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p.6 Pages 5, 36 p.10

THE BEST OF THE U.S. AND INTERNATIONAL MEDIA

Busted in
Georgia
Why his fourth indictment
is the most dangerous
for Trump
p.4

AUGUST 25, 2023 VOLUME 23 ISSUE 1145

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

 Contents 3

Editor’s letter
There’s a lesser-known Dr. Seuss tale called What Was I Scared
Of? It’s an add-on to The Sneetches, and it’s pretty spooky if
you’re around 5 or so. The antagonist is a pair of pale-green
pants with nobody inside them, and the illustrations place those
pants firmly in the uncanny valley, awakening horror-movie
questions—Why are they running around by themselves? What
makes them go? What do they want? I can’t help but have
flashbacks to this early childhood trauma when I read about
the new self-driving cars that are now roaming the streets of
San Francisco like mindless Roombas (see Technology, p.20).
The robotaxis look like something out of dystopian sci-fi, with
their giant cameras mounted on the roof and their smaller but
still obvious headlight cams. They can mostly see where they’re
going, supposedly, but one smashed into a public bus, and
another abruptly stopped in the middle of a ride and briefly
locked the passenger inside. While nobody’s been imprisoned in
one for hours yet, that’s certainly the fear. The adjustment we’re
going through must be a bit like when they took human opera-
tors out of elevators and people suddenly realized they could get
trapped alone inside.
In the Seuss book, it all ends happily, with the narrator learn-
ing that “I was just as strange to them as they were strange to
me.” In the real world, we’re not at all strange to these new
gizmos, because they’re furiously at work collecting data on us.
While we may think we are using them, in fact they’re part of a
system that benefits others. The same billionaires selling us on
the promise of self-driving cars—most notably Elon Musk—
have been spending gobs to lobby against public transit. As long
as we’re in private, subscription-service cars, not trams or trains,
they can monetize us. A future of ever more robocars, on ever
more congested streets? What a scary story. Susan Caskie
Managing editor

NEWS
4 Main stories
Trump faces RICO
charges in Georgia; a
devastating blaze tears
through Maui
6 Controversy of the week
Hunter Biden’s plea deal
collapse threatens election
fallout for Democrats
7 The U.S. at a glance
Sheriff raids a Kansas
newspaper; a Los Angeles
shoplifters’ swarm
8 The world at a glance
A libertarian front-runner
in Argentina; Russian
missiles strike Odesa;
conflict in Ethiopia
10 People
Grimes on Elon Musk
and her interstellar death
Editor-in-chief: William Falk
Executive editor: Theunis Bates
Managing editors: Susan Caskie,
Mark Gimein
Assistant managing editor: Jay Wilkins
Deputy editor/Arts: Chris Mitchell
Deputy editor/News: Chris Erikson
Senior editors: Danny Funt, Catesby
Holmes, Scott Meslow, Rebecca
Nathanson, Dale Obbie, Zach Schonbrun,
Hallie Stiller
Art director: Paul Crawford
Deputy art director: Rosanna Bulian
Photo editor: Mark Rykoff
Copy editor: Jane A. Halsey
Research editors: Alex Maroño Porto,
Emily Russell
Contributing editors: Ryan Devlin,
The burned-out remains of Maui’s historic Lahaina (p.5) Bruno Maddox
VP advertising: Stevie Lee
ARTS LEISURE (stevie.lee@futurenet.com)
Account director: Mary Gallagher
22 Books 27 Food & Drink (mary.gallagher@futurenet.com)
The cycles of history in a A peach and almond Media planning manager: Andrea Crino

wish; Busta Rhymes’ Fourth Turning sequel galette for summer’s end; Direct response advertising:
Anthony Smyth (anthony@smythps.com)
lowest moment best of the new Texas ’cue
23 Author of the week
11 Briefing Shane McRae’s 28 Travel SVP, Lifestyle, Knowledge and News:

Why sharks have invaded
the Northeast’s waters
12 Best U.S. columns
Biden’s ill-advised hostage
trades; locking younger
Americans out of voting
15 Best international
columns
memoir of a kidnapped Sailing around the Sophie Wybrew-Bond
Managing director, news Richard
childhood Stockholm Archipelego’s Campbell
24,000 islands VP, Consumer Marketing-Global
24 Stage & Music Superbrands: Nina La France
A play about the making Consumer marketing director:
of Jaws BUSINESS Leslie Guarnieri
Manufacturing manager, North America:
25 Film & Home 32 News at a glance
Lori Crook
Media Bail revoked for Bankman- Operations manager:
Debating the Fried; Target’s culture-war Cassandra Mondonedo

A political assassination usefulness of losses; inflation bump

in Ecuador; Africa, the
West’s dumping ground;
Lebanon’s Barbie ban
16 Talking points
Black self-defense in
Alabama; a rising star’s
racist alter ego; Clarence
Getty (2)
the NC-17 33 Making money
rating Do you really need Visit us at TheWeek.com.
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Grimes gift at GiveTheWeek.com.

Thomas’ rich friends (p.10) Wall Street’s worst boss
THE WEEK August 25, 2023
4 NEWS The main stories...
Trump charged in Georgia with racketeering
What happened ing for Georgia’s RICO laws, she’s
Donald Trump’s legal peril deepened treating Trump’s desperate, bumbling
this week as a grand jury in Fulton bid to reverse the election as if it were
County, Georgia, charged him and “genius calculation.” Trump’s conduct
18 co-defendants under racketeer- after the 2020 election was “awful,”
ing statutes for trying to overturn but prosecuting it as a criminal matter
his 2020 electoral loss in the state. “instead of leaving the judgment to
It marks the fourth time the former voters and history still seems like a
president has been criminally bad idea for the country.”
indicted since March. Refusing to
accept that he had lost to Joe Biden, What the columnists said
Trump and the others “knowingly This is the indictment that should
and willfully joined a conspiracy to worry Trump most, said Kim Wehle
unlawfully change the outcome,” in The Bulwark. A conviction under
said the 98-page indictment, whose Georgia’s RICO laws carries a
41 counts include conspiracy to minimum five-year term. This is a state
commit forgery, filing false docu- case, not a federal one, which means
ments, and impersonating a public that if Trump wins in 2024, he can’t
officer. District Attorney Fani Willis, “evade the law with a self-pardon” or
who conducted a two-and-a-half- an order that the Department of Jus-
Willis: Trump ‘knowingly and willfully joined a conspiracy.’ tice drop all charges. In addition, the
year-long investigation, relied on
Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act trial will connect “viscerally” with jurors by showing that Trump’s
(RICO)—typically used to prosecute mobsters and drug rings—to “astonishing recklessness” harmed real people—election workers
charge Trump and his allies with engaging in a “criminal enter- Ruby Freeman and daughter Shaye Moss, who faced an avalanche
prise” to keep him in the White House. Co-defendants include of threats after Trump and Giuliani falsely claimed they “stuffed the
former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, former Justice ballot boxes” to steal the election.
Department official Jeffrey Clark, and former Trump attorneys
Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, and Sidney Powell. “Race will be front and center in Georgia,” said Richard L. Hasen
in Slate. Freeman and Moss are Black women, as is Willis, and
The indictment charges that Trump and others pressured state offi- “Trump has a history of being especially hostile toward Black
cials to change the outcome, falsified documents to create a slate of women.” It’s no accident Trump focused his 2020 fraud claims on
“alternate” electors, tampered with voting machines, and harassed Atlanta and other Democratic cities with large Black populations.
and intimidated election workers. It cites the now infamous call “The message was clear: Minority voters were stealing the votes of
during which Trump pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Trump’s white rural supporters.”
Raffensperger to “find” the 11,780 votes needed to reverse the
results, with the then president warning the state official he could Instead of reflexively defending Trump, Republicans and conser-
be charged with “a criminal offense” if he didn’t comply. vative media must “come to terms with Trump’s legal peril,” said
Noah Rothman in National Review. With four pending trials and
Willis said she intended to try all 19 defendants together. Trump 91 felony counts, Trump will spend primary season “in and out of
called the indictment an effort by a “very corrupt district attor- courtrooms.” If even one case is tried before the election, it “will be
ney” to derail his 2024 campaign. He said he will issue a detailed the media event of this century.” A recent poll found 65 percent of
report that will exonerate him with Americans see the charges against
“irrefutable” evidence of Georgia What next? Trump as “serious.” Is he really the
election fraud. Willis has given Trump and his co-defendants until party’s strongest candidate?
noon on Aug. 25 to surrender, said Shaddi Abusaid and
What the editorials said Jeremy Redmon in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “What was once unprecedented
Willis has brought a “compelling” They’ll report to the Fulton County Jail, where Sheriff has now become surreally routine,”
and necessary case, said The Wash- Patrick Labat has said Trump will be treated like any said Peter Baker in The New York
ington Post. By “zooming out” to other detainee—including having his mug shot taken Times. The four indictments detail
and released to the public, indignities he’s been spared “an alleged presidential crime
target Trump’s many co-conspirators in his previous three arraignments. Willis faces “a wide
along with him, this indictment range of challenges” in prosecuting the case, said Kate
spree of epic proportions,” and yet
“captures the sweep” of a conspiracy Brumback in the Associated Press. Trying all the defen- they’ve failed to dent Trump’s sup-
to subvert “the democratic process.” dants simultaneously would be a daunting proposition port among Republicans. Not long
Any official or political fixer tempted even without a former president on the docket. With 19 ago, a presidential campaign could
to try a replay in 2024 has “now been defendants, “there will be countless legal details and be derailed by a past DUI arrest or
put on notice that robbing voters of basic logistics to argue or work out” before trial— “swiping lines in a speech without
their say comes with consequences.” including finding a venue large enough to accommo- credit.” The notion that “a rap
date everyone. Willis has asked for a trial date of March sheet” of 91 felony counts wouldn’t
4, 2024—a day before the Super Tuesday primaries. disqualify Trump from seeking a
Willis’ indictment “reads like an Legal experts, however, say it’s highly unlikely the
exercise at throwing everything at the Georgia trial will take place before the 2024 election,
return to the White House “would
jury to see what might stick,” said although one or both of the federal trials might. have stunned the 44 presidents who
Getty

The Wall Street Journal. By reach- came before him.”

Illustration by Jason Seiler.
THE WEEK August 25, 2023 Cover photos from Shutterstock, Getty (2)
 ...and how they were covered NEWS 5

Maui counts the dead after apocalyptic wildfire

What happened
Recovery workers using cadaver-
sniffing dogs were searching the
charred ruins of Lahaina this week,
after the historic Hawaiian town
was obliterated by the deadliest U.S.
wildfire in more than a century. At
least 106 people are known to have
died in the Maui inferno, but Hawaii
Gov. Josh Green said the toll could
double over the next week. Many
survivors said they received no warn-
ing from authorities as the blaze,
moving as fast as a mile a minute,
spread from surrounding grasslands
Walking through the wreckage in Lahaina
into Lahaina’s densely packed neigh-
borhoods (see Last Word, p.36). Some residents rushed into the
ocean to seek safety; others were incinerated in their cars as they
tried to escape on the only highway out of town. Authorities said
most bodies will have to be identified by DNA, and warned that
many children left at home while schools were closed are likely to
be among the dead. “I don’t have words to express how much my
heart is breaking now,” said one schoolteacher, who is volunteering
at a shelter in the hope of finding some of her students.
While the cause of the wildfire is not yet known, experts believe it
was fueled by a monthslong drought and 80 mph winds whipped
up by an offshore hurricane. One Lahaina resident said that hours
before the blaze engulfed the town, a power line had snapped and
ignited a patch of dry grass. Lawyers representing Lahaina residents warning sirens on the island sounded, and broadcast alerts and
have filed a class-action lawsuit against the utility, Hawaiian
Electric, saying it should have shut off power as winds picked up.
Officials have forecast that the cost of rebuilding on Maui, where
more than 2,200 buildings were destroyed, could near $6 billion.
can “help from a distance, by keeping
a distance.”
Democrats have been quick to blame
“the carnage on climate change,” said
the Washington Examiner. The real
culprit is the invasive grasses that cover
a quarter of Hawaiian territory. Ranch-
ers began planting those species in the
18th century for cattle to forage, and
when plantation agriculture waned, the
grasses overtook fallow fields, providing
plenty of dry tinder. Democrats’ at-
tempts to “exploit this tragedy” for their
eco-agenda only distracts from on-the-
ground fixes that can slash wildfire risk.
What the columnists said
Arguments over “how much to attribute the tragedy to climate
change” are pointless, said David Wallace-Wells in The New York
Times. We can’t know definitively whether global warming wors-
ened Hawaii’s drought or whether it intensified the passing hur-
ricane. But this is how climate change works, “not single-handedly
but together with randomness and existing hazard and by making
familiar risks worse.” And we are not sufficiently preparing for
those increasing perils, whether it’s fires or floods or extreme heat.
“There are no obvious excuses” for the lack of readiness in Maui,
said Costas Synolakis in The Wall Street Journal. None of the 80
social media posts were useless to islanders without power or cell-
phone service. “Firefighting resources were spread thin,” with only
65 firefighters on the island. Survivors are right to wonder whether
this was a natural disaster, or one caused by very human failures.

What the editorials said
Hawaii’s economy relies heavily on tourism, said the Honolulu
Star-Advertiser, but “now is not the time to visit West Maui.” We
do not want visitors competing for hotel rooms with the thousands
of residents who have been left homeless or with the recovery
workers who are desperately needed to restore the “necessities of
life.” Power and cellphone service have not yet been fully restored.
Water supplies may have been contaminated by fire-released
toxins. To people outside Maui who want to aid the recovery, you
The urge to rebuild is strong, said Naka Nathaniel in Honolulu’s
Civil Beat. But we Hawaiians must do so without repeating past
mistakes. “This was a human-made disaster generations in the mak-
ing.” Extractive farming methods allowed invasive weeds to spread.
Luxury tourism has exacerbated water shortages and sent Maui’s
average home price soaring past $1 million. Priced out from their
own land, more Native Hawaiians now live on the mainland than
here. If these deeper problems aren’t addressed, “more of us are
going to die or be displaced.”

It wasn’t all bad
QPeggy Konzack, a 102-year-old
Roseburg, Ore., resident, has been
teaching children how to swim for
54 years. The mother of two moved
with Clayton, her now deceased
husband, to Douglas County in
1945, and soon started swimming
at the YMCA. Eventually, she par-
ticipated in parent-child swimming
lessons and became an instructor
herself at 48. A vegetarian, Konzack
AP, Pinnacles National Park
QTwo California condors born in May at Pinnacles National
Park just had their first health checkup, and passed with flying
colors. The endangered species of vulture almost went extinct
in the 1980s because of lead poisoning, and this spring 20
condors were killed by bird flu
in Arizona and Utah. Currently,
only 347 individuals remain in
the wild, and 214 in captivity.
Reintroduced at Pinnacles two
decades ago, the condors started
nesting in 2009, when they
reached reproductive maturity.
The two newborns are expected
QA football player at Eastern
Michigan University gave up his
scholarship to help another player
who needed it more. Brian Dooley
saw his teammate Zack Conti
working several jobs as he went
to school and played football—
and even sold blood plasma to
make ends meet. The Eastern
Michigan coach asked the college
to add one more scholarship, but
the answer was no. Dooley felt
that Conti had earned a scholar-

still does a minimum of 10 laps five
days a week. “What would I do if
I didn’t?” she said. “Sit home and
sleep? No. I’m going to keep going
as long as I can.”
to start flying next November.
Their nests are hidden on high
cliffs, but lucky visitors will get
to see them soaring over the
Soon ready to leave the nest park during the winter.
ship, and got his own family’s OK
to make it happen. “Asking for
help is not easy,” Conti said, but
his teammates proved that “they
got my back.”

