “Tipping won, and decisively.” “little more than pricey, flavored water.”
Four years after a national American Express Not these bottles, however, which are
survey found that nearly half of all restaurants had absolutely mocktail-worthy.
established or planned to implement a no-tipping Monday Gin ($40). Produced in one
Outdoor diners in New York City policy, Meyer’s surrender seemed to complete of California’s oldest distilleries,
a widespread retreat driven by necessity. The this zero-ABV gin combines “a
elimination of tipping is supposed to close the compensation gap between waitstaff and strong juniper backbone” with citrus
kitchen employees, but customers had balked at higher menu prices, and servers had extracts that “add complexity
walked out on the reformers in droves. Still, the need to address restaurant pay practices and just a hint of bitterness.”
“has never been more urgent.” Ritual Zero Proof ($27). This
alcohol-free tequila “brings to-
And No Tipping is far from dead, said Priya Krishna in The New York Times. Scattered gether blue agave flower, guava,
restaurants around the country adopted the practice this year because the pandemic and Mexican lime distillates in
revealed a need for more-livable wages. In Great Barrington, Mass., the Prairie Whale re- a softly smoky formulation.”
opened with a new 3 percent service charge to boost kitchen-staff pay. In Seattle, Musang It’s convincing in a margarita—
ended tipping and reduced staff to raise hourly wages from $25 to $30. The movement’s or even as a shot.
Odder Thorisson, Getty

broader fate may depend on policymakers, said Rachel Sugar in NYMag.com. Meyer has Ghia ($33). An aperitivo made
joined other prominent restaurateurs in a broad push for “One Fair Wage” and an end to with gentian root, elderflower,
minimum wages for tipped workers that start at $2.13 an hour. Joe Biden backs ending and lemon balm, Ghia is “dry,
the tiered federal minimum wage, too. But only Congress can make the change. complex, and pleasingly bitter.”

THE WEEK October 2, 2020

28 LEISURE
The 2021 Toyota Venza: What the critics say
Consumer Reports
Toyota’s all-new hybrid SUV “could almost
pass for a Lexus.” The midsize Venza,
which takes its name from a Camry-based
crossover that was discontinued in 2015,
arrives as a fuel-efficient, all-wheel-drive
five-seater that’s more premium than the
competition. It’s “nothing flashy.” But
because it’s posher than Toyota’s popular
RAV and loaded with standard goodies, it
“should draw luxe shoppers like moths to
a Tiffany lamp.”
Autoblog.com
“Toyota keeps giving its cars better interi-
ors, and this is the best of the new bunch
Consumer
so far.” We wish the upper-trim models
relied less on touchscreen controls, but
the more troublesome styling gaffe is
the vehicle’s bulbous front end, which
undermines the handsome work behind it.
Fuel efficiency is the real selling point here:
40 mpg in the city and 37 on the high-
way—numbers that are “spectacular” for a
vehicle this size. Only Toyota’s own RAV4
Hybrid can compete. Almost a Lexus, from $33,645
Automobile fuel-efficient.” Compared with a similarly
“The new Venza may be boring, but damn, equipped Lexus, this SUV is a true bargain,
is it good”—a perfect vehicle for the kind too. “Once you let go of the fact that the
of driver who simply wants “something Venza isn’t going to thrill you to the marrow,
quiet, comfortable, trouble-free, and it’s hard not to like it, or at least respect it.”

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Tip of the week...
Curing a dog of separation anxiety
Q Watch for signs. A return to a normal work
schedule for you can be stressful for your
pet. You may notice nervous behaviors such
as pacing, vocalizing, and trembling, but
consider using a camera to detect symptoms
that emerge only when you step out. Dogs
that feel panicked may destroy furniture or
carpets, but don’t punish them: They’re not
trying to punish you.
Q Try exposure therapy. Give commands to
sit and stay, then leave the room to see if
the dog can resist chasing you. Start step-
ping outside briefly, too, and lengthen your
absence each time.
Q Keep them busy. Toys can help distract
a dog while you’re out, and a timed kibble
dispenser “can help your pet learn that you
aren’t the patron saint of food.”
Q Give them love. Do your best to take your
dog on as many walks as during lockdown,
and be sure to put aside playtime after work.
Source: PopSci.com
And for those who have Best apps...
everything... For improving videoconferencing
As summer arrived, Q Meet Enhancement Suite is a Chrome
quarantiners eager browser extension that adds dozens of handy
to get outdoors tools to Google Meet, including a push-to-talk
made hammocks function, a “mute all” button, and a keyboard
hard to find. “The shortcut for quickly leaving a meeting.
next hot pandemic Q Mmhmm allows you to present content—
purchase, as it turns graphs, photos, slideshows, live news
out, is a heat lamp.” feeds—without your face obscuring the
From $100 tabletop display or vice versa. The images appear in
lamps to the tall, mushroom-shaped heat- a box above your shoulder, making you look
ers that you see on restaurant patios, heat like a newscaster. You can also shrink your-
lamps have been selling out nationwide as self or turn transparent, “all with a few clicks
summer fades into fall. The upscale brand of the mouse.” Just know that the macOS
Frontgate offers several well-designed op- program is still in beta testing.
tions, including the opulent Lightfire Patio Q IDroo “makes the process of using a digital
Heater, which “looks very Miami” and can whiteboard so simple and fun that you’ll
pump out 42,000 BTUs—enough to heat quickly be using it to replace whatever tool
450 square feet. Of course, you could al- your video-calling service opens by default.”
ways burn some logs in a firepit. For some The free browser add-on offers a ton of draw-
people, though, that’s too much of a hassle. ing tools, and “you can invite other people to
$4,499, frontgate.com work on the whiteboard with you.”
Source: The Boston Globe Source: Gizmodo.com

THE WEEK October 2, 2020

GIVE SOMEONE YOU KNOW
SOME PRESENTS OF MIND
THE WEEK is the perfect way to remember and
reward everyone in your life, not once but 51 times
in the coming year. And now it couldn’t be easier.

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30 Best properties on the market
This week: Homes built in the 1970s

1 W Charlotte, N.C. This six-bedroom home in Quail

Hollow was custom-built in 1976. The house has hard-
wood floors, three fireplaces, a curved staircase, built-ins,
skylights, floor-to-ceiling windows, a vaulted great room
and banquet-size dining room, a brick-floored chef’s
kitchen, a library, two decks, and a two-car garage.
The wooded lot features a backyard with a patio, a
lawn, and a wooden playhouse on stilts. $1,195,000.
Peggy Peterson, HM Properties, (704) 904-6279

4 5
6
3
1

2 X Pinecrest, Fla. Built in 1975, this six-bedroom home

near Biscayne Bay is laid out on a split-bedroom plan with
flexible-use rooms. The interior features recessed lighting,
natural-wood cabinetry, stone and wood floors, a wet bar, a
recreation room, and a family room with French doors to the
back. The gated, landscaped lot has a pool, a lighted tennis
court, a patio with barbecue, and a chickee hut. $2,445,000.
William Meyersohn, Brown Harris Stevens, (305) 668-1629

3 X Charlottesville, Va.
A classic midcentury-
modern home, this
1972 three-bedroom
is crafted inside and
out with redwood,
glass, and Brazil-
ian slate and cork
flooring. Details
include custom
cabinetry, a wine
refrigerator, and a soapstone soaking
tub. The 54-acre mountaintop property,
15 minutes from town, has Ragged and
Charlottesville: Andrea Hubbell

Blue Ridge Mountain views, a private

road, a barn, and landscaped grounds
with mature trees, a saltwater swimming
pool, and two renovated guesthouses.
$1,950,000. Peter Wiley, Wiley Real
Estate, (434) 422-2090

THE WEEK October 2, 2020

 Best properties on the market 31

4 X Cos Cob, Conn. Built

in 1976, this five-bedroom
home was renovated in
2015 with new systems and
wiring and an open layout.
A two-story great room with
fireplace and wall-to-wall
windows leads to a family
room, a chef’s kitchen with
marble counters and island,
and a breakfast area and
dining room; the upstairs
master suite has three walk-
in closets. The hilltop lot
features rock landscaping,
gardens, terraces, and a
flagstone patio. $2,295,000.
Maria Kelly Stevens,
Berkshire Hathaway Home
Services, (203) 570-7021