THE WEEK August 25, 2023

6 NEWS Controversy of the week
Hunter Biden: Will a broader probe damage his father?
President Biden’s re-election campaign faces
two “real trip wires,” said Jonathan Lemire
and Holly Otterbein in Politico: Joe Biden’s
age, 80, and the investigation into his son
Hunter. Just weeks ago, the younger Biden, 53,
was “mere minutes” from finalizing a plea deal
that would have spared him any prison time
on gun and tax charges. The deal collapsed
when a Trump-appointed judge questioned
whether the plea deal would give Hunter blan-
ket immunity for his shady business dealings
overseas while his father was vice president.
Weiss: Now a special counsel
As a result, Attorney General Merrick Garland
last week approved the request of prosecutor David Weiss to con-
tinue his five-year investigation of Hunter as a special counsel,
which could mean a significant broadening of the probe. This is
bad news for the younger Biden, “and a huge political headache for ing his pockets with far greater sums when foreign emissaries and
his father,” said Stephen Collinson in CNN. Even if Weiss finds no
evidence that Joe Biden directly profited from Hunter’s influence
peddling, the appointment of a special counsel guarantees “months
of new material for Republicans seeking to portray President Biden any interest in the $2 billion that the Saudi Arabian wealth fund
as corrupt.” Republicans had been demanding that Garland make
Weiss a special counsel, but now are pivoting to the ludicrous
clam that Weiss—a Republican and Trump appointee—is a stooge
installed to help Democrats orchestrate what House Oversight chair
Rep. James Comer called a “Biden-family cover-up.”
Comer’s right, said Andrew C. McCarthy in National Review.
Weiss’ appointment is “a farce.” Special counsels are supposed to
come from outside government. Instead, Garland picked the same
U.S. attorney who forged that “indefensible plea agreement” effec-
tively shielding Hunter from additional charges. Weiss has never
shown any interest in exploring whether the elder Biden—whom
Hunter’s business partner called “the big
guy” in emails—played any direct role in the
influence-peddling scheme. Even if none of the
estimated $20 million went into Joe Biden’s
bank account, said Jonathan Turley in the New
York Post, the president “clearly benefited.”
These funds were distributed through a laby-
rinth of shell companies to his son, brother,
daughters-in-law, and grandchildren—a quick
and easy way for Grandpa Biden to funnel
substantial wealth to his descendants “without
heavy taxes or delays.”
Republican outrage over Hunter is “cynical and performative,” said
John Cassidy in The New Yorker. The same “GOP corruption fight-
ers” were utterly untroubled by then-President Donald Trump fill-
lobbyists deliberately booked pricey rooms at his hotels. Trump
also routinely billed taxpayers for rooms occupied by Secret Service
agents and other federal employees. Nor does the House GOP have
invested in Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner’s new investment firm,
after Kushner steered U.S. policy to benefit Saudi Arabia and his
personal friend, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
There’s no doubt the Trump crimes and corruption were on a
far greater scale, said Ankush Khardori in New York magazine.
Still, liberals should drop their “‘move along, nothing to see here’
approach” to the Hunter Biden scandal. There is no question he
made millions “trading off of his father’s name and government
position”—all with the then vice president’s evident acquiescence.
To be troubled by such blatant influence peddling “doesn’t make
you an apologist for Trump or anyone in his family.”

Good week for:

Only in America
QSome Trumpified evan-
gelicals are now rejecting the
teachings of Jesus as “weak.”
Russell Moore, former head
of the Southern Baptist Con-
vention, told NPR “multiple
pastors” have reported that
congregants have objected
to their preaching Christ’s
Sermon on the Mount, say-
ing “love your enemies” is
a “liberal talking point” that
“doesn’t work anymore.”
QA federal judge in Texas
has ordered three lawyers
for Southwest Airlines to un-
dergo “religious liberty train-
ing” from a far-right Christian
group. Judge Brantley Starr,
a Trump appointee, was so
incensed by Southwest’s fir-
ing of an employee who sent
out anti-abortion messages
that he ordered its lawyers
to receive training from the
Alliance Defending Freedom,
which opposes abortion and
In other news
Clarifications, after Aditya Pai, a Democratic congressional candi-
Schumer, McCarthy aim
date from California, announced via email that he was suspending to avoid shutdown
his campaign due to “a lack of joy.” Pai quickly retracted that mes-
sage, claiming it was “an emotional processing exercise” distributed Congressional leaders
expressed support this week
in error “by a now former aide.”
for a short-term spending
Remote work, with a Washington Post report that Sen. Tommy bill to avoid a government
Tuberville, ostensibly of Alabama, no longer owns property in the shutdown on Oct. 1. Sen-
state and has been residing for years in a $3 million beach house in ate Majority Leader Charles
Santa Rosa Beach, Fla. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said a
stopgap bill to keep the
Suicide missions, with a new poll showing Trump critic Chris
Christie with a 1-point lead over Ron DeSantis among New Hamp- government open through
early December “makes a
shire GOP voters, just 40 points behind Trump.
good deal of sense.” House
Speaker Kevin McCarthy
Bad week for: (R-Calif.) also told House
Germany, where news that a third of its trains were late last year Republicans in a conference
has plunged the famously punctual nation into gloomy introspec- call that he wants to pass a
short-term extension when
tion. Late trains, said professor of transport Andreas Knie, are “a lawmakers return to the
cultural crisis for the German people.” Capitol next month. Negotia-
Sharing the wealth, with a Fox News report that the campaign tions could be complicated
committee of Sen. Bernie Sanders sent $200,000 to the nonprofit by President Biden’s recent
Sanders Institute run by his wife, Jane, which employs her son, request for an extra $40 bil-
David, on a $152,653 salary. lion in emergency money for
Following directions, after a New Zealand supermarket’s Ukraine, border security, and
more; some House Republi-
AI-powered “meal-bot” suggested a recipe for “aromatic water cans have vowed to block ad-
mix” that would produce deadly chlorine gas. The bot suggested
Reuters

the “homosexual agenda.” ditional funding for Ukraine.

serving the beverage “chilled, and enjoy the refreshing fragrance.”
THE WEEK August 25, 2023
 The U.S. at a glance ...
Marion, Kan.
Newspaper raid: News organizations
across the U.S. expressed outrage this
week after police raided the offices of
a small-town newspaper, the Marion
County Record,
seizing comput-
ers, servers, and
the cellphones of
reporters and edi-
tors. The town’s
entire five-officer
Stormed by police force also searched
the home of the newspapers’ co-owner,
98-year-old Joan Meyer, who died the
next day—the paper said the raid left her
“stressed beyond her limits.” Her son,
editor and publisher Eric Meyer, accused
police of “gestapo tactics” for seizing
material protected by a state shield law.
A judge-signed search warrant referenced
the Record’s investigation of a local res-
taurant owner who was allegedly driving
without a valid license; the restau-
rant owner said the paper had ille-
gally obtained sensitive informa-
tion, which the Record denied.
The Marion County prosecutor
later withdrew the warrant,
saying it had relied on insuffi-
cient evidence, and ordered the
return of the paper’s equipment.
Los Angeles
Smash and grab: About 50 masked
criminals swarmed a Los Angeles shop-
ping mall last week and stole nearly
$300,000 worth of luxury handbags and
clothing from
a Nordstrom
depart-
ment store.
The thieves
attacked
a security
Looting the Nordstrom
guard with
bear spray and then grabbed “easily re-
sellable items” from hangers and display
cases, said police, who suspect the crooks
were following orders from a criminal
organization. Days earlier, a roughly
40-strong mob stole $300,000 worth of
merchandise from an Yves Saint Laurent
store at a mall in nearby Glendale. Earlier
this month, nine robbers looted a Gucci
store in Century City. “This is unac-
ceptable behavior in a civilized society,”
Los Angeles County District Attorney
George Gascon said. A union representing
Newscom, Reuters (2), Getty
LAPD officers blamed the spike in smash-
and-grab raids on the county’s elimination
of cash bail for people charged with low-
level, nonviolent offenses, saying it encour-
ages re-offending.
Little Rock, Ark.
Course denied: The Arkansas Department
of Education abruptly removed course
credit for a new Advanced Placement
African American Studies program this
week, saying the course may violate a
state law prohibiting teaching on topics
that would “indoctrinate students with
ideologies, such as critical race theory.”
Several schools in the state had planned
to offer the course, including Little Rock
Central High School, the site of a historic
desegregation effort in 1957. The deci-
sion, announced on the first day of the
Arkansas school year, comes months after
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis banned the
AP course from his state’s high schools.
Piloted in some 60 schools last school
year, AP African American Studies cov-
ers a wide range of topics, such as mass
incarceration, the Black Lives Matter
movement, reparations, and queer studies.
The College Board said its new curricu-
lum “is not indoctrination in any form.”
Braxton, Miss.
‘Goons’ guilty: Six white former
Mississippi law enforcement officers
pleaded guilty this week to state charges
stemming from their torture of two
Black men in January. The officers, some
of whom called themselves “the Goon
Squad,” broke into a home without a war-
rant after a neighbor reported seeing “sus-
picious behavior” by several Black men.
They encountered Eddie Parker, who lived
there while taking care of the white prop-
erty owner, and Michael Jenkins, who was
staying temporarily. While shouting racist
abuse, the officers tased the men, water-
boarded them, and attacked them with
multiple objects—including a sword and a
sex toy. One officer put a gun in Jenkins’
mouth and pulled the trigger, breaking
his jaw. The officers then planted a BB
gun at the scene, falsely charged Jenkins
with drug possession, and destroyed sur-
veillance footage. The officers, who had
already pleaded guilty to federal charges,
each face decades in prison.
NEWS 7
Washington, D.C.
Warning Trump: Donald Trump
launched a string of attacks on the
judge presiding over his 2020 election
conspiracy trial this
week, just days after
she warned the for-
mer president not to
make “inflammatory”
statements that could
influence potential
jurors and intimidate
witnesses. “It is a
bedrock principle,”
said U.S. District Chutkan
Judge Tanya Chutkan, “that legal trials
are not like elections, to be won through
the use of the meeting hall, the radio,
and the newspaper. This case is no excep-
tion.” Speaking during a hearing on the
scope of a protective order covering dis-
covery evidence in the case, Chutkan said
the need to hold a speedy, fair trial takes
priority over Trump’s 2024 elec-
tion campaign. She added that
if Trump continues to cross
lines, she may move the trial
date forward to limit his ability
to taint the jury pool. Soon after,
Trump wrote on social media that
the judge “obviously wants me behind
bars. VERY BIASED & UNFAIR.”
Tampa
Baseball investigation: Tampa Bay Rays
phenom Wander Franco was sidelined
by the ballclub this week for at least six
games, after the MLB launched an inves-
tigation into accusations that the All-Star
shortstop had a sexual relationship with
a minor. That investigation is focused on
a series of viral social media posts that
appear to show
Franco kissing a
young-looking girl
in the Dominican
Republic; the posts
claim the pair
began a relation-
ship when the girl
was 14 years old.
Franco: Sidelined
The Dominican-
born Franco, 22, denied the claims in an
Instagram Live video, saying his accusers
“don’t know what they’re talking about.”
The attorney general’s office in the
Dominican Republic is investigating the
allegations; citing anonymous sources,
the local Diario Libre newspaper
reported that prosecutors believe more
minors are involved. The age of consent
in the Dominican Republic is 18. Franco
signed an 11-year, $182 million contract
with the Rays in 2021.
THE WEEK August 25, 2023
 8 NEWS The world at a glance ...
Belfast, U.K.
Data leak exposes police: The identities of more than 10,000
Northern Irish police officers were revealed last week after the
force mistakenly released a list of their names, ranks, and work-
places in response to a freedom of information request. Police in
Northern Ireland tend to keep their jobs secret, even from family,
for fear of being attacked by paramilitaries who object to British
rule, but now those groups have the data. Sinn Féin, the party
that was once the political wing of the terrorist Irish Republican
Army, said that a printout of the list of officers was tacked on a
wall this week near its main office. A picture of Sinn Féin law-
maker Gerry Kelly with a sign saying “Gerry, we know who your
mates are” was posted alongside. Kelly, once a member of an IRA
splinter group, was a leading negotiator in the 1998 Good Friday
Agreement that ended decades of violence; he is now a member of
the Policing Board. Kelly called the implied threat “sinister.”
Odesa, Ukraine
Russian onslaught: Ukrainian defenses
intercepted barrages of Russian missiles
and drones aimed at the Black Sea port
of Odesa this week, although falling
rocket fragments caused several buildings
to catch fire. Odesa has been the target
of frequent Russian attacks since the Dousing fires in Odesa
Kremlin terminated a deal in July that allowed Ukrainian grain
shipments to depart from the city. Western sanctions have been
aimed at barring Russia from buying or repairing weapons sys-
tems, but a weapons research group said last week that Moscow
has begun making copies of the attack drones it acquired from
Iran last year, which blow up on impact, and is already using them
against Ukrainian forces.

Rome
Ruling party must pay gay couple: A court has
ordered Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s far-
right Brothers of Italy party to pay $22,000 to a
gay Canadian couple for using their image in its
homophobic anti-surrogacy campaign. The image
of B.J. Barone and Frankie Nelson weeping as
they held newborn Milo, born by surrogate in
Canada in 2014, was taken by a photographer
friend and quickly went viral. Two years later,
Not authorized
Brothers of Italy used the photo, captioned in
Italian, “He’ll never get to say ‘mama,’” for its anti-surrogacy post-
ers. “That photo has been used many times for educational and
positive reasons,” said Barone, “but using our image for hate and
negativity is something we never wanted.” Meloni’s government
has revoked the rights of some gay parents who used surrogacy.
Port-au-Prince, Haiti
U.S. captives released: An American nurse and her
young daughter were set free this week after being held
nearly two weeks by kidnappers. Alix Dorsainvil—who
worked for El Roi Haiti, a Christian aid group run by
her husband, Sandro—was abducted with her child at
gunpoint from the charity’s medical clinic in full view of
waiting patients. Days earlier, the U.S. State Department
had advised U.S. citizens to leave “as soon as possible”
because gangs had taken over large parts of the capital.
Kidnapping is a booming business these days in lawless The Dorsainvils
Port-au-Prince, where more than 1,000 people were
held for ransom in the first half of this year. It’s not clear whether
a ransom was paid for Dorsainvil.
Asunción, Paraguay Buenos Aires
Goodbye, anti-corruption force: Santiago Peña of the ‘The Wig’ wins primary:
ruling, center-right Colorado Party was inaugurated Libertarian outsider Javier
president of Paraguay this week with a pledge Milei—known as “The Wig” for his
to dissolve the nation’s anti-corruption agency. unkempt hair—came in first in Argentina’s
That could hurt relations with the United States, open primary this week, a signal that vot- Milei: Outsider
which recently sanctioned Peña’s political men- ers are fed up with the establishment par-
tor, former President Horacio Cartes, for what ties. Milei, a lawmaker in the lower house, wants to abolish the
the State Department called “involvement Central Bank, replace the peso with the dollar, and loosen gun
in the rampant corruption that undermines laws. The day after his primary win, the peso promptly plunged
democratic institutions in Paraguay.” Peña 22 percent. Milei took 30 percent of the primary vote and will
said the agency, created in 2012, is expensive face the candidates for the two major blocs in the October elec-
Reuters, El Roi, Getty (2)