Steal of the week

6 W North Providence, R.I. This

three-bedroom home was built
5 S Wayland, Mass. This five-bedroom Cape Cod–style home in Colonial style in 1974. The
was built in 1973. Updated with high-efficiency heat, central house has hardwood floors, a
air, and smart thermostats, the house retains its hardwood painted-brick fireplace, French
floors, four fireplaces, family room with deep window seat, doors, updated kitchen and
and dining and living rooms with walls of windows. Out- bathrooms, a sunroom, a deck, a finished basement, and a loft-style
side are a cedar-and-teak screened porch, mature perennial studio with a separate entrance over the two-car garage. The landscaped
gardens, a two-car garage, and nearly 2 acres of secluded lot includes lawns, mature trees, a patio, and a gazebo, and is close to
wooded grounds 19 miles from Boston. $1,199,000. Lincoln Woods State Park and highway connections to I-95. $389,000.
Liz Kincannon, Coldwell Banker Realty, (508) 566-5273 Pauline Lemieux, Coldwell Banker Realty, (401) 369-1811
THE WEEK October 2, 2020
32
The bottom line
Q With interest rates at rec-
ord lows, home sales have
surged. The 24.7 percent gain
in July was the greatest ever.
August sales were 10.5 per-
cent above last year’s, the
biggest annual increase
since 2006; sales are running
at a rate of 6 million homes
a year.
Axios.com
Q After missing out on
TikTok, Microsoft is spend-
ing $7.5 billion to buy game
maker ZeniMax Media, the
parent company of Bethesda
Softworks, which publishes
popular franchises such as
The Elder Scrolls, Doom,
Wolfenstein, and Fallout.
Bloomberg.com
Q Bankrupt Chuck E. Cheese
will spend $2.3 million
to destroy 7 billion prize
tickets. The chain says that
destroying the tickets, which
would fill 65 cargo-shipping
containers, costs less than
the $9 million that would
have to be spent if they were
redeemed for prizes.
Forbes.com
Q Car sales were near 1.4 mil-
lion in August—matching
pre-pandemic sales in Febru-
ary and almost double the
745,353 vehicle sales in April.
The average price for used
vehicles is $21,843, up $920.
Fortune.com
Q The average rate paid by
banks on basic, federally
insured savings accounts is
a mere 0.05 percent; $5,000
in a savings account would
earn just $2.50 a year.
The New York Times
Q Between April and June,
shoppers purchased
$346 million worth of masks
from sellers on Etsy. More
than 100,000 sellers started
offering masks on Etsy dur-
ing those three months.
TheVerge.com
THE WEEK October 2, 2020
BUSINESS
The news at a glance
TikTok: Confusion engulfs Trump-backed deal
A deal to sell U.S. operations of The negotiations unfolding
the video-sharing network TikTok in public are “bewilder-
hit a geopolitical stalemate this ing,” said Therese Poletti in
week, said Michael Bender in MarketWatch.com. Whatever
The Wall Street Journal. After an deal is on the table, it’s
“eleventh-hour phone call with “remarkably different from
two of America’s most powerful what President Trump put
executives,” Oracle’s Larry Ellison forth in August.” Worse is
and Walmart’s Doug McMillon, how Trump has misused
TikTok: Still in limbo
President Trump gave his “bless- the Committee on Foreign
ing” to a tentative deal that would transfer control Investment, the group that normally reviews
to Oracle and Walmart. But a day later, TikTok’s these transactions. One former member said
Chinese owner, ByteDance, said “it would retain he watched with “utter amazement” as Trump
an 80 percent stake” in the venture, and control of ordered a TikTok sale, then pushed for it to go to
TikTok’s algorithms. China’s government has “yet a favored bidder. That undermines the commit-
to give its nod,” and ByteDance said it had not tee’s genuine national security role. But like many
heard of the $5 billion education fund that Trump things with Trump, this deal is more about pos-
claimed was included “until seeing media reports.” turing and creating a “global soap opera.”
Section 230: DOJ proposes new internet rules Hard-core flier?
Your plane is ready
The Justice Department sent Congress a legislative proposal targeting
“People who miss
Section 230, the provision that protects social media platforms from
flying are rushing to
lawsuits, said Ashley Gold in Axios.com. The proposal this week is buy tickets on ‘flights
slightly softer than the outline for changes the department released this to nowhere,’” said
summer. But it “includes the removal of legal immunity when platforms Tariro Mzezewa in
facilitate criminal activity or fail to report unlawful content, or when The New York Times.
platforms don’t follow their own content moderation practices consis- Thousands of antsy
tently.” While “efforts to change 230 have garnered bipartisan support,” travelers stuck at home
critics say a revision would expose platforms such as Facebook and in Brunei, Taiwan,
Japan, and Australia
Twitter to a flood of demands to take down content.
are booking so-called
Television: NBCUniversal cuts back on cable scenic flights that “start
NBCUniversal is pushing deep cuts at its cable networks, once the and end in the same
company’s “crown jewels,” said Lillian Rizzo and Joe Flint in The Wall place.” Last week,
Street Journal. In addition to downsizing at channels such as USA, SyFy, Qantas announced
and E!, NBC is “centralizing decision-making” and phasing out the job a seven-hour flight
of cable network president, “long a prestigious title in the entertainment over Australia in a
industry.” Once focused on building a set of networks with their own “state-of-the-art B787
Dreamliner with the
identities, the company now sees them as an albatross in the streaming
world, and “believes its brand power lies not in networks but in indi- biggest windows on
any passenger aircraft.”
vidual franchises such as Keeping Up With the Kardashians.”
Tickets starting at $575
China: A reprieve for WeChat each sold out in 10
A proposed WeChat ban was halted at the last minute after a federal minutes. Royal Brunei
judge issued an injunction on First Amendment grounds, said Steven offers similar, though
Overly in Politico.com. The decision was a “big win for WeChat,” the shorter, “Dine & Fly”
flights that serve local
Chinese messaging service that, along with TikTok, has drawn scrutiny
cuisine. The demand
from President Trump over national security concerns. The Commerce
Department announced last week that “WeChat must be removed from has been a surprising
boon for cash-strapped
U.S. mobile app stores” by Sunday. But U.S. district court Judge Laurel
airlines, which have
Beeler blocked a ban from going into effect, saying it would remove “an faced unprecedented
essential method of communication for Chinese speakers.” declines in revenue
Diversity: Wells Fargo chief under fire since the pandemic
Wells Fargo’s CEO apologized this week for saying that the company began. The chief execu-
had fallen behind on corporate diversity goals because of a “limited tive of Qantas said that
his airline was hoping
pool of black talent,” said Hannah Levitt in Bloomberg.com. In a
to cater to frequent fli-
June memo newly made public, Charles Scharf pledged to double the
ers who “are used to
number of black leaders at Wells Fargo. But he was taken to task by the experience of flying
black employees for blaming the bank’s inability to hit its targets on the every other week.”
industry’s “failure to build a strong pipeline of minority candidates.”
AP
 Making money BUSINESS 33

Office life: Wall Street’s rush to return

Some companies are bringing their work- is it safe now? It’s not. “But stay-
ers back to the office, said Sridhar Nata- ing closed also has serious risks in
rajan in Bloomberg.com—with mixed re- terms of employment, income, and,
sults. Last week, JPMorgan Chase issued yes, health.” For months we’ve been
a “mandate that its senior traders return “operating under the assumption that
by Sept. 21.” But within days, an em- pretty soon this will end.” That’s no
ployee in the bank’s trading unit tested longer tenable. “We have started to
positive for Covid-19. The same thing realize—and I know we do not want
happened at Goldman Sachs, which had to hear this—that it’s not a few weeks,
been preparing “to start bringing staffers or even a few months. Employers have
back across most divisions” in October. realized they need to plan for the long
“Wall Street firms have seen revenue rise term.” The kinds of investments they
with most staff working from home” are making now show they “expect
since spring, but “executives have ex- we’ll just have to get used to living
Pre-Covid, Wall Street traders sat elbow to elbow.
pressed concerns about productivity and with Covid-19.”
the erosion of company culture.” JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon
told analysts that internal studies found work-from-home pro- It’s easy to construct the argument that the pandemic has dimin-
ductivity had been slipping in recent months, particularly among ished to the point where there’s “a net social benefit” to getting
younger employees on Mondays and Fridays. back to work, said Megan McArdle in The Washington Post.
“Believing it is hard.” The banks point to low case numbers in
Our staff is just “happy to be able to see each other again,” said New York as justification. But “white-collar workers who’ve
Alex Conant and Terry Sullivan, founding partners of public re- been huddling at home since March” have not developed any
lations firm Firehouse Strategies, in The Wall Street Journal. “As degree of immunity. And many of them have been sheltered from
weeks turned into months, the deficiencies of working remotely seeing the worst of the epidemic’s ravages. The truth is that bank-
became apparent.” In Washington, we followed guidelines from ers are just unable to leave the corporate ladder behind, knowing
officials about when it was safe to reopen businesses. We all that “face time is the most important corporate virtue.” It’s wor-
wear masks and have “high-grade air purifiers throughout the risome that other, saner industries will be tempted to follow the
office.” This is a reality a lot of workers might have to get used lead of a Wall Street culture that has spent “decades filtering for
to, said Emily Oster in Bloomberg.com. You may wonder, Why macho displays of pointless sacrifice.”

What the experts say Charity of the week

‘Low volatility’ bets backfire
“An investment strategy for reducing risk in
the long run” has largely failed in the pan-
demic, said Jason Zweig in The Wall Street
Journal. So-called low-volatility funds were
supposed to invest in stocks that fluctuated less
than the broader market, limiting losses. Inves-
tors put $36.5 billion in these funds, convinced
by marketing that showed the strategy would
have worked well in past downturns. But some
of the funds “lost at least as much as the mar-
ket in February and March, but later lagged
far behind when stocks shot up.” When the
pandemic came, industries such as tech that
seemed positioned to profit did well, while safe
sectors such as financials and utilities seized
up. The lesson: “Historical returns often paint
a distorted picture, and rigid rules have unin-
tended consequences.”
The wildest IPO market since 1999
The average first-day return on IPOs this year
has been “higher than any calendar year’s
average since 1999,” said Mark Hulbert in
MarketWatch.com—and that’s cause for
worry. Snowflake, last week’s massive software
IPO, went up 112 percent in its first day of
trading. That’s on the high side, but not out of
Alamy
day gain was 58 percent. The last time we saw
numbers like that, the hangover that followed
was terrible. When the internet bubble burst,
the Nasdaq index lost 77.9 percent. Jay Ritter,
an economist who has studied IPOs for de-
cades, says that the situation is somewhat dif-
ferent now, because there is less of a “discon-
nect between the valuations of the tech sector
and the rest of the market.” Still, says Ritter,
“there can be no denying that there is specula-
tive excess” in the frenzy for new issues.
New bans on ‘cashless’ stores
An increasing number of cities and states are
ordering “businesses like restaurants and retail
shops to continue accepting cash,” said Ann
Carrns in The New York Times. New York
City is banning cashless stores later this year,
joining New Jersey, Philadelphia, and other
locales that passed similar laws last year. Stores
“like electronic payments because they speed
up purchases and reduce concern about theft.”
But the move to cash-free has spurred concerns
about discrimination against buyers who have
no credit or debit cards. Consumer groups are
backing federal legislation that would require
all brick-and-mortar stores to take cash—still
used in a quarter of all purchases and for “al-
Founded in 1984, the
National Center for
Missing & Exploited
Children (missingkids
.org) provides direct sup-
port to law enforcement
and families to find miss-
ing children. NCMEC reviews thousands
of cases, conducts information-gathering
investigations, and searches regional
databases of sex offenders. It helps
families cope by providing peer counsel-
ing and connections with mental health
professionals and legal assistance. The
organization also helps law enforce-
ment by collecting missing kids’ DNA
and other biometric data and identify-
ing kids who appear in videos of sexual
abuse. NCMEC’s Team Adam—named
for the murdered son of one of NCMEC’s
founders—gives police long-term support,
including vetting of leads and creation
of age-progression images. So far, Team
Adam has helped resolve 1,145 missing-
child cases and tracked 20,000 sex offend-
ers who evaded registration requirements.
Each charity we feature has earned a
four-star overall rating from Charity
Navigator, which rates not-for-profit
organizations on the strength of their
finances, their governance practices,
and the transparency of their operations.
Four stars is the group’s highest rating.

line for this year; for 44 IPOs, the average first- most half of the payments under $10.”
THE WEEK October 2, 2020
34 Best columns: Business

Facebook: Growing too close to Trump?