and ineffective, but insisted his government
would “work hard” to keep organized crime
out of Paraguayan politics. An economist by
training, he has promised business-friendly poli-
Peña cies focused on job creation and low taxes.
THE WEEK August 25, 2023
tion: Patricia Bullrich, of the right-wing United for Change,
who took 28 percent; and Sergio Massa, of the leftist Union for
the Homeland, who took 27 percent. In his victory speech, the
unmarried Milei, who is also a rock singer and tantric sex instruc-
tor, thanked his five mastiff dogs, all named for economists.
 The world at a glance ...
Moscow
Currency collapse: The Russian ruble
plunged in value this week to less than
a penny, the lowest level since the cur-
rency collapsed early in the war. In an
emergency meeting, Russia’s central
bank hiked the interest rate a signifi-
cant 3.5 points, to 12 percent, but the
ruble rose only briefly before slipping Currency exchange
again. The Kremlin is now considering limiting the flow of capital,
a reflection of growing concern about the effect the war is having
on the economy. The problem is not just Western sanctions or defi-
cit spending on weapons: Russia is also suffering an acute labor
shortage, because so many men have fled abroad to avoid being
drafted. Meanwhile, wealthy Russians have been racing to get their
money out of the country, with the outflow surpassing $1 billion
in the days just after the attempted Wagner Group mutiny in June.
Niamey, Niger
Deposed president appeals to U.S.: The Nigerien generals who
staged a coup last month said this week they would prosecute
ousted President Mohamed Bazoum for treason over his appeals
to foreign leaders to help him. Bazoum, who has been detained
AP (2), Adventure Alpine Guides, Getty, AP
for weeks in the presidential palace, recently wrote a Washington
Post op-ed saying he had been “taken hostage” and
calling on “the U.S. government and the entire
international community” to restore his govern-
ment. The ECOWAS group of West African
nations, meanwhile, threatened to invade
Niger if coup leaders didn’t release the presi-
dent, but its deadline came and went this
week with no action, and analysts said
the threat appears to have been empty.
“It looks as though the putschists have
won and will stay,” said Ulf Laessing
of Germany’s Konrad Adenauer think
Bazoum: I’m a hostage. tank. “They are holding all the cards.”
NEWS 9
Vostochny Cosmodrome, Russia
Race to the moon: Russia launched an unmanned
spacecraft to the moon last week for the first time
in almost 50 years, seeking to be the first coun-
try to land a probe on the icy lunar south pole.
India launched its own uncrewed lunar craft last
month; each country hopes to put its spacecraft
in orbit and then soft-land a probe near the pole.
That region is expected to be a vital source of
water for any future manned moonbase. If all goes
as planned, Russia’s Luna-25 rocket will spend Up and away
about a year collecting data on the moon. “It’s a
demanding and complex operation,” Russian space analyst Vitaly
Egorov told NPR. “Many countries have tried unmanned landings
and crashed at that stage. Russia will either join them, or it will be
a breakthrough for modern Russian space technology.”
Askole, Pakistan
Could hiker have been saved? Pakistan has set up
a commission to investigate whether a Pakistani
hiker who died on K2 last month could have
been saved if other hikers chasing a record had
stopped to help him. The Norwegian mountain-
eer Kristin Harila and her climbing team were
Hassan nearing the 28,251-foot summit of Pakistan’s
K2, the world’s second-tallest mountain, when they came across
Muhammad Hassan tangled in ropes and hanging upside down off
a ledge following a fall. Harila says her team did “everything we
could” to assist him, including leaving her cameraman behind to
administer oxygen, before continuing on to the peak. Harila broke
a world record by summiting all 14 of the world’s highest moun-
tains in 92 days, while Hassan died waiting for rescue.
Tehran
Americans to come home: The U.S. and Iran agreed last week on a
landmark deal to secure the release of five Americans imprisoned
in Iran. Under the deal, the U.S. will free several Iranians held in
the U.S. and unfreeze $6 billion in Iranian assets in foreign banks.
The prisoners, all U.S.-Iranian dual citizens imprisoned for years
on what the U.S. says are unfounded espionage charges, were
transferred this week from Tehran’s notorious Evin prison into an
Iranian hotel; if the deal is completed, they will return home to the
U.S. within weeks. To comply with sanctions, Qatar is to adminis-
ter the Iranian money to ensure it is used only to buy humanitar-
ian goods. Republicans in Congress opposed the deal, with Sen.
Jim Risch (R-Idaho) saying it “dangerously further incentivizes
hostage taking and provides a windfall for regime aggression.”
Amhara, Ethiopia
New civil war: Israel evacuated
more than 200 of its citizens from
Ethiopia this week as fighting
between the army and the Fano, an
ethnic militia in the Amhara region,
threatened to spark a new civil war.
The Fano was one of the militias
that helped the government crush
the uprising in Tigray last year,
Evacuees safe in Israel
ending a two-year civil war in that
region. But now the government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed
is trying to disband it and other regional security forces, and the
Fano says that will leave Amhara vulnerable to militants from the
majority Oromo group. Fano militants have attacked army camps,
looted weapons from police stations, and even raided a prison and
freed thousands of inmates, while Ethiopian forces have launched
air strikes that killed at least 26 people.
THE WEEK August 25, 2023
10 NEWS People
Busta’s brush with death
Busta Rhymes remembers the exact moment
he hit rock bottom, said Bonsu Thompson in
Men’s Health. After a night of partying in May
2019, the famed rapper was found unconscious
in the back of his car—it took his eldest son and
security detail 45 minutes to pull him out of his
stupor. “I felt ashamed,” says Busta, 51. “I set up
a doctor’s appointment the next day.” The signs
of a health crisis had been building for years. He’d ballooned to
340 pounds and had vocal cord polyps that blocked 90 percent
of his air passage. Busta had avoided surgery, he explains, after
being warned it might change his signature baritone to “closer to a
chipmunk.” There were other indignities. Once, after being intimate
with his then-partner, he felt breathless and suffered a panic attack.
“She was like, ‘Yo, this is not who I fell in love with.’” A couple
days later, “I put my hand out to give my son a pound, and [he]
slapped me on the stomach. I was like, ‘Man, don’t touch my body.’
He was just being funny, but these things never happened when I
had a six-pack.” Busta is now 100 pounds lighter, thanks to throat
surgery and a lot of gym sessions, and grateful to be alive. “I’ve
been super blessed to have people that actually love me so much
that they refuse to let me die.”

The pain of playing Jar Jar Binks

Ahmed Best thought he’d won the acting lottery when he was
cast as Jar Jar Binks, said Alexi Duggins in The Guardian (U.K.).
Growing up, Best loved Star Wars so much that he had his mom
sew him Star Wars–themed sheets and clothes. So he was stunned
when, while performing with the dance troupe Stomp, he was asked
to audition for Star Wars prequel The Phantom Menace. “I thought
it was a prank,” says Best, now 49. He got the part of Jar Jar Binks’
body—CGI would flesh out the alien character—but charmed pro-
ducers into giving him a speaking role, using a goofy accent he’d
invented to entertain his young cousins. When Phantom Menace
hit theaters, the backlash to Best’s cartoonish alien was fierce. Fans
called for a genocide against Binks’ species. Best’s answer answering
machine filled with death threats. Most painfully for Best—who is
Black—were the accusations that Binks was a racist caricature that
spoke in demeaning pidgin English. “It was the lowest I’ve been in
my life,” says Best, who at one point found himself on the Brooklyn
Bridge, contemplating suicide. He pulled himself back from the edge
and says he came to realize that the hatred of Binks wasn’t his fault.
“We are addicted to nostalgia,” Best says. “Anything that disrupts
nostalgia is going to be faced with severe emotional backlash.”
What Grimes learned from Musk
Grimes has her eyes set on the stars, said Steven Levy in Wired.
Like her on-again, off-again partner, Elon Musk, the pop star is
obsessed with space travel. “I hope to die in space” says Grimes,
who was born Claire Boucher. “If I died on Earth, in my last
moments I would regret it.” Grimes, 35, says that watching the bil-
lionaire Musk run his rocket company, SpaceX, has been “a master
class in leadership and engineering, like the best internship ever.”
Her 3-year-old son with Musk, named X Æ A-12, often shadows his
dad at work. “He knows more about rockets than me. His obsession
is bordering on ‘Is this healthy?’” After an unmanned SpaceX rocket
exploded in April, X had “like a three-day PTSD meltdown. Every
hour, he was waking up and going, ‘Starship...’ and I had to rub his
back.” Their nearly 2-year-old daughter, Y, “is a little engineer, too.
She likes industrial shipping. She’s very strange.” People often say
the same about Musk, but Grimes says his “hard-core” energy is
simply misunderstood. “Elon has an old-world kind of discipline.
It rubs a lot of people the wrong way. If you’re not consenting to
being in that hard-core zone, I get it. But he’s challenged me a lot.
I’m now way tougher and smarter than I used to be.”

QFormer NFL player Michael Oher, whose
journey out of poverty and into football star-
dom was portrayed in the 2009 blockbuster
The Blind Side, is suing the couple who
famously took him in as a teenager.
Oher, 37, claims he learned
recently that he wasn’t officially
adopted by Sean and Leigh
Anne Tuohy but was instead
duped into a conservatorship
at age 18, which let the Tuohys
rake in millions of dollars in roy-
alties from the movie. Oher, who
has petitioned a Tennessee court
to dissolve the conservatorship,
said he made nothing from the
called Oher’s lawsuit “outlandish” and a
“shakedown effort,” saying he’d previously
threatened to go public with the story unless
the family paid him $15 million.
QMedia mogul Rupert Murdoch has report-
edly found love again, just months after
calling off a brief engagement to his fifth
fiancée. Murdoch, 92, was spotted last week
cruising the Mediterranean on a super-
yacht with retired scientist Elena Zhukova,
66. She is the mother of Dasha Zhukova, a
Russian socialite and the ex-wife of oligarch
Roman Abramovich. The News Corp boss
split from his last fiancée—former dental
hygienist Ann Leslie Smith, 66—in April after
reportedly being spooked by her evangeli-
cal beliefs. Murdoch has a habit of making
quick turnarounds: He married his third
divorced his fourth wife, former supermodel
Jerry Hall, last year.
QRussian model Irina Shayk is getting seri-
ous about her budding romance with retired
NFL great Tom Brady, the New York Post
reported this week. “She really wants this to
work,” a source close to Shayk said. “Brady
is her white whale. He’s an all-American nice
guy.” Shayk, 37, previously dated Portuguese
soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo and actor
Bradley Cooper, with whom she shares
a daughter. Brady, 46, divorced Brazil-
ian model Gisele Bündchen last October
after years of marriage. A source close to
Bündchen—who has denied rumors linking
her to jiujitsu instructor Joaquim Valente
and hotel billionaire Jeffrey Soffer—told Us
Weekly that the Brazilian is “happy [Brady]
Getty (3)

film. An attorney for the Tuohys wife 17 days after divorcing his second. He has moved on because she has, too.”

THE WEEK August 25, 2023

 Briefing NEWS 11

Fear in the water

A spate of shark attacks off the Northeast coast has swimmers and surfers on edge. What’s behind the biting spree?

Are shark attacks increasing? As his language indicates, marine

The number of people bitten by scientists chafe at the term shark
sharks worldwide has held steady “attack,” and urge the use of shark
at about 70 or 80 a year over the “encounter” or “interaction.”
past decade. But the U.S. Northeast
appears to account for a growing Why is that?
share of those attacks. At least While the 1975 blockbuster Jaws
13 people have been bitten off convinced many people that
New York’s Long Island over the past sharks are bloodthirsty man-
two summers—that’s more than in eaters (see box), the animals are
the previous two centuries. Earlier actually not interested in hunt-
this month, New York City’s popular ing humans. “They generally just
Rockaway Beach had its first attack ignore people,” said Gavin Naylor,
in seven decades, when an unidenti- head of the Florida Program for
fied shark bit a chunk from the leg Shark Research. “If people knew
of a 65-year-old swimmer. Attacks how frequently they were in water
A warning sign at the entrance to Nauset Town Beach, Mass.
are also rising further north. In 2018, with sharks, they would prob-
a boogie boarder was killed on the Cape Cod National Seashore, ably be surprised.” Most bites happen by accident, when a shark
Massachusetts’ first fatal attack since 1936. Maine saw its first fatal mistakes a moving limb for a fish or a surfboard for a seal. When
attack in 2020, when a great white tore into a woman paddling off they realize their mistake, they move on, which is why most shark
Bailey Island. Sightings of great white sharks are now routine along encounters result in minor injuries. Only five fatal shark attacks
the Cape’s popular Atlantic beaches. “The danger is much greater were reported worldwide last year.
than it used to be,” said Heather Doyle, chair of the shark safety
nonprofit Cape Cod Ocean Community. The sharks “have not How are authorities trying to protect beachgoers?
always been here to this degree.” New York has launched a $1 million program to use surveillance
drones to spot sharks. Police patrol the beaches in helicopters
Are there more sharks in the water? while lifeguards roam the waters on Jet Skis. “It’s like a new world
Shark populations have shrunk globally by about 70 percent over we’re living in,” said Cary Epstein, a 25-year veteran lifeguard at
the past 50 years, largely due to overfishing of both the animals and Jones Beach on Long Island. On Cape Cod, officials once wary of
the fish they eat. But that trend is reversing in the U.S., thanks to spooking beachgoers have installed conspicuous warning signs and
state and federal regulations that protect the sharks and their prey. encouraged swimmers not to go in above their waists. They’ve put
In 2013, 15 East Coast states began limiting catches of menhaden, tourniquets and bandages in bright orange boxes on beaches; an
a major food source for sharks. Those fish, also known as bunker, app, Sharktivity, tracks local sightings. Cape officials say they’ve
now thrive in New York’s near shore waters—bringing sharks close been inundated with proposals for high-tech solutions such as using
to swimmers and surfers. In Cape Cod, great whites have rebounded sound waves to drive off sharks, but most have been ignored. It’s
since a 1972 federal law banned the culling of gray seals, which more effective, say scientists, to teach the public to avoid behaviors
the sharks feast on in summer and fall. The Cape is now home to a that increase risk.
booming population of seals and some 800 great whites, one of the
world’s largest populations. “Sharks are a sign of a healthy ecosys- What can swimmers do?
tem,” said Chris Paparo, a shark expert at Stony Brook University Avoid taking a dip at dawn and dusk, when sharks typically feed,
in Long Island. Some scientists believe and stay away from areas where
global warming is also pushing more The Jaws effect seals or schools of fish are pres-
sharks to Northeastern waters. As the first summer blockbuster, Steven Spielberg’s ent, or where seabirds are diving.
1975 smash Jaws upended Hollywood. The movie, Experts also recommend swimming
Why are sharks on the move? which depicts a New England town terrorized by a in groups and avoiding murky
As ocean temperatures hit record flesh-hungry great white, may also have gotten a lot waters where a shark might con-
highs, sharks that prefer frigid water, of sharks killed. “Jaws was kind of a turning point,” fuse them for marine life. When
such as great whites, may be head- said Christopher Lowe, the Shark Lab director. “It got you enter the ocean, be aware that
ing further north to chillier seas. people thinking very negatively about sharks.” Shark- you’re “entering their home,” said
Meanwhile, sharks that normally fishing competitions boomed in the movie’s wake Hans Walters, a shark expert at the
inhabit warmer waters off Florida and few people cared that many species were pushed New York Aquarium. But the risks
and the Carolinas—such as bull, tiger, close to the brink of extinction. Jaws “made it easier also need to be kept in perspective:
for people to say, ‘You know what? These things are More people are killed annually
and black-tipped sharks—can now
a menace,’” said Lowe. “People were less compelled
comfortably roam all the way up to by cows and bees than by sharks.
to protect them.” Some scientists believe shark stocks
southern New England in summer. would have dived with or without the movie, but “Your chances of being bitten are
Hotter temperatures are also pushing Spielberg himself has apologized for its influence. kind of like your chances of winning
more people to the beach in summer “That’s one of the things I still fear,” Spielberg said in the Powerball,” said Christopher
and into the water. There’s more 2022, “not to get eaten by a shark, but that sharks are Lowe, director of the Shark Lab at
“potential to increase interactions,” somehow mad at me for the feeding frenzy of crazy California State University, Long
said James Sulikowski, a marine sport fishermen that happened after 1975.” Beach. “You have a much bigger risk
Getty

biologist at Arizona State University. driving to the beach.”

THE WEEK August 25, 2023
12 NEWS Best columns: The U.S.
Biden’s President Biden is making Americans “ripe targets” for hostage takers,
said Noah Rothman. The U.S. reached a tentative deal with Iran last It must be true...
dangerous week to secure the release of five Americans unjustly imprisoned inside
the Islamic Republic. In return for their freedom, some $6 billion in
I read it in the tabloids
hostage deal impounded Iranian assets will be unfrozen—money that the mullahs
will supposedly be allowed to use only for humanitarian purposes.
QA Texas woman was at-
tacked simultaneously by
Noah Rothman While it’s welcome news that these Americans will no longer be brutal- a hawk and a snake while
National Review ized in an Iranian prison, this deal shows “the ease with which the U.S. mowing her lawn. Peggy
is extorted by hostile foreign powers” under Biden. The template was Jones was on a riding mower
set during last year’s negotiations with the Kremlin over WNBA star when the snake fell on her,
Brittney Griner. “For the low, low price of taking one athlete hostage,” likely dropped by a passing
Russia won the release of arms dealer and convicted hitman Viktor hawk. As she tried to shake
Bout. Now the Biden administration is reportedly scouring the West for off the 4-foot reptile, which
had coiled around her arm,
“infamous Russians” it can trade for Wall Street Journal reporter Evan
the hawk swooped down to
Gershkovich, who is being held in a high-security Moscow prison on retrieve its meal, stabbing
bogus spying charges. Biden wants to show the world that “Americans Jones with its talons. After
do not leave their own behind”—but all foreign autocrats see is the its fourth dive, the bird flew
concessions they can win by seizing our citizens. off with the snake. Covered
in blood, Jones rushed to the
ER and relayed her story to
A GOP plan Vivek Ramaswamy has a bold plan to give Republicans a lock on power,
said Jamelle Bouie, and it involves stripping millions of Americans of their
a doctor, who asked if she
was on drugs. “It was a very
to silence votes. The GOP presidential candidate is pitching a constitutional amend-
ment that would raise the voting age from 18 to 25, with exceptions for
bizarre, harrowing experi-
ence,” she said.
young voters those who pass a civics test or perform national service. Ramaswamy,
polling third behind Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, QA trainee instructor at a
Colorado driving school
Jamelle Bouie calls his plan a remedy for “a loss of civic pride” among Americans. crashed
The New York Times What it’s really trying to fix is the GOP’s unpopularity with voters under through
30, who broke for Democrats 68 to 31 percent in the 2022 midterms. the school’s
Rather than appeal to this bloc, Ramaswamy would “remove the vast front win-
majority from the electorate altogether.” To be clear, this “novelty policy dow while
from a novelty candidate” is going nowhere. The country is so divided attempting
along partisan lines that the Constitution is effectively unamendable. But to park,
Ramaswamy’s plan is yet more evidence of the GOP’s turn against the leaving his
principal of majority rule. You can see it in DeSantis’ removal of elected Hyundai
prosecutors who disagree with him, and in Trump’s attempt to end lodged
democracy after his 2020 defeat. “Ramaswamy is playing the same song. beneath
There’s almost no one in the Republican Party, at this point, who isn’t.” a sign reading “Learn to
Drive.” The driver “was a
new employee on his second
Judge Tanya Chutkan is now an official member of the “progressive pan-
Judges theon,” said Michael Schaffer. Almost as soon as the district court judge
day,” said Community
Driving School owner Steve

don’t need was assigned to Donald Trump’s Jan. 6 case, Etsy stores started selling
T-shirts emblazoned with “Judge Chutkan Fan Club” and “Presidents
Rohman. He added that the
trainee, who had not yet

fan clubs Are Not Kings,” a reference to a 2021 ruling she issued against Trump.
On social media, activists hailed the Obama appointee as their “hero.”
started teaching students,
was no longer employed at
the school.
Michael Schaffer Given the basics of Chutkan’s biography, an immigrant and a woman
Politico of color, and Trump’s incendiary history of personal attacks on judges, I QFed up with roaming
understand the impulse to “show what side you’re on.” Other public ser- peacocks who peck at cars,
vants who’ve wound up in Trump’s crosshairs—Robert Mueller, Anthony poop prodigiously, and
Fauci—have been similarly lionized. This time, liberals should pause their issue deafening mating
calls, residents of Pinecrest,
praise. Trump’s main critique of his criminal case is that “it’s a partisan
Fla., have landed on a fix:
plot countenanced by a rigged judicial system.” A progressive culture peacock vasectomies. It’s
that turns an impartial judge into a resistance folk hero simply fuels his “the perfect solution,” said
claims of bias. If progressives want to make pop-culture icons “out of Joe Corradino, mayor of the
people who battle Trump, they ought to stick to folks who go out and Miami suburb, where the
get elected—not public servants doing an officially apolitical job.” peacocks’ numbers—and
related complaints—have
soared over the past decade.
Viewpoint “It’s well-established that sexism is among the biggest predictors of hostility to
Lakewood, Colo., Police Department

A trapper will bring the birds

abortion rights. The anti-abortion movement has never been focused on sav-
to a veterinarian for the
ing babies; it has been focused on restoring traditional gender roles, with men enjoying a monopoly
procedure; afterward, they’ll
on political, economic, and social power, and women dependent on and submitting to them. Giving
women control over our reproduction was a key break from the old model—it was what offered recover in a pen until they’re
women the power to participate as full citizens in our society. Conservative efforts to restrict reproduc- ready to return to the streets.
tive freedoms are much more about denying women full citizenship than about preserving fetal life.” “They’re not having any more
Jill Filipovic in her Substack babies,” said Corradino.

THE WEEK August 25, 2023

14 NEWS Best columns: Europe
Greeks are battling tourists for beach space this
GREECE summer with their only weapon: a towel, said
Ilias Psychogiou. No, they aren’t getting it wet
Why Greeks and twirling it into a whip; they’re simply laying
it gently on the sand to claim a spot. The “towel
are taking up war” began in June, when residents on the island of
Paros got fed up with all the tourists’ beach chairs
towels occupying Santa Maria beach. Under Greek law,
beaches are public, and beach bars that rent out
Ilias Psychogiou
chairs can’t fence off the sand for the use of only
Capital
their paying customers. In practice, though, the law
isn’t enforced, and on many beaches there’s “barely
room between the lounge chairs for a waiter to
pass.” Fed up, locals began getting up at dawn,
well before the tourists or vendors, and laying
down towels. Soon, Santa Maria was theirs again,
and the Towel Movement spread to other Greek
islands. “Citizen protests are good,” of course, but
this one feels curiously limited. Where is the out-
rage over the other “sins of the tourist industry,”
like the garbage that has turned Paros’ forests into
landfills or the overdevelopment that’s “squeezed
dry” our freshwater springs? I suspect protesters
tolerate those problems because their ranks include
those very locals who sold their land to developers.
A tidy profit can buy a lot of tolerance.

GERMANY Pony up and shut up—that was Brazil’s message
for Europe at last week’s Amazon summit, said
Rainforest Niklas Franzen. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva
demanded that rich countries pay $100 billion
destruction is each year toward saving the rainforest—an unful-
filled promise made back in 2009—and spare him
our fault too the lectures about the evils of deforestation. The
smackdown is well deserved. How can we lecture
Niklas Franzen
Brazil about the need to preserve the ecosystem
Taz when Europe “clear-cut a large part of its own
forests a century ago”? The simple truth is that it
is our demand for cheap goods that has fueled the
destruction of the rainforest. A significant percent-
age of the raw materials and the crops that come
from lands cleared in the Amazon region “goes
north.” Germans and other Europeans buy Brazil-
ian hardwoods for our flooring. We feed our pigs
Brazilian soybeans. Even much of the beef we eat
comes from Brazil, where—thanks to cheap, il-
legally cleared Amazon pastureland—raising cattle
costs half what it does here. “We want cheap
groceries, South America delivers.” In turn, those
agricultural exports fuel Brazil’s economy. We can’t
expect a country, or its farmers, to forgo that in-
come without some compensation. “It is only logi-
cal that the industrialized nations should dig into
their pockets.” After all, we are the primary driver
of the global climate emergency.

France: The rise of Fox News–style, far-right media

France’s main Sunday newspaper has Jeanticou in Telerama.fr (France).
become a megaphone for the extreme When it finally returned to newsstands
right, said Jon Henley in The Guardian last week, the paper had “swerved
(U.K.). Journal du Dimanche is a French toward far-right opinion journalism.”
institution, the paper that has set the The cover story—on a teenager named
agenda for French politics every week Enzo who had been knifed to death,
for 80 years. So its takeover this summer presumably by immigrant youth—was
by right-wing billionaire Vincent Bolloré not only lurid but also riddled with
came as a shock not just to readers but “factual errors and ethical lapses.” The
also to the paper’s own centrist-minded story reported that local parents had
journalists. They were particularly aghast signed an open letter demanding action
at the news that noted xenophobe against crime—but failed to disclose
Geoffroy LeJeune had been appointed that the letter was actually the brain-
editor-in-chief. LeJeune was fired from JDD staffers were on strike for weeks. child of a JDD reporter. JDD even
his last job, editing Valeurs Actuelles, ran the wrong cover image, showing
because that magazine grew so racist that it ran afoul of French a march for a different kid, a car crash victim also named Enzo.
hate-speech laws. He’s also “a leading supporter” of far-right When confronted, the paper tried to gaslight its critics by insist-
politician Éric Zemmour, who promotes the “racist great re- ing that the photo was not misleading. With that lie, the transfor-
placement” theory. JDD’s staff asked for a pledge that the new mation of a respected paper “into a tabloid” was complete.
management wouldn’t print “racist, sexist, or homophobic
statements,” and when LeJeune refused, the newsroom revolted, The outrage over this ownership change is breathtakingly hypo-
going on strike for six weeks. Now more than half of the paper’s critical, said Philippe Bilger in Causeur (France). The staff didn’t
journalists have quit, to be replaced by more compliant staffers even give LeJeune a chance to prove himself; they simply walked
poached from other Bolloré properties. off their jobs in a pious huff. Clearly, “those who claim to defend
diversity in the press do not believe in it at all, but spurn any
The acquisition of JDD is just another step in Bolloré’s quest “to opinion that is the least bit conservative.” Yet if we don’t reject
build a counterweight to what he sees as the leftist bias of French opinions that aren’t grounded in fact, said Le Monde (France)
media,” said Leila Abboud and Adrienne Klasa in the Financial in an editorial, we risk ending up like the United States. When
Times (U.K.). When he bought the TV channel i-Télé in 2015, he Fox News adopted Donald Trump’s “new religion of alternative
“gutted the staff” and rebranded the station as CNews, “a French facts,” alleging the 2020 election was stolen, the result was the
version of Fox News” that now spouts right-wing talking points. Capitol insurrection. The U.S. media’s hard-right turn “seriously
Already, the same thing is happening at JDD, said Romain weakened democracy.” It could happen here too.
Getty

THE WEEK August 25, 2023

 Best columns: International NEWS 15

Ecuador: Is the nation becoming a lawless narco-state?

The assassination of a top presidential international drug trade, violence began
candidate in Ecuador just days before rising. “Dismembered corpses began
the election has plunged the country into to appear on the streets,” and “bodies
a “deep political crisis,” said Christian hung from bridges.” Weeks before Vil-
Pérez in La Hora (Ecuador). Last week, lavicencio’s death, a mayor was killed;
Fernando Villavicencio, an investigative one week after, a local politician. Call it
journalist who had become an anti- the “Mexicanization” of Ecuador, said
corruption lawmaker, died in a hail of bul- Ricardo Raphael in Milenio (Mexico).
lets as he was leaving a campaign rally in “Murdering politicians is one of the
Quito. Police quickly killed the suspected most frequent symptoms.” To manage
gunman and have since arrested at least the narco-trade, “complicity of the
six others, all Colombians, in connection authorities” is a must. Lawmakers who
with the killing. But those men are likely can’t be bribed are simply eliminated.
Villavicencio’s funeral in Quito
just hired muscle. Ecuadorean authorities
say they’ll work with the FBI to discover the “masterminds” of Villavicencio had hoped to save Ecuador from becoming a
the plot. Ecuador desperately needs that outside assistance, said full-blown “narco-state,” said Reinaldo Páez in El Comercio
Hugo Marcelo Espin Tobar in Plan V (Ecuador), because our (Ecuador). First as an investigative reporter and then in the
police are clearly not up to the job. How is it that the wounded National Assembly, he fearlessly denounced the growing
gunman was not given medical assistance but was “allowed to “symbiosis between politics, insurgent organizations, and drug
die of his wounds en route to prison,” robbing the investigation trafficking” and exposed “scandalous acts of corruption” by
of the most important source of information? And how is it that politicians who had become obscenely wealthy overnight. Voters
an entire unit of police guarding Villavicencio could not keep him were paying attention: Just before his death, Villavicencio had
safe? The slain politician warned us that organized crime had jumped from fifth to second place in the eight-person presiden-
corrupted the Ecuadorean police. It looks like he was right. tial race. Now his Construye party has tapped Christian Zurita,
another investigative journalist, to replace him—but Zurita has
The mere suggestion would have been unthinkable a few years never held elective office, and it’s unclear whether he can draw
ago, said Santiago Piedra Silva in Infobae (Argentina). Ecuador Villavicencio’s voters. Whoever wins, said Simon Pachano in
was one of Latin America’s safest countries, an “island of peace” El Universo (Ecuador), must focus first of all on finding the
between cocaine-producing Colombia and Peru. Drug shipments murderers. The day before he was killed, Villavicencio announced
passed quietly through the country on their way to American he had “new evidence of corruption in the forthcoming priva-
consumers without leaving much of a mark. But over the past tization of the oil industry.” Let’s start there. The best tribute to
five years, as local gangs Los Lobos and Los Choneros joined the Villavicencio’s memory will be to “carry on his work.”

Africa has become a dumping ground for the
GHANA West’s junk, said Kofi Agyarko. The U.S. and
Europe routinely export used and older-model re-
How ‘zombie frigerators and air-conditioners to African nations
at a steeply discounted price—not out of the good-
appliances’ ness of their hearts, but to save manufacturers the
expense of disposing of these huge hulks and their
keep us poor toxic refrigerants. Because these models use “obso-
lete, ozone-depleting” hydrofluorocarbons, they’re
Kofi Agyarko
unsellable in countries that have signed on to cer-
Ghanaian Times
tain global climate treaties. Sure, for those living
“hand-to-mouth in a developing country” where
“cooling appliances are increasingly becoming
necessary for health and survival,” an $89 fridge
sounds great. But it’s not the bargain it appears.
These old clunkers are in fact “zombie appliances”
that can’t be fixed because spare parts have been
discontinued. Even when they do work, they suck
up vastly more energy than today’s models, and the
poor people who buy them end up paying more
over time than if they’d shelled out for a new one.
Ghana halted the import of used refrigerators in
2013, but an online black market has proved hard
to tame. Ideally, the U.N. will one day ban these
polluters altogether. Until then, Africans are left to
deal with the West’s poisoned hand-me-downs.

LEBANON The banning of the Barbie movie shows how
far Lebanon has fallen from its days as the
Seeing a oasis of tolerance in the Arab world, said Hovik
Habashian. To justify the ban, Culture Minister
threat from Mohammad Mortada gave an Oscar-worthy
speech claiming the film “promotes sexual devi-
a plastic doll ance” and “ridicules the role of the mother, ques-
tioning the very necessity of marriage.” In short,
Hovik Habashian
he declared, Barbie is contrary to our religion
An Nahar and values. Excuse me? “Do we now have only
one religion and one value system in Lebanon?!”
Mortada may be a devout Shiite, but this country
Reuters
Sunni, and Christian—and frankly, even many
Shiites “don’t share his values.” In any case, had
Mortada watched the film (he proudly told us he
did not), he would have seen that Barbie is actually
a “progressive film of women’s empowerment,” if
a bit “obvious and superficial” for my taste. His
ban, though, is not as trivial. Lebanon was once “a
haven for musical and artistic works and perform-
ers that had been banned in other Arab countries.”
Now it is in thrall to a culture of ignorance and in-
tolerance, with clerics vying for political influence.
With a government afraid of a film about a plastic