An “alliance of convenience” has been York Times. Though “lucrative for its
forged between the White House and founder,” Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook
the world’s largest social network, said has been “a disaster for the world itself.”
Sarah Frier and Kurt Wagner in Bloom- Like industrial-age steel companies that
berg Businessweek. “Facebook execu- dumped waste into waterways, “Face-
tives often point out that the company book pumps paranoia and disinforma-
was seen as overly friendly to Democrats tion into the body politic, the toxic by-
during the Obama years,” and the Right product of its relentless drive for profit.”
continues to levy accusations of “anti-
conservative bias.” But employees have What really bothers the Left about Face-
grown increasingly outspoken about a book isn’t an attack on democracy, said
pattern of ignoring misinformation spread Michael Brendan Dougherty in National
on the platform by President Trump and Zuckerberg: Staying on Trump’s good side
Review. Liberals adored Facebook a
his supporters. Facebook made “rules decade ago when they believed it would
against giving incorrect information about how to vote, but then “create progressive revolutions across the globe.” They are angry
froze when Trump actually put it to the test” in May. Facebook’s now because while most news outlets “tilt toward the center-Left
head of policy, Joel Kaplan, vetoed a tweak of the news-feed or Left,” Facebook is “a place where conservatives can talk, and
algorithm after traffic began to drop for right-wing news outlets share ideas.” The Left’s real hope is that Facebook can be forced
such as Fox and Breitbart. More recently, Facebook “seemed to to censor these conservative views. Facebook is in an “unwin-
back off” its voter registration efforts this summer after Republi- nable position” here: If it appeases progressives with censorship,
cans complained, reducing a two-day July 4 promotion across all angry Republicans will have a case for repealing Section 230, the
its platforms to “a one-day push on Facebook alone.” legislation that protects Facebook from lawsuits and liability.

Facebook’s closeness with governments isn’t confined to the U.S.,
said Craig Silverman in BuzzFeedNews.com. Sophie Zhang,
a former Facebook data scientist, wrote a 6,600-word memo
“filled with concrete examples” of government officials ma-
nipulating the platform to sway political opinion. Zhang, who
turned down a $64,000 severance to avoid signing a nondis-
paragement agreement, described a “lack of desire from senior
leadership to protect democratic processes.” How much longer
will we put up with this? asked Jamelle Bouie in The New
Facebook’s business model is the real problem, said Pat Garofalo
in NBCNews.com. “Sensationalized content is how Facebook
makes money.” The longer you stay on Facebook, the more ads
you see and “the more money it pockets.” The most effective
way to get you to stay on the site is to “hook you on addic-
tive content,” such as conspiracy theories and partisan rage. So
Facebook has little incentive to curb extremist groups. “As with
many of the problems Facebook causes, potential solutions run
up against its profit motive.”

Some of the world’s largest banks continue know-
Big banks ingly doing business with criminals, said Jason Leo-
choose to pold in BuzzFeedNews.com. We obtained financial
documents “compiled by banks, shared with the
ignore crime government, but kept from public view” that reveal
the ease with which “profits from deadly drug wars,
Jason Leopold fortunes embezzled from developing countries, and
BuzzFeedNews.com hard-earned savings stolen in a Ponzi scheme” were
allowed to “flow in and out of financial institutions
despite warnings from bank employees.” Since 1992,
a branch of the Treasury Department, the Financial
Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, has col-
lected documents known as suspicious activity reports
(SARs) from banks. FinCEN received more than
2 million SARs last year. But as long as a bank files
such a notice, “it all but immunizes itself and its ex-
ecutives from criminal prosecution.” In many cases,
banks filed numerous reports about the same clients
“while continuing to welcome their business.” HSBC,
for instance, has been fined billions in the past for
doing business with traffickers, yet continues its rela-
tionship with a Panamanian import-export firm that
launders money for drug lords. There may be only
one way to fix the problem, said one former Justice
Department lawyer: “The bankers will never learn
until you start putting silver bracelets on people.”

dustry $140 million per year. “The agency doesn’t

A coal-industry The Trump administration’s latest effort to “prop up
the coal industry puts Americans’ health at risk,” said
favor that Bloomberg.com in an editorial. The Environmental
Protection Agency recently relaxed an “Obama-
will cost lives administration effort to protect the water supply from
mercury, arsenic, lead, and other toxic components of
Editorial coal ash,” a poisonous discharge known to cause can-
Bloomberg.com cer, respiratory illnesses, and neurological disorders.
Plants had been required to remove heavy metals
from the wastewater used to scrub their smokestacks
and to employ safer “dry” disposal methods for the
estimate how much power companies, or taxpayers,
will ultimately have to pay to clean up the damage.”
We do have some hints: In 2008, the Tennessee Valley
Authority spent more than $1 billion mopping up an
ash spill that contributed to the deaths of three dozen
workers from cancer and other diseases. The rules
rollback is even more nonsensical because technology
has made it easier to discard coal ash more safely.
Trump has spent “more than $1 billion trying to re-
vive coal power,” even as many utilities abandon it.
Facebook