is about equally divided at one-third each Shiite, doll, we are becoming “a farce among nations.”
THE WEEK August 25, 2023
16 NEWS
Noted
QMore than 300 high-level
military officers are unable
to assume their positions
due to a block on Senate
approvals of military pro-
motions by Sen. Tommy
Tuberville (R-Ala.). The
top spots in the Army,
Navy, and Marine Corps
are vacant as a result of
the blockade, launched to
protest a Pentagon policy
that pays expenses for ser-
vice members who must
travel to another state for
an abortion.
The Washington Post
QNearly 49,500 people
took their own lives in the
U.S. last year—the highest
number on record and
about 3 percent above the
toll in 2021. The widening
availability of guns is driv-
ing the trend, said suicide
researcher Jill Harkavy-
Friedman. Suicide at-
tempts involving firearms
are far more likely to result
in death than those using
other means.
Associated Press
QAbout 30 cents of every
dollar spent so far this
year by Donald Trump’s
various political commit-
tees has gone to legal fees
and investigation-related
bills. In total, the groups
spent some $27 million on
legal costs in the first six
months of 2023.
The New York Times
QFederal agents made 74
arrests for violent threats
made on public officials last
year, up from 38 in 2013.
Such threats have escalat-
ed over the past five years,
said extremism researcher
Seamus Hughes, who links
the rise to the normalizing
of violent rhetoric and the
ease of making threats via
social media.
NPR
THE WEEK August 25, 2023
Talking points
Young Republicans: The racists in their midst
“Rising young stars of the
mainstream right” keep
being “outed as bigots,” said
Anthony L. Fischer in The
Daily Beast, raising unset-
tling questions about modern
conservatism. First, influential
pro–Ron DeSantis blogger
Pedro Gonzalez was exposed
for writing anti-Semitic and
Hanania, right, interviews Andreessen.
racist commentary on group
chats. Weeks later, a speechwriter for DeSantis’
campaign, Nate Hochman, was fired after he cre-
ated and posted a video superimposing Nazi imag- like Hanania to tar all conservatives as bigots.
ery over the Florida governor’s face. Then rising
conservative star Richard Hanania was revealed
to have spewed “racist bile” under an alias on alt-
right websites in past years. Calling himself a “race who has lectured at Yale and written for The
realist,” Hanania argued against “miscegenation”
and in favor of sterilization for “low IQ” people,
who he said were typically Black. Hispanics, he
wrote, lack the “IQ to be a productive part of a
first world nation.” These unveilings suggest the
Right needs a “spiritual housecleaning,” but it’s a
conversation that few conservatives want to have.
Young right-wing culture has changed since
Donald Trump’s ascendance, said David French
in The New York Times. “Blatantly racist, sexist,
and homophobic speech” abounds among the “so- tech titans decrying “wokeness” and “redhats
called new right,” who are united against a “woke” screaming at Trump rallies” is optics. “At the end
left they regard as an existential threat. Insecure in of the day, they share the same vile bigotries.”
Clarence Thomas: A justice’s generous friends
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas may be
“paid like a government employee,” said Jonathan
Chait in New York magazine, but he vacations
“like a king.” A new ProPublica investigation
details the “millions of dollars’ worth of luxury
travel” bestowed on Thomas by wealthy benefac-
tors, including ex–Berkshire Hathaway exec David
Sokol and oil baron Paul Anthony Novelly. Since
joining the court in 1991, he’s been treated to at
least 38 destination vacations, 26 private jet flights,
a dozen VIP passes to sporting events, and eight
helicopter rides. The late H. Wayne Huizenga,
founder of AutoNation and Waste Management
Inc., sent a 737 to collect him at least twice. Pro-
Publica had previously revealed private jet flights
and yacht trips lavished on Thomas by billionaire
GOP megadonor Harlan Crow, which Thomas
shrugged off as something “friends do.” Perhaps
Thomas’ buddies are simply generous. Or perhaps
they hope their largesse will “insulate him from the
social pressure that has pushed other Republican-
appointed justices toward the ideological center.”
Thomas’ pals have “bought him a lot more than
vacations,” said Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph
Stern in Slate. They have also sought to construct
a “cult of personality” around the right-wing jus-
their masculinity, they deliver
a “vicious backlash” to any
contrary voices, whom they
view as capitulators in the
“great battle against the
forces of darkness.” It’s true
that “a Nietzschean right has
become more prominent in
recent years,” said Matthew
Schmitz in The American
Conservative. Still, its mem-
bers remain “marginal” figures who have few fol-
lowers outside Twitter. But the Left leaps on cases
Hanania is no fringe figure, said Christopher
Mathias in HuffPost. He’s “a right-wing star”
Wall Street Journal. Elon Musk “replies approv-
ingly to his tweets,” and Silicon Valley billionaire
Marc Andreessen has appeared on his podcast.
Such fans now profess shock at Hanania’s past
comments, said Amanda Marcotte in Salon, but
he’s made almost identical remarks under his own
name. Hanania recently said America needs more
“incarceration and surveillance of Black people,”
and that liberals “dislike anyone acknowledging
statistical differences between races.” This ugly
affair makes clear that the only difference between
tice, pumping money into books, museums, and
fake Twitter accounts that portray Thomas as the
modest, misunderstood “savior of the Constitu-
tion.” Among the projects financed by his wealthy
fan club is the “ultra-reverent” 2020 documentary
Created Equal, in which the jet-setting Thomas
claims to prefer RV parks and Walmart parking
lots to “beaches and things like that.”
Supporters of Thomas argue these exposés are
“part of a liberal plot to discredit the court’s most
conservative member,” said Ruth Marcus in The
Washington Post. “But it is Thomas who’s doing
the discrediting”—of himself and the institution in
which he serves. Approval of the Supreme Court
now polls at a record-low 40 percent, said Noah
Bookbinder and Dennis Aftergut in the Los Ange-
les Times. To rebuild trust in this crucial institu-
tion, the justices must—“like other judges and
most Americans in any profession”—be subject to
an enforceable code of conduct. A bill that would
set standards for recusals is now working its way
through the Senate, but seems likely to be blocked
by Republicans. That leaves it to Chief Justice John
YouTube, Getty
Roberts to take action and order an investigation
of Thomas. If he doesn’t, the court will remain
stained by Thomas’ “intolerable corruption.”
 Talking points NEWS 17

Alabama brawl: Celebrating Black self-defense Wit &

When a Black man is attacked
by a gang of racists, it usually
instigators getting the whoop-
ing they deserved. Admirers
Wisdom
ends horribly, said Solomon dubbed a 16-year-old who “No one made a greater
Jones in The Philadelphia swam across the harbor to mistake than he who did
Inquirer. But this time “was dif- join the fight “Black Aqua- nothing because he could
ferent.” A group of white men man” and “Shaquille O’Gills.” do only a little.”
in Montgomery, Ala., recently Maybe we’re not “quite as Edmund Burke, quoted in
docked their pontoon boat divided” as it often seems. Adventist Today
at a spot reserved for a large “An advanced city is not
riverboat loaded with 227 pas- Rewind the video to the
one where even the poor
sengers, and for 45 minutes moment when Pickett was use cars, but rather one
refused requests to move by the knocked to the ground, “out- where even the rich use
commercial vessel’s co-captain, numbered and overwhelmed,” public transit.”
Damien Pickett, who is Black. said LZ Granderson in the Colombian politician
Black bystanders defending Pickett Los Angeles Times. “Do you Enrique Peñalosa, quoted in
Pickett then climbed onto the Toronto Storeys
dock to move their boat himself and was attacked wonder when and how the beating would have
by multiple men, reportedly amid shouts of “F--- stopped if Black people hadn’t intervened?” The “What is wanted is not the
that n-----!” But a large group of Black people sad truth is that white onlookers did nothing to will to believe, but the wish
witnessing the attack rushed to Pickett’s aid, and aid the Black guy getting a beating—as is so often to find out, which is its
a wild racial brawl ensued. Afterward, four white the case. Throughout history, self-defense hasn’t exact opposite.”
boaters were charged with misdemeanor assault, been an option for Black people under attack, said Bertrand Russell, quoted in
The Knowledge
and a Black man was charged with disorderly Charles M. Blow in The New York Times. That’s
conduct. When a video of “the uprising” went why this incident, and its venue, felt like “therapy” “The highest result of
viral, Black people celebrated the remarkable and a “historical correction” for us. “It happened education is tolerance.”
moment of Black unity and defiant self-defense. on a riverfront where enslaved people of African Helen Keller, quoted in
Why? “We are tired of being victimized.” descent were transported to be sold in a city” that Good Housekeeping
later played “a key part in the civil rights move-
“Q: How many conspiracy
It’s not just Black people celebrating, said Jeff ment.” By standing up in “righteous indignation,” theorists does it take
Charles in Newsweek. The melee spawned “a slew Pickett’s Black protectors sent a powerful message to change a light bulb?
of parody videos and memes” from people of all that “no people are obligated to endure violence A: Do your own research.”
races mocking the “obnoxious, entitled” white without defending themselves or being defended.” Comedian Darren Walsh,
quoted in The Telegraph (U.K.)

Trump: Disqualified by the 14th Amendment? “I’m not interested in

what any prophet said. I’m
interested in what you, as
In a “rather gobsmacking” development, said addressed the problem of Southern states send- a follower of that prophet,
Charlie Sykes in The Bulwark, two conserva- ing Confederate officials to Washington after actually do.”
tive constitutional scholars are arguing that the the Civil War, and the terms “insurrection” and Novelist James McBride,
quoted in Slate
14th Amendment makes Donald Trump ineligible “rebellion” should apply to “only the most seri-
to run for president—even if he is never con- ous of uprisings against the government.” Trump “Marriage is a fine
victed of any Jan. 6–related crime. Law profes- has not been charged with inciting an insurrec- institution, but I’m not
sors William Baude of the University of Chicago tion, and to interpret the statute broadly would ready for an institution.”
and Michael Stokes Paulsen of the University set an “ominous” precedent, opening the door to Mae West, quoted in
of St. Thomas argue in a law-review article that its misuse by “bad actors.” The Independent (Ireland)
Trump’s attempted coup d’état “automatically”
disqualifies him under Section 3 of the amend- Read the plain language of the amendment, said
ment, which bars anyone from elected office who Timothy Snyder in his Substack newsletter. Baude
has “engaged in” or “given aid or comfort” to an and Paulsen’s “powerfully argued” case reaches Poll watch
“insurrection or rebellion.” The scholars say that the “obvious conclusion” that Trump tried might-
ily in several extralegal ways to overturn an elec- Q66% of American
“every official, state or federal” who oversees adults say they have
elections has the authority to bar Trump from the tion he clearly lost, and thus “engaged in insurrec-
a personal or family
ballot. Baude and Paulsen are not “Biden-loving tion and rebellion, and gave aid and comfort to
connection to alcohol or
partisans,” said Matt Ford in The New Republic. others who did the same.” Legally, the argument
drug addiction. Of those,
They belong to the Federalist Society, the power- is “very compelling,” said Zack Beauchamp in 76% say it has had an
ful right-wing organization that helped stock the Vox. But in this incendiary political climate, it’s impact on their family re-
Supreme Court with conservatives. Their “genu- also “a recipe for disaster.” Even if Trump’s dis- lationships. Whites (67%)
inely originalist” reasoning might resonate with qualification survived every legal challenge all the are more likely to have
those justices if federal or state officials act on way up to the Supreme Court—“a very big ‘if’”— had family members
their “compelling” legal analysis. MAGA Republicans would see it as “more proof who suffer with addic-
that the system is rigged against them.” They very tion than Blacks (58%) or
That analysis would enable partisan officials to likely would react with violence. Whatever the Hispanics (56%).
willfully “disqualify their political opponents,” Constitution says, “the Trump problem is very KFF poll
said Michael McConnell in Reason. Section 3 hard to solve through the law alone.”
THE WEEK August 25, 2023
18 NEWS Pick of the week’s cartoons

THE WEEK August 25, 2023 For more political cartoons, visit: www.theweek.com/cartoons.
Pick of the week’s cartoons NEWS 19

THE WEEK August 25, 2023

20 NEWS Technology

Robotaxis: An open road for driverless cars

California is kicking its robotaxi rollout
into high gear, said Trisha Thadani and
Jeremy B. Merrill in The Washington
Post. Cars without drivers are already
becoming “a common sight on San Fran-
cisco’s winding, hilly, and often foggy
streets.” But they’ve been limited in their
areas and time of operation, and in some
cases have had human safety monitors on
board. Last week, California regulators—
over objections from San Francisco city
officials—voted to lift most restrictions
for the two leading self-driving car com-
Cruise’s taxis can now freely roam San Francisco.
panies, Waymo and Cruise, letting them
charge for rides anywhere in the city 24/7. It’s “a pivotal mo-
ment” for the industry, which has grown to more than 40 com-
panies clocking “millions of miles on public roads every year.”
If this is the future, it’s still a work in progress, said the Los
Angeles Times in an editorial. One San Francisco driverless
vehicle rolled into an active fire scene and blocked a fire hose.
Others have stopped dead in the middle of traffic, light-rail
lines, and fire station driveways. There were 93 reported traf-
fic incidents involving robotaxis in March alone. California
regulators shouldn’t be “giving robotaxis a free pass.” Driverless driver behind the wheel.” I’m amazed by how few people “are
cars could shake up city streets the way gas-powered automo-
biles did a century ago, said David Zipper in The Atlantic. The
backlash has been similar, too. In San Francisco, one activist
group has begun “coning” self-driving
taxis—“placing a simple orange cone on
the hood,” which seems to “paralyze a
state-of-the-art autonomous vehicle.” The
activists have a point: Self-driving cars
should not be an excuse for Americans to
repeat the mistakes of the 1920s, making
cities even more “auto-centric.”
I wanted to love robotaxis, said Elaine
Moore in the Financial Times. “Elimi-
nating human error would undoubtedly
make roads safer.” But then came the
time I hailed a Cruise car. “A few minutes
into the journey, the car suddenly changed course,” inexplica-
bly quadrupling the estimated time to arrival. Then the car just
stopped. We tried to exit but the doors remained locked. “It
was only for a few seconds,” but it will make me pause before
hopping in another robotaxi anytime soon. These horror sto-
ries remain the exception, said Benjamin Schneider in the MIT
Technology Review. Over the past few years, Cruise and Waymo
have “racked up over a million relatively uneventful, truly driv-
erless miles each in major American cities.” At certain times in
San Francisco, I’d estimate that “1 in 10 cars on the road has no
aware of how quickly this industry is advancing,” or have con-
sidered the near-term labor and transportation impacts. Because
“like it or not, robotaxis are here.”

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

Some companies think hydrogen
represents the key to decarbonizing
aviation, said Dhananjay Khadilkar
in Ars Technica. At the recent Paris
Air Show, French startup Beyond
Aero showed off a new plane that
is powered by “a complete hydro-
gen fuel cell power train,” which
the company said it has success-
fully tested. Airbus plans flight-
tests for its ZEROe project in 2026.
And a British-American startup,
ZeroAvia, is developing hydrogen
engines “that can be retrofitted
onto existing aircraft.” ZeroAvia is
testing a 600 kilowatt—or roughly
800 horsepower—prototype on a
19-seat Dornier 228 aircraft. One
downside to hydrogen is that the
engines are much heavier than tradi-
tional turbines, reducing their flight
range significantly. But ZeroAvia
believes the range “will still be ade-
quate” for most business travelers.
Smartphones wither in the heat
Smartphone batteries aren’t built for this type
of heat, said Joanna Stern in The Wall Street
Journal. “I’ll spare you the chemistry class, but
there are complicated reactions that occur in
a lithium-ion battery. As you increase the tem-
perature, the speed of that chemical reaction
also increases,” which can cause the battery to
drain faster. Both Apple and Samsung suggest
95 degrees is “the highest ambient temper-
ate your phone should be in.” But “ambient”
exposure isn’t the only cause of detrimental
overheating. Fast-charging your phone too
often (which generates heat) or using your
phone while it’s charging “can also it make it
overheat” and degrade the battery over time.
AI chaos in college classrooms
Teachers need more guidance on how to
handle AI in the classroom, said Pranshu
Verma in The Washington Post. The arrival
of chatbots like ChatGPT last winter “sowed
confusion and panic among educators” who
say they witnessed “a stark rise in plagiarism
and reduced learning” when AI bots went
mainstream. Across the country, “some univer-
sities have modified their dishonesty policies
to take AI into account, but others avoid the
proficient in” using AI to aid their learning.
But anti-plagiarism tools to detect AI-written
content, such as Turnitin.com, “are notori-
ously unreliable.” Jessica Zimny, a sophomore
at Midwestern State University in Wichita
Falls, Texas, “said she was wrongly accused
of using AI to cheat this summer.” Now she
screen-records herself doing assignments to
avoid similar problems.
Flirting apps don’t get the date
AI-powered dating apps aren’t delivering
smarter matchmaking, said Eari Nakano and
Caelyn Pender in Bloomberg. We sampled a
few of them. Teaser AI pitches a “ghosting-
free” experience by having new users first
chat with a bot, which learns their “common
speech patterns” and biographical details
before it finds potential matches. It sounds ef-
ficient, but in our test, “the chatbot invented a
personal friendship with Andy Weir, author of
The Martian, and claimed a degree from New
York University.” Another app, Iris Dating,
uses AI to “process users’ preferences” for
what they find appealing in a person’s face,
down to precision “details such as the distance
between the eyes.” But it didn’t work for us;
“neither of our testers were matched with
Getty

subject.” Still others argue “students should be other users” whom they found attractive.
THE WEEK August 25, 2023

A breakthrough for postpartum depression
The Food and Drug Administration has
approved the first-ever pill specifically for
postpartum depression—a breakthrough
for a condition that affects about 1 in 8
new mothers in the U.S. Zuranolone,
which will be sold under the brand name
Zurzuvae, was shown in clinical trials to
begin easing depressive symptoms within
just three days, much faster than general-
purpose antidepressants. And the course
lasts only two weeks, rather than many
months. It is also the first treatment for
the condition that can be taken at home;
the only other option, brexanolone, is an
expensive IV infusion that requires a three-
A wanderer in the galaxy
Rogue planets are everywhere
Free-floating planets are roaming the
Milky Way, unattached to a host star, just
out there on their own. Scientists used to
think there were billions of such rogue
planets in our galaxy, reports TechSpot,
but a new study says that estimate was off
by orders of magnitude: It’s more likely to
be trillions. That would mean such “dark”
planets are six times more abundant than
those that orbit a sun, such as Earth and
its neighbors in this solar system. The new
study also contradicted earlier, disputed
research suggesting that most free-floating
planets were the size of Jupiter. Instead, the
new study found, rocky, Earth-size planets
form the vast majority—indeed, they are
probably about 180 times more common
than Jupiter-like giants. How all these
rogue planets formed is not yet clear. One
theory holds that when two protoplanets
smash into each other, the impact can
knock one of them out of the nascent star
system. Co-author David Bennett of NASA
says the abundance of rogues in the Milky
Way suggests that this formation process
is “maybe more common than theorists
might have guessed.” But it remains a mys-
terious area of astronomy. Scientists are
still not entirely sure whether rogue planets
are truly rogue at all—it may just be that
their orbit is too wide for us to determine
Getty (3)
their host star.
Health & Science
day stay in the hospital. The researchers
caution that the trials followed patients for
only 45 days, and didn’t involve women
who breastfed or who had depression
before giving birth. Still, the findings are
hugely encouraging for a condition that
can interfere with a mother’s ability to care
for her infant or other children and can
cause significant emotional distress. It can
even be fatal: Suicide is a leading cause
of maternal deaths within a year of child-
birth, yet fewer than 10 percent of women
with perinatal depression get treatment.
“We need to improve screening, we need
to improve access to care, and we need to
Wegovy’s heart benefits
The weight-loss drug Wegovy cuts the risk
of serious heart problems by as much as
20 percent, a clinical trial has shown. The
study involved more than 17,000 adults
ages 45 and over, all of them overweight
or obese patients who had cardiovascular
issues but not diabetes. The results haven’t
yet been peer-reviewed, and the company,
Novo Nordisk, hasn’t revealed whether
the cardiovascular benefits were the result
of the drug itself or the weight loss it pre-
sumably triggered. But if the findings are
confirmed, it would upend the perception
of Wegovy as a purely cosmetic treat-
ment and increase pressure on insurers to
cover prescriptions for it. An earlier trial
showed that the type 2 diabetes treatment
Ozempic—which uses the same core ingre-
dient as Wegovy—could cut risk of cardio-
vascular issues by 26 percent. The new
study shows that this group of drugs can
also reduce that risk for people who don’t
have diabetes. “Historically, trials of drugs
for weight loss have been very unsuccess-
ful,” Cleveland Clinic’s Steven Nissen tells
CNN.com. “This is an important trial, and
I think the term ‘landmark’ is appropriate.”
Tamarins clamber back
The cutest animals in Brazil’s Amazon
rainforest have made a remarkable
comeback since a conservation effort
began in the 1970s. There were once only
about 200 golden lion tamarins in the
wild, reports O Eco (Brazil), but
the latest survey shows that
the population has ballooned
to 4,800. While the long-tailed,
copper-colored monkeys are
still considered endangered, the
rebound is impressive. “We are
celebrating,” says Luís Paulo
Ferraz, head of the Golden
Lion Tamarin Association, Golden lion tamarin term challenge.”
NEWS 21
The condition can affect 1 in 8 new mothers.
improve the treatments that are available
to women so they have choices,” Kristina
Deligiannidis, one of the doctors who led
the clinical trials, tells Bloomberg.
Just 2,400 steps will help
If you’re not hitting 10,000 steps a day,
don’t sweat it. That supposedly magical
number for optimal fitness was actually
made up back in the 1960s by Japanese
marketing executives promoting a new
pedometer. Now the largest study of its
kind—covering data on more than 225,000
people across multiple countries—has
shown that the real daily target should be
much lower: just 2,337 steps, to be exact.
That, scientists concluded, is the minimum
required to reduce your risk of dying pre-
maturely from heart disease or stroke. Still,
if you can keep going, you should. Push it
up to 3,967 steps, and you’ll cut your risk
of dying from any cause. Walk even farther,
and those health benefits will continue to
increase all the way up to at least 20,000
steps a day, with each extra 1,000 steps
associated with another 15 percent reduced
risk of dying from any cause. “Our study
confirms that the more you walk, the bet-
ter,” lead author Maciej Banach, from the
Medical University of Lodz in Poland, tells
The Times (U.K.). “We found that this
applied to both men and women, irrespec-
tive of age.”
“but always keeping one eye on other
threats.” The recovery is particularly
remarkable because it comes in the wake
of a devastating outbreak of yellow fever,
which killed off a third of the species
between 2014 and 2019. Conservationists
came to the rescue, vaccinating hundreds
of monkeys. The next step is to ensure
that the Amazon regions where most
tamarins live are protected. “We
already have more than 2,000
tamarins in protected areas,”
Ferraz says, “but they live in
smaller forest fragments
than we need. Connecting
forests is our biggest long-
THE WEEK August 25, 2023
22
Review of reviews: Books
Book of the week
The Fourth Turning Is Here:
What the Seasons of History
Tell Us About How and When
This Crisis Will End
by Neil Howe
(Simon & Schuster, $32.50)
“The future is always unwritten, but
that does not mean it should not be
written about,” said Dominic Green in
The Wall Street Journal. In the 1990s,
Neil Howe and a co-author wrote two
books that laid out a theory about his-
tory’s cyclical pattern that has been touted
at times by prominent boosters from Al
Gore to Steve Bannon. The predictions that
Howe and William Strauss made in 1997’s
The Fourth Turning of a coming civil crisis
reaching its climax in 2020 didn’t quite
come true, but they were “close enough
to suggest the value of cyclical theories of
history,” and Howe has now hit best-seller
lists with a solo follow-up that predicts how and political future.” And as those clashing
our current crisis phase might resolve. The
book builds on the “bold” idea that modern reckoning like those the nation met before
society generates divisions that lead to a
Novel of the week
The Heaven & Earth
Grocery Store
by James McBride (Riverhead, $28)
James McBride’s latest, in a sense, is
“a murder mystery locked inside a
Great American Novel,” said Danez
Smith in The New York Times. In 1972
Pottstown, Pa., a human skeleton is
found in a well. But the story of how
it got there takes us back to the 1920s,
when the effort to protect a deaf Black
orphan from institutionalization knitted
together Black and Jewish residents
of the city’s Chicken Hill neighbor-
hood. McBride, a National Book Award
winner, “knows that the best story-
tellers take their time,” and his excur-
sions into every corner of Chicken Hill,
starting with the titular grocery, turn
to gold as this “heart-blistering” work
advances toward its mischievous con-
clusion. Though McBride doesn’t shy
from addressing the biases of the era,
said Ayana Mathis in The Atlantic, “he
always gives us a spoonful of sugar to
help the medicine go down,” and “the
sugar is the spitfire dialogue, his char-
acters’ big personalities, and prose so
agile and exuberant that reading him is
like being at a jazz jam session.”
THE WEEK August 25, 2023
ARTS
A youth protest against current abortion and gun laws
devastating crisis, or “fourth turning,” every
four generations.
Howe, who coined the name “Millennials,”
anticipates varied crisis roles for each of
today’s living generations, said Nick Lich-
tenberg in Fortune. His theory “labels the
Millennials as the ‘hero’ generation, destined that America’s next spring will probably
to confront the Boomers in a struggle over
the direction of the country’s economic
cohorts push America toward a destructive
in the Civil War and World War II, Howe
The Slip: The New York City
Street That Changed American
Art Forever
by Prudence Peiffer (Harper, $39)
Prudence Peiffer’s
new group biography
“pays homage to an
irretrievable era of
artistic productivity,”
said Air Mail. In the
1950s, a short street
that dead-ended at
the waterfront in
Lower Manhattan
was home to a small
community of artists
including Ellsworth
Kelly, Agnes Martin, and Robert Indiana.
Those three went on to become famous and
rich, but they and their lesser-known peers
“may have been happiest” on Coenties
Slip, making art in crumbling warehouses
where sailmakers once worked. Any book
that treats New York as a character in itself
“runs the risk of over-romanticizing the
city,” said Anna Furman in the Associated
Press. But Peiffer does so with a clear
purpose: “to make vivid how the post-
industrial landscape of Lower Manhattan
became the material, sometimes literally, of
the artists’ work.”
expects that Gen X will emerge as the
perfect pragmatic leaders to navigate
the way, in the mid-2030s, into a new
generation-long period of national
renewal. His fellow Boomers are villains
in his analysis—so severe, authoritar-
ian, and greedy that they’ve earned the
Millennials’ rage. Fortunately, he views
Gen X as aging like a fine wine.
“If this all sounds a bit too neat, it
is,” said Francis Fukuyama in The
New York Times. If you believe that
history repeats itself in a predictable
four-generation cycle, you have to look
at the ugly, contentious two decades after
the Civil War as either a golden age or an
anomaly. You also have to accept that crisis
events as different as the Civil War and
World War II can prompt the coming of a
springlike period in which the nation is rela-
tively equitable and united. Howe predicts
arrive on the other side of about a dozen
years of crisis, but he acknowledges that his-
tory is such that we might instead be head-
ing toward catastrophic war, a prolonged
breakdown phase, or simply many more
years of things as they are. “You pick.”
“There were times when life on the Slip
must have felt like the kind of cornball
biopic in which someone famous pops up
every 30 seconds,” said Jackson Arn in The
New Yorker. Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper
Johns, and Frank O’Hara would drop by,
and Andy Warhol shot a film there. But
despite growing press attention, “the area
was never overrun by hangers-on—there
was always a community but never really
a scene.” The art produced on this one
block “shared no obvious brand or style.”
Though some worked scavenged materi-
als into their assemblages and others took
inspiration from the color of trees on the
street, the residents’ output was unified
most meaningfully in the way it pushed
against more cohesive movements.
Of course, the Slip’s golden era couldn’t
last, said Walker Downey in Art in America.
One by one, artists moved away, and by
the late 1960s, most of the Slip’s buildings
had been demolished to make way for high-
rises. “But the artists who departed were
not the same as when they arrived,” and
Peiffer’s intimately detailed book “allows
us to see how the legacy of the Slip figured
into postwar abstraction, fiber art, pop art,
and minimalism, leaving few developments
in American art untouched by the small
Getty
street’s ocean spray.”
 The Book List
Best books…chosen by Andrew Lipstein
Andrew Lipstein works in the financial-services industry and is the author of the
acclaimed 2022 novel Last Resort. In his latest, The Vegan, a hedge-fund manager
with a troubled conscience develops a strong distaste for mindless consumption.
Assembly by Natasha Brown (2021). This
book made me want to play to the top of
my intelligence in my own writing. Natasha
Brown’s debut glides on crystalline prose, her
acuity like nothing I’ve seen before. Even while
detailing boardroom tensions at a London bank,
she doesn’t waste a single word. At times I
forgot to breathe.
Seize the Day by Saul Bellow (1956). Bellow
knew just when to dive deep, and when to wield
a light touch. In this brilliant tale of a privileged
layabout failure, movements in the commodities
market let us know exactly where things stand
in the larger story. In Bellow’s hands, lard prices
can feel like the score to a game much greater
than we mortals can comprehend.
The Moviegoer by Walker Percy (1961). The
heady existentialism and vague yearning of
this National Book Award winner make it a
favorite among novelists. In stockbroker Jack
“Binx” Bolling’s quest for meaning, you’ll feel
like you’re getting the mirror image of the stock
market: a world where there are no “stakes,” yet
life itself seems to be on the line.
Also of interest...in espionage tales
Spies
by Calder Walton (Simon & Schuster, $35)
For anyone up on Cold War his-
tory, “it is hardly news that the
Soviet Union spied a lot,” said The
Economist. “But there are few
accounts as comprehensive as this
one,” compiled by a Harvard-based
historian who has traced the Soviets’ initial espio-
nage advantage back to Lenin, then detailed how
the post-1945 spy race shaped the Soviets’ conflict
with the West. The author’s day job, which puts
him in regular contact with ex-spies, lends the vol-
ume “both scholarly clout and an insider feel.”
Flirting With Danger
by Janet Wallach (Doubleday, $30)
Baltimore heiress Marguerite Harrison
“could have led a pleasant if unevent-
ful life,” said Moira Hodgson in
The Wall Street Journal. Instead, she
became a reporter as a young widow
and used her charm and intelligence
to become a spy in post–World War I Europe, and
wound up imprisoned in Russia before agreeing
to work as a double agent. Though author Janet
Wallach too readily accepts Harrison’s written
version of events and never deciphers her subject’s
Getty
motives, she “tells a good story.”
ARTS 23
Author of the week
Shane McCrae
Poet Shane McCrae was
slow to realize that he was
Trust by Hernan Diaz (2022). Absolutely no one kidnapped as a young child
was surprised when Hernan Diaz’s latest novel and raised by his abductors,
won a Pulitzer Prize earlier this year. Wildly said Wyatt Mason in The
ambitious in plot and form, Trust somehow New York Times. In his new
manages to tell a gripping story about, of all memoir, Pulling the Chariot
things, American finance in the 20th century. of the Sun,
Meanwhile, the humanity seeping out of its he explains
pages builds and builds, culminating in a breath- that he was
taking, provoking final chapter. just 3 in 1979
when his
Hard Times by Charles Dickens (1854). Dickens, white grand-
as the ur-chronicler of wealth’s effect on moral- parents took
ity, should be read in historical context. The him from
ethics of the characters in this relatively short his Black
Dickens novel may be somewhat unambiguous, father for a sleepover and
but the story is brimming with conflict, stakes, never brought him back. They
and drama. moved from Oregon to Texas,
told him his father didn’t want
The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe him, and tried to indoctrinate
(1987). You can’t think of the modern finance him with their white suprem-
novel without thinking of Wolfe’s infamous acist worldview, even teach-
“Master of the Universe” concept—a money- ing him to salute Hitler. Even
maker who can move oceans with the snap of after his grandfather’s physi-
a finger. But at the heart of Bonfire is the inter- cal abuse prompted McCrae
play between law and wealth. In the end, we’re to break away from them as
a teenager and find his father
relieved to discover, money can’t buy everything.
by looking him up in a Salem,
Ore., phone book, the reality
of what his grandparents had
done took decades to sink in.
“The weird thing about grow-
By All Means Available
ing up kidnapped,” he says,
by Michael G. Vickers (Knopf, $35) “is if it happens early enough,
No one has done more to advance there’s a way in which you
America’s long war against militant kind of don’t know.”
Islamism than Michael Vickers, said McCrae’s memoir reads
Andrew J. Bacevich in The New York like an avant-garde prose
Times. In his “illuminating and richly poem—which feels fitting,
detailed” memoir, the former Green given how elusive facts had
Beret, CIA covert operations officer, and de facto been for him while growing
head of the Pentagon’s war on terrorism confesses up. But the book inspired
a career-long faith in outgunning all adversaries. McCrae’s father to request
But while early triumphs reinforced that belief, that his name finally be
his book “loses its swagger as it moves closer to added to McCrae’s birth cer-
the present,” revealing his vision’s limitations. tificate. The author himself
officially took his father’s sur-
The Red Hotel name two decades ago, said
Tonya Mosley in NPR.org,
by Alan Philps (Pegasus, $30) which was his way of right-
When war breaks out and Western ing a wrong, embracing his
journalists rush in, “truth will Blackness, and rejecting his
not always come out,” said Paul grandparents’ effort to make
Musgrave in The Washington Post. him believe that Blackness is
That’s the principal lesson of Alan shameful. In that sense, his
Philps’ new book about the Moscow story is the story of all Black
Americans, as he humbly
hotel where foreign correspondents passed World
admits. “I wouldn’t ever claim
War II drinking Kremlin-funded vodka, sexually to be, you know, the repre-
harassing Kremlin-funded female interpreters, sentative story,” he says. “I
and filing stories based on Soviet propaganda. think my story is a represen-
One hero who emerges: a female interpreter who tative story.”
helped one reporter glimpse the real Moscow.
THE WEEK August 25, 2023
24 ARTS Review of reviews: Stage & Music
There is no shark in the new
Broadway show about the mak-
ing of Jaws, but “you don’t miss
it for one second,” said Tim
Teeman in The Daily Beast.
“A clever, generous play with
three terrific performances,” The
Shark Is Broken zooms in on the
lead actors in Steven Spielberg’s
iconic 1975 blockbuster as they
wait unhappily on a small boat
while technical difficulties with
the movie’s mechanical man-
eater create frustrating delays.
As actors playing Roy Scheider,
Richard Dreyfuss, and Robert
Shaw bicker, brood, and blow off
steam, the play “wittily excels
not just as a time capsule, but
as an examination of male bonding and
competitiveness.” The trio isn’t in any way
a team of heroes. “They’re not companion-
ably three-men-in-a-boat, and neither are
they waiting for Godot. They’re waiting for
a goddamned model shark.”
The play “leans heavily on your assumed
awareness of what would soon happen,”
said Jackson McHenry in NYMag.com. So
Noname
Sundial
++++
Sundial is more than
Noname’s first album
in five years, said Rob
Sheffield in Rolling
Stone. “The sound of
an artist who hasn’t
lost any of her passion
for making music—or
making trouble,” it’s “exactly what you
were praying the new Noname album
would be”: a “jazzy groove” whose “elo-
quent, furious, funny” lyrics make clear
why so many fans were worried when the
Chicago poet and rapper started talking
about quitting music back in 2019. Now 31,
Noname remains a political radical who’s
uneasy with rap’s typical role in American
culture, said Craig Jenkins in NYMag.com.
Across 11 songs, she “bristles at the busi-
ness of selling pain, issuing challenges
to her peers, her fans, and herself.” On
“Namesake,” she calls out Kendrick Lamar,
Rihanna, Beyoncé, and Jay-Z for playing
the Super Bowl, which she frames as a
spectacle that serves militarism and a strati-
fied economy. Still, the “most affecting”
tracks unspool more personal tales. “Part of
her brilliance is she never lets anyone rest
easy for too long—least of all herself.”
THE WEEK August 25, 2023
The Shark Is Broken
Golden Theater, New York City ++++
Prickly boatmates Brightman, Shaw, and Donnell
brace yourself for “audience-pandering”
jokes about how no one will remember
Jaws in 50 years, or how Spielberg might
follow up this schlocky movie by making
one about UFOs or dinosaurs. Stars Colin
Donnell, Alex Brightman, and Ian Shaw do
credible impressions of their famous big-
screen counterparts, and a mid-play scene
in which the men discuss their fathers “hits
at something emotionally” as the actors’
Neil Young
Chrome Dreams
++++
The latest release that
Neil Young has freed
from his archives is
also “one of the more
famous ‘lost albums’ in
rock history,” said Fred
Thomas in AllMusic.
Prepared for a 1977
release before Young changed his mind,
Chrome Dreams strings together 12 songs
that each eventually surfaced in one form
or another, right up to 2020, on official
Young releases. But “the flow, atmosphere,
and overall impact” of this set is very dif-
ferent than the uneven album that he did
put out in 1977, and though casual listeners
might not notice certain subtle variations in
such well-known tunes as “Powderfinger”
and “Like a Hurricane,” Young devotees
“will appreciate the specifics of the listening
experience.” All in all, “it’s a fantastic col-
lection of songs that, had it been issued in
this form, would have been considered in
the upper tier of Young’s catalog,” said Mark
Richardson in The Wall Street Journal. Long
a top contender for best artist of the 1970s,
he would have won even more adherents
had Chrome Dreams come out when it was
first put together.
performances “cool off from
nervous imitation into a truer
dynamic.” But the play, “intent
on remaining lightly comic and
knowing, keeps delivering what
is familiar and unchallenging.”
Fortunately, the story behind The
Shark Is Broken gives the play “a
bit more bite,” said Jesse Green
in The New York Times. Robert
Shaw, who died in his early
50s just four years after mak-
ing Jaws, is played by his son
Ian, “who could be his father’s
twin.” Ian also co-wrote the play,
and “this is quite clearly a love
letter, if a complicated one, to
a parent who achieved greater
success in the same field as his son.” Playing
Robert as a man who drank to excess and
sometimes bullied his fellow actors, Ian
Shaw also delivers a stirring rendition of his
father’s famous speech in Jaws about the
1945 sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis. In
this climactic set piece, the younger Shaw
“shows us how fine an actor his father was
and thus, in an Oedipal somersault, how
fine he is, too.”
Mikaela Davis
And Southern Star
++++
“The harp hasn’t found
much mainstream suc-
cess as a lead instru-
ment, but these warm,
inviting songs make it
feel possible,” said Brad
Sanders in Pitchfork. On
Mikaela Davis’ “stirring”
second album, the singer-songwriter makes
the soft tones of her primary instrument
feel like an integral element of a particular
strain of rock. The Rochester, N.Y., native
and her tight touring band show an easy
chemistry as they work through passages
of “rugged alt-country, twangy roots rock,
paisley-bedecked Laurel Canyon psychede-
lia, and jam-band choogle.” And when she
sings, Davis, like Sheryl Crow, “manages
to find emotional profundity while sound-
ing monumentally unbothered.” Davis and
her “mesmerizing” band have clearly come
into their own, said Maeri Ferguson in No
Depression.“It is no simple thing to find
where you fit and make it your own,” but
this group has arrived there. Onstage, they
Matthew Murphy
play a “jam-heavy version” of the “groovy
pop” Davis has been writing since her 2018
debut. But the “dazzling sonic textures” of
this record are pleasures in themselves.
 Review of reviews: Film & Home Media ARTS 25