ash from their boilers. The EPA’s revision, which Now, he’s sacrificing lives to “help the country’s dirti-
weakens both requirements, will save the coal in- est electric-power plants save a little money.”
THE WEEK October 2, 2020
 Obituaries
The Supreme Court justice who fought for gender equality
Ruth Bader Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Ginsburg changed the legal land-
1933–2020 scape for American
women. In a career
spanning six decades, she became the
nation’s leading court advocate for
gender equality, first as a civil rights
litigator and then as the second woman
ever to serve on the Supreme Court. As
director of the ACLU Women’s Rights
Project in the 1970s, Ginsburg argued a
series of discrimination cases before the
Supreme Court that established that the
Constitution’s equal protection guarantee
extends to women. In 1996, three years
after joining the nation’s top court, she
wrote the landmark decision that struck
down the Virginia Military Institute’s
men-only admissions policy, a ruling she
called the culmination of her efforts “to
open doors so that women could aspire
and achieve without artificial constraints.”
As the court grew increasingly conserva-
tive, Justice Ginsburg emerged as the lead-
ing voice of its liberal minority, issuing
sharply worded dissents supporting abor-
tion access, affirmative action, and voting rights. Along the way,
the quiet, bookish jurist became an unlikely pop-culture icon. Her
stern image—with judicial robe and lace collar—was stamped on
T-shirts and tattooed on arms, often with the nickname “Notorious
RBG.” She was the subject of a documentary, a best-selling biogra-
phy, a Hollywood biopic (2018’s On the Basis of Sex) and a chil-
dren’s picture book. “I ask no favor for my sex,” Ginsburg said of
her life’s work on gender equality. “All I ask of our brethren is that
they take their feet off our necks.”
She was born Joan Ruth Bader in Depression-era Brooklyn, where
her father—a Jewish immigrant from Russia—worked as a furrier
and haberdasher, said The Washington Post. “Both a bookworm
and a baton twirler,” young Ruth was “largely molded by her
mother,” Celia. Intellectually ambitious but unable to attend col-
lege, Celia was “determined that her daughter would have a dif-
ferent path,” and saved household money to build a college fund.
Celia died of cervical cancer at age 47 in 1950, the day before her
daughter graduated from high school near the top of her class.
Ruth attended Cornell University on a scholarship, where on a
blind date she met the man who’d become her life partner, Martin
Ginsburg, “a confident, fun-loving fraternity member” as outgoing
as she was reserved.
The couple wed in 1954 and headed to Fort Sill, Okla., for
Martin’s Army service, and then to Cambridge, Mass., where the
pair enrolled in Harvard Law School and Ginsburg was one of
only nine women in a class of 500. When Martin was diagnosed
with testicular cancer in his early 20s, Ginsburg “took notes for
him, brought up their first child, and held down a post on the
Harvard Law Review,” said The Guardian (U.K.). “She frequently
worked all night.” After Martin recovered and took a job in
New York City, she finished her degree at Columbia Law School.
Despite graduating at the top of her class, Ginsburg “had trouble
finding a job,” said Reuters.com. “I struck out on three grounds,”
she explained. “I was Jewish, a woman, and a mother.” Through
Getty
a former professor’s aggressive intervention, she finally landed
35
a clerkship for a federal district court
judge, and then took a job teaching at
Rutgers University.
Ginsburg became a counsel for the
ACLU while at Rutgers, “and by 1972
led its Women’s Rights Project,” said the
Los Angeles Times. She used the position
“to change the Supreme Court’s view of
gender bias,” strategically pursuing “a
series of seemingly minor cases—often
on behalf of men—that demonstrated
gender discrimination hurt both men and
women.” She fought a Social Security
policy that paid survivor benefits to wid-
ows but not to widowers, an Idaho law
that gave men preference over women
in the naming of estate executors, and a
military regulation that gave husbands
of service members fewer benefits than
service wives. Ginsburg took six such
cases to the Supreme Court from 1973
to 1978 and won five, largely succeed-
ing “in establishing the principle that the
Constitution prohibited nearly all gender
discrimination in law.”
In 1980, she was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the
District of Columbia Circuit by President Jimmy Carter, said
NPR.org. There, Ginsburg amassed “a record as something of a
centrist liberal,” and in 1993 she was nominated to the Supreme
Court by President Bill Clinton. The Senate confirmed her by a
vote of 96-3. Ginsburg was initially a low-key presence on the
court, but as her seniority grew, “so did her role.” As the Supreme
Court “veered right after the retirement of Justice Sandra Day
O’Connor” in 2006, she “dissented more often and more assert-
ively.” In 2013, Ginsburg “assigned herself an angry dissent
when the court struck down a key provision of the 1965 Voting
Rights Act,” said CNN.com. Axing the law’s protections against
voter suppression when they continue to work, she wrote, “is like
throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not
getting wet.” The next year, she dissented furiously in Burwell v.
Hobby Lobby, a decision that allowed some for-profit firms to
refuse—on religious grounds—to comply with a federal law man-
dating that birth control be covered in health-care plans. Where,
she asked, “is the stopping point?” What happens if it offends an
employer’s religious beliefs “to pay the minimum wage” or “to
accord women equal pay?”
Though an outspoken liberal, Ginsburg became close friends with
arch-conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in 2016. The
pair traveled abroad together, shared a love of the opera, and
for decades celebrated New Year’s Eve at Ginsburg’s Washington
apartment. Ginsburg’s later years were marked by a series of
health crises, said The New York Times. She had colon cancer
in 1999, followed by lung cancer and two rounds of pancreatic
cancer. As she passed her 80th birthday, Ginsburg “shrugged off a
chorus of calls for her to retire” so that President Barack Obama
could name her replacement, vowing to stay “as long as I can do
the job full steam.” She held out hope, she once said, that some
of her dissenting opinions might sway a future court, extending
her considerable influence yet further. “I will not live to see what
becomes of them,” she said, “but I remain hopeful.”
THE WEEK October 2, 2020
36 The last word
When states are no longer habitable
Fire, heat, and floods will reshape America as millions seek to escape the effects of climate change, said
Abrahm Lustgarten in The New York Times Magazine. The migration has already started.

A S
UGUST BESIEGED OME BASICS: ACROSS
CALIFORNIA with the country, it’s going
a heat unseen in to get hot. Buffalo
generations. A surge in may feel in a few decades
air-conditioning broke the like Tempe, Ariz., does
state’s electrical grid, leaving today, and Tempe itself
a population already rav- will sustain 100-degree
aged by the coronavirus to average summer tempera-
work remotely by the dim tures by the end of the cen-
light of their cellphones. By tury. Fresh water will be in
midmonth, the state had short supply, not only in
recorded possibly the hottest the West but also in places
temperature ever measured like Florida, Georgia,
on Earth—130 degrees in and Alabama, where
Death Valley—and an oth- droughts now regularly
erworldly storm of lightning wither cotton fields. By
had cracked open the sky. 2040, according to federal
From Santa Cruz to Lake government projections,
Tahoe, thousands of bolts extreme water shortages
of electricity exploded down will be nearly ubiquitous
onto withered grasslands and west of Missouri.
forests, some of them already As lightning ignited dry brush, the North Complex fire spread with terrible speed.
It can be difficult to see the
hollowed out by climate-
challenges clearly because
driven infestations of beetles and kiln-dried temperatures, more fresh water, and safety. so many factors are in play. At least 28 mil-
by the worst five-year drought on record. But here in the United States, people have lion Americans are likely to face mega-
Over the next two weeks, 900 blazes incin- largely gravitated toward environmental fires like the ones we are now seeing in
erated six times as much land as all the danger, building along coastlines from New California, in places like Texas and Florida
state’s 2019 wildfires combined, forcing Jersey to Florida and settling across the and Georgia. At the same time, 100 million
100,000 people from their homes. Three cloudless deserts of the Southwest. Americans—largely in the Mississippi River
of the largest fires in California’s history Across the United States, some 162 million Basin from Louisiana to Wisconsin—will
burned simultaneously in a ring around people—nearly 1 in 2—will most likely increasingly face humidity so extreme that
the San Francisco Bay Area. Another fire experience a decline in the quality of their working outside or playing school sports
burned just 12 miles from my home in environment, namely more heat and less could cause heatstroke. Crop yields will
Marin County. water. For 93 million of them, the changes be decimated from Texas to Alabama and
Like many Californians, I spent those could be particularly severe, and by 2070, all the way north through Oklahoma and
weeks worrying about what might hap- if carbon emissions rise at extreme levels, at Kansas and into Nebraska.
pen next, wondering how long it would be least 4 million Americans could find them- From Maine to North Carolina to Texas,
before an inferno of 60-foot flames swept selves living at the fringe, in places decid- rising sea levels are not just chewing up
up the steep, grassy hillside on its way edly outside the ideal niche for human life. shorelines but also raising rivers and
toward my own house. I had an unusual Policymakers, having left America unpre- swamping the subterranean infrastruc-
perspective on the matter. For two years, pared for what’s next, now face brutal ture of coastal communities. Eight of the
I have been studying how climate change choices about which communities to nation’s 20 largest metropolitan areas—
will influence global migration. I traveled save—often at exorbitant costs—and which Miami, New York, and Boston among
across four countries to witness how rising to sacrifice. Their decisions will almost them—will be profoundly altered. Imagine
temperatures were driving climate refugees inevitably make the nation more divided, large concrete walls separating Fort
away from some of the poorest and hottest with those worst off relegated to a night- Lauderdale condominiums from a beach-
parts of the world. mare future in which they are left to fend less waterfront, or dozens of new bridges
So it was with some sense of recognition for themselves. Nor will these disruptions connecting the islands of Philadelphia. Not
that I faced the fires these last few weeks. wait for the worst environmental changes every city can spend $100 billion on a sea
In recent years, summer has brought a to occur. The wave begins when individual wall, as New York most likely will.
season of fear to California, with ever- perception of risk starts to shift, when the Mathew Hauer, a sociologist at Florida
worsening wildfires closing in. Suddenly environmental threat reaches past the least State University who published some of the
I had to ask myself the very question I’d fortunate and rattles the physical and finan- first modeling of American climate migra-
been asking others: Was it time to move? cial security of broader, wealthier parts of tion, projects that 13 million Americans
In much of the developing world, vulner- the population. It begins when even places will be forced to move away from sub-
like California’s suburbs are no longer safe.
AP, Getty

able people will attempt to flee the emerg- merged coastlines. Add to that the people
ing perils of global warming, seeking cooler It has already begun. contending with wildfires and other risks,
THE WEEK October 2, 2020