Cinema’s ‘scarlet letter’: A new ratings debate

“Has the NC-17 rating become an
unworkable anachronism?” asked Owen
Gleiberman in Variety. That’s the question
Hollywood needs to finally answer now
that the Motion Picture Association has
decided to slap its most prohibitive rat-
ing on the acclaimed indie film Passages
(see review below). The decision stirred up
new debate about where to draw the line
on depictions of sexuality in movies, and
if the ratings board decided that viewers
under 17 should be barred from seeing the
film because the members consider a gay
sex scene more troubling than a sex scene
between a man and woman, that’s “a despi-
cable double standard.” But arguing about
whether the industry’s rarely deployed scar-
let letter was used fairly is a concession that
the NC-17 label still has value. In an age
when kids can see anything and everything
online, a rating that scares away any view-
ers is nothing but “a de facto way of pun-
ishing a film in the marketplace.”
The male co-stars of ‘Passages’
The sex in Passages is “neither particularly
explicit nor remotely gratuitous,” said
David Rooney in The Hollywood Reporter.
Director Ira Sachs couldn’t very well tell a
story about a man cheating on his husband
with a woman without including lusty
scenes. Still, “the fact that everyone now
makes such a big deal of those moments is
an indication of how rare they’ve become.”
As has been widely noted, “sex and unapol-
ogetic sensuality have been all but banished
from the mainstream since the heyday
of erotic thrillers in the 1980s and early
’90s.” The shift began as studios became
“increasingly corporate in their thinking,”
tailoring their output to play internationally,
including in conservative countries. Today,
we’ve arguably hit “a perfect-storm moment
where far-right conservatism has converged
with post-MeToo liberal timidity.”
Mainstream cinema’s “overriding lack of
interest in everyday life” has also played
a role, said Sam Adams in Slate. But let’s
not argue merely that sex scenes are neces-
sary to telling certain stories. “Part of what
makes movies (and art more generally)
important is that they serve as an implicit
rebuke to a strictly utilitarian view of the
world. We don’t need movies the way we
need food or water, but we need them to
remind us that being alive is more than
drawing breath.”

Passages There are plenty of raging narcis-

sists in movies, but “few of them
Tomas, the film “transcends famil-
iar love-triangle clichés” by never
Directed by Ira Sachs can compare to Tomas Freiburg,” asking either character to blame the
(Not rated) said David Fear in Rolling Stone. other. And though anxious, control-
++++ The lead character in Ira Sachs’ ling Tomas seems at ease only when
A narcissist boldly cheats headline-making new romantic having sex, the beds in which he
on his husband. drama, played by German actor finds connection with others are
Franz Rogowski, is a dictatorial also minefields that reveal buried
film director and a sexy charmer tensions. “A biting and literate plea-
with a near-sociopathic lack of sure,” Passages is “the kind of film
interest in anyone else’s feelings. Rogowski’s magnetic monster we don’t see often from American
That’s bad news for both his husband, Martin, and directors,” said Richard Lawson in Vanity Fair. It
a young French woman with whom this “gorgeous has gained notoriety because of an NC-17 rating
parasite” embarks on an unapologetic affair. Sachs, that its distributor officially rejected, but it’s “not
a veteran indie director, “excels at choreographing a tawdry movie.” Instead, it’s “a piercing and often
all manner of intimacies,” said Hannah Giorgis in very funny character piece,” made by a director who,
The Atlantic. As Ben Whishaw’s Martin and Adele instead of judging Tomas, is perhaps “just as fool-
Exarchopoulos’ Agathe navigate the chaos of loving ishly infatuated with him as Martin and Agathe are.”

Video Games animated 174 hours of cutscenes—the

Baldur’s Gate 3
No video game can match the infinite
possibilities of a tabletop role-playing
game. “But Baldur’s Gate 3 sure does a
stellar job of emulating the concept,” said
Kenneth Shepard in Kotaku. Arriving at
a moment when interest in Dungeons
& Dragons is sky-high, this D&D-based
RPG “throws you into the deep end”
of a fantasy world where every char-
acter has a backstory, every choice has
consequences, and every puzzle has
MUBI/Everett (2), Larian Studios
fans, said Nic Reuben in The Guardian.
You and five “wonderfully voice-acted”
sum of thousands of branching dialogue
choices—and there are more than 1,000
alternate endings to the main story.
Because no two players will play the
same way, Baldur’s Gate 3 is “the perfect
couples’ game,” said Sadie Gennis in
Polygon. My husband, for example,
always chooses a cautious course of
action. “Meanwhile, I’m motivated by
giving in to every dumb impulse I have,”
especially if it leads to a little chaos or in-
game romance. “Would freeing the caged
goblin get us into trouble? Of course. Do

companions venture into the wilderness,

numerous solutions. An “exceptionally
rewarding” sequel that was six years in
the making, “the game is dense to the
point of being overwhelming”—in a good
way. The basics will be familiar to RPG
delve into dungeons, and talk, fight, and
think your way through countless quests.
What makes Baldur’s Gate 3 special is the
“seemingly limitless” scope of its story-
telling. Belgian developer Larian Studios
I want to do it just because? Of course.”
It’s a win-win: “I need my husband’s sen-
sibility and willingness to grind when I’d
otherwise give up. And he wouldn’t have
half as much fun if it wasn’t for me.”

THE WEEK August 25, 2023

26 ARTS
Streaming tips
Late-summer chills...
The Passenger
A timid fast-food employee
is forced to ride shotgun
with a sociopathic co-worker
after the mass murder
that opens this spare but
effective new horror thriller.
$6 on demand
Influencer
A social media influencer
traveling in beautiful coastal
Thailand puts too much
trust in another young
woman who knows all
the region’s secret spots.
But this clever new thriller
leaves you wondering
which of four main char-
acters can be trusted, and
which should be feared.
Shudder
Daughter
In this promising recent
debut feature, a young
woman is kidnapped by a
family whose menacing
patriarch is determined that
she play the role of subser-
vient daughter. Though the
premise is constraining,
the screenplay effectively
draws on fears about
rising authoritarianism.
$3 on demand
Lyla
A writer hoping to knock out
his first novel holes up in a
remote cabin with his wife
and young son. But this new
Tubi original puts a spin on
The Shining by pairing his
mental spiral with a formi-
dable spouse who’s bent on
protecting a secret. Tubi
Enys Men
The title is Cornish for
“Stone Island,” and the set-
ting a small uninhabited isle
where a lone wildlife volun-
teer is slowly going mad,
apparently haunted by a
tragedy in the island’s past.
A 2023 release, Enys Men
looks and feels like a 1973
mindbender. Hulu
Zom 100: Bucket List
of the Dead
In this playful new Japanese
comedy, a young corporate
drone finally starts living
his best life when a zombie
epidemic threatens to end
life itself. Netflix
THE WEEK August 25, 2023
Television
The Week ’s guide to what’s worth watching
BS High
Ohio’s Bishop Sycamore High School football
team hit the big time two summers ago when
it appeared on ESPN in an early-season game
against a perennial Florida powerhouse. But it
turned out that the school didn’t exist, except as
a scam engineered by head coach Leroy Johnson.
In this new documentary, Johnson attempts to
explain himself, while players and their families
detail how participants up to age 21 signed up for
the promise of athletic glory and wound up in a
program with no classes, limited equipment, and
little food. Wednesday, Aug. 23, HBO and Max
Invasion
Slow pacing plagued this expensive-looking alien-
invasion series when its first 10 episodes arrived
in 2021. But in the words of co-creator Simon
Kinberg, that was “the quiet before the storm.”
The spider-like aliens are now evolving into more
vicious foes, while the scattered human charac-
ters introduced in Season 1, played by Golshifteh
Farahani, Shiori Kutsuna, Shamier Anderson, and
others, are each working out how to fight back.
Wednesday, Aug. 23, Apple TV+
Explorer: Lost in the Arctic
Many a bid to find a navigable Northwest
Passage between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans
has ended in disaster. This new entry in the
Explorer documentary series focuses on a recent
National Geographic expedition to determine
the fate of Sir John Franklin, commander of
an 1845 voyage that led to the disappearance
of all 129 passengers, evidence of cannibalism,
and many deadly attempts to retrace Franklin’s
route. Thursday, Aug. 24, at 10 p.m., National
Geographic
Who Is Erin Carter?
A passable late-summer action series set against
an idyllic Spanish backdrop casts Kurdish-
Swedish actress Evin Ahmad as a wife and mom
who’s living a quiet life as a schoolteacher in
Barcelona until she foils a supermarket robbery
by flashing some special ops–level fighting skills.
With authorities showing keen interest in dis-
covering who she really is, our heroine has to
Dawson and her lightsaber: The myth grows.
Ghosn: A fallen magnate fights back.
decide how far she’ll go to keep her past a secret.
Thursday, Aug. 24, Netflix
Wanted: The Escape of Carlos Ghosn
Carlos Ghosn was once one of the world’s most
esteemed business leaders. But the man who
revived Renault and Nissan was arrested in Japan
in late 2018 for allegedly underreporting his
compensation. This new docuseries revisits his
rise and sudden fall, including his daring escape
from Japan inside a large shipping case. Ghosn,
who has lived as a refugee in Lebanon ever since,
appears on camera to tell his side of the story.
Friday, Aug. 25, Apple TV+
Other highlights
Wayne Shorter: Zero Gravity
A three-part documentary reconstructs the life
and career of influential jazz saxophonist Wayne
Shorter, who died earlier this year but shared his
story in lengthy interviews. Friday, Aug. 25, Prime
You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah
Adam Sandler and his real-life family co-star in a
comedy adapted from a 2005 young-adult novel.
Friday, Aug. 25, Netflix
2023 U.S. Open Tennis Championships
Rising stars Carlos Alcaraz and Marketa
Vondrousova look to carry the momentum of
their Wimbledon championships into this year’s
final Grand Slam tournament. Coverage begins
Monday, Aug. 28, at noon, ESPN
Show of the week
Star Wars: Ahsoka
For the generation of Star Wars fans who grew
up on the animated series Rebels and The Clone
Wars, Ahsoka Tano is a Jedi (or former Jedi) of
Luke Skywalker–level importance. The veteran
warrior has already been played by Rosario
Dawson, with requisite cool, in The Mandalorian,
and this spin-off will make Dawson the first
woman to topline a Star Wars series. Ahsoka,
determined to find a friend by tracking down the
blue-skinned villain Thrawn, teams with Rebels
Apple TV+, Disney+
characters Sabine Wren, Hera Syndulla, and the
droid Chopper. Let the lightsaber battles begin.
Wednesday, Aug. 23, Disney+
• All listings are Eastern Time.
 LEISURE 27
Food & Drink
Peach and almond galette: A perfect stage for summer fruit
Whether you call them galettes or crostatas, Heat oven to 400, with a rack in middle.
free-form tarts like the one featured here Let dough soften slightly at room tempera-
are “the simplest and most beautiful way ture until it’s malleable enough to roll out.
to showcase summer fruit,” says Susan On a lightly floured piece of parchment
Spungen in Veg Forward: Super-Delicious paper about 18 inches long, roll dough out
Recipes That Put Produce at the Center of into a circle roughly 15 inches wide and 1∕ 8
Your Plate (Harper Celebrate). Galettes are to ¼ inch thick.
“a lot less fussy than pie,” and you can use
any fruit, such as apricots, apples, berries, or Lift parchment by opposite corners to
a combination, adjusting the sugar to taste. transfer dough to a large (12-inch) cast-iron
skillet or another ovenproof skillet, fitting
Recipe of the week parchment and dough into pan. Refrigerate
Peach and almond galette for about 15 minutes.
For the crust
2 cups all-purpose flour Meanwhile, make the filling: Cut peaches
Imagine it warm, with ice cream
¾ tsp kosher salt into 6 or 8 wedges each and toss with sugar.
1 tbsp granulated sugar sugar, and almonds in a food processor; Sprinkle flour on dough. Tumble in peaches
¼ cup sliced almonds pulse until combined. Add butter and pulse and fold edge of dough inward all around.
14 tbsp (1¾ sticks) ice-cold unsalted butter, until largest pieces are the size of walnut Refrigerate until firm, 15 to 30 minutes.
cut into ½-inch slices halves. Transfer to a wide bowl and squeeze
¼ cup ice water, plus more if needed butter pieces, flattening them between your Brush crust with cold water and sprinkle
fingers. Sprinkle ice water over flour mix- with almonds. Sprinkle sugar over the fruit
For the filling ture and mix in evenly, tossing with a fork. and crust. Dot filling with butter and bake
2 lbs (6 to 8) peaches, ripe but firm If there are a lot of loose, dry crumbs and 55 to 65 minutes, or until filling is furiously
½ cup granulated sugar dough won’t hold together, add more ice bubbling and crust is a deep golden brown.
¼ cup all-purpose flour water, 1 tbsp at a time.
Place skillet on a cooling rack or a cool
For baking Press dough together, gathering up any dry stove burner grate and let cool for at least
¼ cup sliced almonds bits until dough forms a shaggy, cohesive 30 minutes to allow juices to thicken.
2 tbsp granulated sugar mass. Transfer to a sheet of plastic wrap. Carefully pick up parchment by opposite
1 tsp unsalted butter Wrap and press into a flat, round disk. Chill corners, transfer to a serving plate, and slide
until firm, at least 1 hour and preferably 2, out paper (or don’t). Serve galette warm or
To make the crust, combine flour, salt, and as long as 2 days. at room temperature. Serves 8.