and the number of Americans who might
move could easily be tens of millions larger.
Even 13 million climate migrants, though,
would rank as the largest migration in
North American history.
Americans have been conditioned not to
respond to geographical climate threats as
people in the rest of the world do. They are
distanced from the food and water sources
they depend on, and they are part of a cul-
ture that sees every problem as capable of
being solved by money. So even as the aver-
age flow of the Colorado River—the water
supply for 40 million western Americans
and the backbone of the nation’s vegetable
and cattle farming—has declined for most
of the last 33 years, the population of
Nevada has doubled. At the same time,
more than 1.5 million people have moved
to the Phoenix metro area, despite its
dependence on that same river, and the fact
that temperatures there now regularly hit
115 degrees.
Perhaps no market force has proved more
influential—and more misguided—than the
nation’s property-insurance system. Where
insurers have tried to withdraw policies or
raise rates to reduce climate-related liabili-
ties, state regulators have forced them to
provide affordable coverage anyway, simply
subsidizing the cost of underwriting such
a risky policy or, in some cases, offering it
themselves.
In Florida, 1992’s Hurricane Andrew
reduced parts of cities to landfill and cost
insurers nearly $16 billion in payouts.
Many insurance companies, recogniz-
ing the likelihood that it would happen
again, declined to renew policies and left
the state. So the Florida legislature created
a state-run company to insure properties
itself, preventing both an exodus and an
economic collapse by essentially pretending
that the climate vulnerabilities didn’t exist.
Another direct hurricane could bankrupt
the state.
L
AST OCTOBER, WITH the skies above
me full of wildfire smoke, I called
Jesse Keenan, an urban-planning
and climate-change specialist who advises
the federal Commodity Futures Trading
Commission on market hazards from
climate change. Keenan, who is now an
associate professor of real estate at Tulane
University’s School of Architecture, had
been in the news last year for projecting
where people might move to—suggesting
that Duluth, Minn., for instance, should
brace for a coming real estate boom as cli-
mate migrants move north. But like other
scientists I’d spoken with, Keenan had been
reluctant to draw conclusions about where
these migrants would be driven from.
The last word
Last fall, though, as the previous round of
fires ravaged California, his phone began
to ring with private-equity investors and
bankers, all looking for his read on the
state’s future. Their interest suggested a
growing investor-grade nervousness about
swiftly mounting environmental risk in
the hottest real estate markets in the coun-
try. It’s an early sign, he told me, that the
momentum is about to switch directions.
“And once this flips,” he added, “it’s likely
to flip very quickly.”
In fact, the correction—a newfound respect
for the destructive power of nature, coupled
with a sudden disavowal of Americans’
appetite for reckless development—had
begun two years earlier, when a frightening
Waiting for rescue as California fires spread
surge in disasters offered a jolting preview
of how the climate crisis was changing the
rules. On Oct. 9, 2017, a wildfire blazed
through the suburban blue-collar neighbor-
hood of Coffey Park in Santa Rosa, Calif.,
virtually in my own backyard. I awoke to
learn that more than 1,800 buildings were
reduced to ashes, less than 35 miles from
where I slept. Inch-long cinders had piled
on my windowsills like falling snow.
The Tubbs Fire, as it was called, shouldn’t
have been possible. Coffey Park is sur-
rounded not by vegetation but by concrete
and malls and freeways. So insurers had
rated it as “basically zero risk,” accord-
ing to Kevin Van Leer, then a risk modeler
from the global insurance liability firm Risk
Management Solutions. What Van Leer
saw when he walked through Coffey Park a
week after the Tubbs Fire changed the way
he would model and project fire risk for-
ever. Typically, fire would spread along the
ground, burning maybe 50 percent of struc-
tures. In Santa Rosa, more than 90 percent
had been leveled.
“The destruction was complete,” he told
me. Van Leer determined that the fire had
jumped through the forest canopy, spawn-
ing 70 mph winds that kicked a storm of
embers into the modest homes of Coffey
Park, which burned at an acre a second as
homes ignited spontaneously from the radi-
ant heat. It was the kind of thing that might
37
never have been possible if California’s
autumn winds weren’t getting fiercer and
drier every year, colliding with intensifying,
climate-driven heat and ever-expanding
development. “It’s hard to forecast some-
thing you’ve never seen before,” he said.
It was no surprise, then, that California’s
property insurers—having watched 26 years’
worth of profits dissolve over 24 months—
began dropping policies, or that California’s
insurance commissioner, trying to slow the
slide, placed a moratorium on insurance
cancellations for parts of the state in 2020.
In February, the legislature introduced a bill
compelling California to, in the words of
one consumer advocacy group, “follow the
lead of Florida” by mandating that insur-
ance remain available, in this case with a
requirement that homeowners first harden
their properties against fire.
Under the radar, a new class of danger-
ous debt—climate-distressed mortgage
loans—might already be threatening the
financial system. Once home values begin a
one-way plummet, it’s easy for economists
to see how entire communities spin out
of control. As costs rise—and the insurers
quit, and the bankers divest, and the farm
subsidies prove too wasteful, and so on—
the full weight of responsibility will fall on
individual people. And that’s when the real
migration might begin.
As I spoke with Keenan last year, I looked
out my own kitchen window onto hillsides
of parkland, singed brown by months
of dry summer heat. This was precisely
the land that my utility, Pacific Gas &
Electric, had three times identified as such
an imperiled tinderbox that it had to shut
off power to avoid fire. It was precisely the
kind of wildland-urban interface that all
the studies I read blamed for heightening
Californians’ exposure to climate risks.
I mentioned this on the phone and then
asked Keenan, “Should I be selling my
house and getting—”
He cut me off: “Yes.”
Sitting in our backyard one afternoon this
summer, my wife and I talked through
the implications of this looming American
future. The facts were clear and increas-
ingly foreboding. Yet there were so many
intangibles—a love of nature, the busy
pace of life, the high cost of moving—that
conspired to keep us from leaving. Nobody
wants to migrate away from home, even
when an inexorable danger is inching ever
closer. They do it when there is no longer
any other choice.
Adapted from a story that was origi-
nally published in The New York Times
Magazine. Used with permission.
THE WEEK October 2, 2020
38 The Puzzle Page
Crossword No. 569: The Case for Case Western The Week Contest
by Matt Gaffney
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This week’s question: The Guardian recently published
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Doug Johnston, Erie, Pa.
43 44 45 46 SECOND PLACE: Dyeing Inside
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Norm Carrier, Flat Rock, N.C.
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