Texas barbecue: Best of the new breed Wine: The ‘avant-grüners’

“In Texas, a few towns are so closely associated A new day has arrived for “the original
with legendary barbecue joints that just uttering all-purpose party wine,” said Zachary
their names conjures up the smell of woodsmoke,” Sussman in Punch. Twenty years ago,
said Daniel Vaughn in Texas Monthly. The rise of grüner veltliners pioneered the one-
buzzworthy big-city joints over the past decade liter format for fun wines that yearn to
made me wonder if barbecue’s power balance had be shared with friends. Now that other
shifted. But after touring the entire state recently, wines have, some grüner producers
I’m happy to report that world-class barbecue has have gone “weird” in the best way,
become available in nearly every corner of Texas, creating natural-leaning wines that
as these worthy destinations help to prove. “strike the perfect balance between
Team Barbs B Q
Barbs B Q Lockhart This new joint, located in Texas’ drinkable and thinkable.”
barbecue capital and owned by three women who once worked together at Austin’s 2022 Familie Bauer Grüner Veltliner
Franklin Barbecue, has lived up to its major pre-opening hype. “The pork spareribs are
Susan Spungen, Aaron E. Martinez/American-Statesman/Imagn

Hollötrio ($18). This hazy macer-

a revelation,” the brisket is “already in contention for best in the state,” and Barbs is ated white is “wine’s answer to
“able to pull more flavor out of turkey than seems possible.” 102 E. Market St. the IPA,” with “punchy flavors of
Vargas BBQ Edinburg If Rio Grande Valley specialties such as beef-cheek barbacoa citrus, herbs, and pineapple.”
and brisket birria tacos aren’t enough, this booming local wonder has plenty more 2022 Weingut Diem D’Ora Orange
to offer, from breakfast on. Ram Vargas’ brisket and pork ribs “more than hold their Niederösterreich ($18). This
own,” while wife Nidia fills out the huge menu with award-winning charro beans, a “spritzy, ever-so-slightly tannic”
standout green spaghetti, a hearty brisket fideo, and much more. 701 E. Cano St. orange wine never fails at a sum-
Brantley Creek Barbecue Odessa Brandon and Ashley McPherson finally have a large mer party, even with hot dogs.
welcoming permanent home for the “superb” brisket and pork ribs that made their 2022 Früg Grüner Veltliner ($16).
food truck a worthy barbecue destination for the past four years. House-made sau- With this grüner, “the label pro-
sages are now on the menu, and “if you fell in love with the apple cobbler at the trailer, vides a pretty good sense of what
rediscover it here.” 3541 Faudree Road to expect: a party in a bottle.”

THE WEEK August 25, 2023

28 LEISURE
This week’s dream: Sailing the Stockholm Archipelago
“I’d long thought of sailing as some-
thing only other people did—wealthy
people, to be honest,” said Ingrid K.
Williams in The New York Times.
“But in Sweden, that’s not necessarily
the case.” Thanks to allemansrätten,
the Swedish right to public access,
everyone is free to moor at and roam
any island—including the 24,000 that
compose the Stockholm Archipelago.
“For Swedes, the archipelago is a
quintessential summer destination.”
Buses and ferries shuttle visitors
to and from the largest, innermost
islands. But if you charter a sailboat,
you’re free to explore, no matter who
owns any particular island. “With so many
islands, so many things to do and see, the
hard part is deciding.”
Earlier this summer, my friend Viola and her
husband, Henke, invited me to set sail from
their summer house. Heading toward the
archipelago’s outer fringes, we passed pine
forests, sloping cliffs, and cute red cottages
Travel
In Sweden, every island is yours to roam.
on islets all their own. “The moment the
motor turned off, I was hooked. It was
just the wind in my face and the sparkling
archipelago all around.” I felt fortunate to
have such a skilled captain: “Henke was in
constant motion, adjusting a pulley, letting
out a rope, tightening a sail, and consult-
ing the sea chart.” As our nimble boat zig-
zagged across a bay, Viola and I snacked on
Swedish crispbread heaped with tiny
Baltic shrimp and gobs of salty roe.
When we landed on Tistronskär, “the
whole sweaty crew decided to take a
dip in the refreshingly chilly sea, wad-
ing through sea grass and slippery
stones to reach the cool, clear depths
beyond.” Picnicking on the rocky sea-
shore proved challenging. I broke a
bottle of wine, and my friends’ 2-year-
old dropped a head of lettuce in the
water. “But afterward, sitting on the
smooth, sun-warmed cliff, we watched
a chestnut-colored mink dive into the
sea as an Arctic tern circled overhead.”
On our return trip, Henke let me steer while
he unfurled a big, three-cornered spinnaker.
“When the wind caught the sail—what a
thrill!—it filled like a giant parachute flying
through the archipelago.”
The Archipelago Foundation (stockholm
archipelago.se) provides access to cabin
rentals and sailboat operators. Charters start
at about $145 a day.

Hotel of the week Getting the flavor of...

Three building revivals in one
The Peninsula Istanbul
Waterfront views in Istanbul
“can’t get more iconic than
this,” said Anya von Bremzen
in Afar. The Peninsula, a new
luxury hotel created from
three historic maritime build-
ings, looks out across the
Bosphorus at Topkapi Palace,
Hagia Sophia, and the Blue
Mosque. Like every hotel
in the Hong Kong–based
Peninsula chain, this 177-room
property feels “staunchly
boutique,” blending an East-
West sensibility, personalized
pampering, and “soothing
resort vibes.” The hotel “sits
smack in the energetic center
of town,” and its 250-seat roof-
top restaurant is a hot spot,
but you can also just decom-
press, sipping Turkish tea in
your room as boats pass by.
peninsula.com; doubles
from $824
Snorkeling the Blue Ridge Mountains Sandboarding in the Red Desert
You don’t need a coral reef to go snorkeling, In southwestern Wyoming, there’s a big sand-
said Lindsey Liles in Garden & Gun. Fresh- box where everyone’s free to play, said Vanita
water snorkeling is trending, and while “it may Salisbury in Thrillist. About 35 miles north
look a touch absurd” to float face-down in a of Rock Springs, the Killpecker Dunes Open
shallow river, doing so opens your eyes to a hid- Play Area welcomes outdoor recreation with
den world of ancient life-forms. Recently, North an 11,000-acre expanse of sand that “would
Carolina introduced the Blue Ridge Snorkel be right at home in the deserts of Namibia or
Trail, a do-it-yourself series of 10 sites across Mongolia.” Thrill seekers take to the undulat-
several river basins. Signs depict which spe- ing dunes with dirt bikes, ATVs, skis, sleds, and
cies you might encounter. “It’s like a scavenger sandboards, which you can purchase at the visi-
tors’ center. The key to not falling on your face
hunt,” said biologist Luke Etchison, who took
me to the Mills River outside Asheville. At first, while descending a dune is to have a sandboard
the tug of the cold current slick with wax. Killpecker
had me grasping at river- is also a living, breathing
weeds. But soon enough, I A surge in ‘skiplagging’ ecosystem. Wild horses
was army-crawling above “Skiplagging is gaining traction, but and desert elk leave their
the “bustling world” of it’s also drawn the ire of airlines for tracks in the dunes, while
crayfish, mussels, and decades,” said Christopher Muther spadefoot toads and
pebbles. Flashes of red in The Boston Globe. The travel hack, Jerusalem crickets burrow
also known as “hidden city ticketing,” deep below. Killpecker
and orange from saffron is the practice of booking a flight with
shiners and tangerine dart- the intention of using a layover city as ranks just behind the
ers drew my eye, as did your final destination. You want to get to Sahara as the world’s
“the perfect camouflage Paris, say, but exploit a cheaper offer to second largest “active”
of mottled sculpin.” The Lisbon by skipping the Paris to Lisbon dune field, a place
Cheoah River was my final leg. The trick “can save hundreds where winds sculpt the
favorite site, because it’s of dollars,” but it violates an agreement landscape. Those constant
isolated and the water is you accept when booking, and airlines winds sometimes cause the
warm. “It’s a pure delight can put violators on a no-fly list and ancient, glacier-deposited
cancel frequent-flier miles. “This is not sand to “sing,” or rever-
to crawl slowly up the a hack for the anxious traveler.” But if
river, noticing each tiny you’re an infrequent flier, who can risk
berate at certain frequen-
creature, and feeling as if upsetting an airline, “there are some cies. “Listen closely for a
you’ve joined the ranks of great deals to be found.” low-pitch noise, almost
Alamy

aquatic life.” like a booming cello.”

THE WEEK August 25, 2023
30 Best properties on the market
This week: Homes off the beaten track

1 Idaho County, Idaho Whitewater Ranch, a

historic 118-acre homestead, overlooks the Salmon
River in the Nez Perce–Clearwater National Forest.
The property includes a road system, runway, and
satellite internet; a two-bedroom main house with
a river-view porch; a two-bunkroom lodge with a
ranch-style kitchen and dining room; the original
1897 ranch house and barn; and multiple cabins.
The pristine wilderness has elk, deer, bighorn sheep,
wolves, mountain lions, and black bear, and the
river has steelhead, salmon, and trout. $3,500,000.
Trent Jones, Hall and Hall, (208) 622-4133

2 Malaga, Wash. Ravenwing Ranch, a gated community

on the Columbia River, is surrounded by 385 acres of
open space with trails. This three-bedroom house on a
1.64-acre lot features walls of windows with cliff and river
views, an eat-in chef’s kitchen,
a primary bedroom with five-
piece bath, a home office, a
covered patio, and a breeze-
way to a two-car garage.
Amenities include river access
and mooring buoys; golf, ski-
ing, and an airport are nearby.
$1,975,000. Chris Ohta, Engel
& Völkers Mercer Island,
(509) 470-1479

3 Warrenton, Mo. This four-bedroom log

home comes with 16.8 acres of Missouri
woodland. The house has a vaulted great room;
a dining area; a loft with balcony; a gourmet
kitchen with hickory cabinets, granite counters,
prep island, and coffee bar; a primary suite with
bubble tub, sitting room, and porch access;
and a family room with a log-trimmed wet bar.
Outside are a covered patio, fenced yard, firepit,
garage and carport, and private half-acre pond
and trails. $1,100,000. Cheri Norton, Coldwell
Banker Realty, (314) 368-5630
THE WEEK August 25, 2023
 Best properties on the market 31
4 Gosnold, Mass. Cuttyhunk Island offers
180-degree views of Buzzard’s Bay, the Elizabeth
Islands, the Vineyard Sound, and Martha’s Vineyard.
Built in 1900, this updated, fully furnished year-
round island home features an owner’s suite with
designer bath, three upstairs bedrooms with balco-
nies, a galley kitchen with butler’s pantry, a living
room with window seat and built-ins, and a base-
ment wine cellar. Outside is a vast furnished deck
equipped with a firepit and hydraulic binoculars.
$2,250,000. Ellie Wickes, Mott & Chace/Sotheby’s
International Realty, (508) 493-4545

5 Canaan, N.Y. The Donnelly House, a pre-Revolutionary

two-bedroom saltbox, stands on a hilltop plateau with
panoramic views of the Berkshire Mountains. The circa-1760
home, on the National Register of Historic Places, has original
wood floors and ceiling beams, three fireplaces, an updated
kitchen and great room spanning the back of the house, a
dining room with built-ins, and a modern bath. The 24-acre
forested property is near Tanglewood, West Stockbridge, and
Catamount; Albany is 25 minutes’ drive. $950,000. Heather
Lindgren, Coldwell Banker Realty, (646) 932-4075
2 1
3

4
5

6 Willow, Alaska This three-bedroom

Steal of the week multilevel cabin sits on nearly an acre
of wooded land 45 minutes’ drive from
Wasilla. The remod-
eled 1991 home has
new electrical, plumb-
ing, heating, drywall,
doors, windows, and
trim, and features
custom log work,
including natural-log
exposed beams; wood
floors and staircase;
DMD Real Estate Photography

and a windowed full

kitchen with a dining nook opening to a
living room with a woodstove. The flat
lot is suitable for an additional building.
$300,000. Shawna Calt, Keller Williams
Realty, (907) 242-0211
THE WEEK August 25, 2023
32
The bottom line
QThe typical American
household spent $709 more
in July than it did two years
ago to buy the same goods
and services, according to
Moody’s Analytics.
CNN.com
QFor the first time since
2008, global wealth declined
last year, falling by 2.4 per-
cent in dollar terms. About
1.7 million U.S. adults are
no longer millionaires.
Another 17,260 dropped out
of the ultra-high net worth
category, meaning they are
no longer worth $100 million
or more.
The Wall Street Journal
BUSINESS
The news at a glance
FTX: Sam Bankman-Fried heads to jail
Sam Bankman-Fried pushed
all the wrong buttons, said Ava
Benny-Morrison in Bloomberg.
The disgraced “crypto prince,”
awaiting trial on federal charges,
had his bail revoked last week
“after Judge Lewis Kaplan found
he likely attempted to tamper
with two witnesses.” Bankman-
Fried sent messages to former
U.S. general counsel of his old Bankman-Fried leaving court
firm, FTX. He also “leaked diary notes” by
Caroline Ellison, his former romantic partner,
in a seeming “attempt to discredit her.” Now he
has lost the privilege of staying in his parents’
3,000-square-foot Palo Alto, Calif., home and
was taken straight from court to the notorious
Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.
Bankman-Fried’s behavior was
truly astonishing, said Alex
Kirshner in Slate. Instead of rel-
ishing his freedom while facing
a long list of charges for “one of
the most cartoonish and lucra-
tive frauds in American history,”
SBF engaged in a wide range
of asinine behaviors. He shared
documents from his own Google
Drive to smear his ex-girlfriend.
He tried to use a virtual private network to mask
his internet activity. And he contacted several
FTX employees in a manner so “chummy” that
it smacked of an effort to butter them up before
they testified. “That Bankman-Fried is going to
jail now” for such “incredibly silly things” is fit-
ting for “an unbelievably absurd saga.”

Inflation: Small increase in consumer prices No cage match for

QAnnual sales for Cheerios
are over $435 million,
making it America’s best-
selling cereal, accounting for
roughly 1 in every 9 bowls of
cereal consumed.
Food Dive
QSpeculators bid up shares
of Vietnamese car maker
VinFast in its U.S. stock
market review this week,
briefly bringing the value of
the thinly traded company
to $85 billion, above the
combined value of General
Motors and Ford.
Bloomberg
QThe Energy Department is
awarding up to $1.2 billion
to two projects in Louisiana
and Texas to directly remove
carbon dioxide from the air.
The builders say they will
remove a total of 2 million
tons of carbon annually, the
equivalent of emissions from
445,000 gas-powered cars.
Associated Press
QA basket of the top U.S.
streaming services will cost
$87 a month this autumn,
compared with $73 a year
ago. The average cable TV
package costs $83.
Inflation ticked up slightly in July, breaking a 12-month streak of
billionaire bigwigs
declines, said Paul Davidson and Charisse Jones in USA Today. In the saga of two
“Consumer prices overall increased 3.2 percent from a year earlier, up billionaire brawlers,
it’s finally “time to
from 3 percent in June,” according to the consumer price index data move on,” said Alex
released last week. The numbers have dropped precipitously from Heath in The Verge.
where inflation sat a year ago, when it peaked at a 40-year high of That seems to be Mark
9.1 percent. But prices rose 0.2 percent from the month before, despite Zuckerberg’s final take
yet another Federal Reserve interest-rate hike. “The cost of housing after the storyline of the
again was the biggest driver” in the increase. Zuckerberg–Elon Musk
cage match “reached a
Culture wars: Target sales fall after Pride controversy new level of absurdity.”
Target’s sales fell for the first time in six years after a Pride Month
After Musk asked for
backlash, said Nathaniel Meyersohn in CNN.com. The retailer a practice match at
reported this week that its same-store sales dropped 5.4 percent in the Zuckerberg’s house,
past three months and foot traffic fell 4.8 percent. The slowdown fol- Meta boss Zuckerberg
lowed “a homophobic campaign that went viral on social media over said Tesla tycoon Musk
“isn’t serious” about
Target’s annual Pride Month clothing collection,” which inspired vio-
lent threats against Target employees. Target’s decision to remove some stepping into the
ring—an exchange that
items then “frustrated supporters of gay and transgender rights.”
Musk then released
Housing: Berkshire Hathaway bets on builders to journalist and
Warren Buffett made an $800 million bet on the U.S. housing mar- biographer Walter
ket, said Lance Lambert in Fortune. Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Isaacson. Musk, for his
part, continues to flog
this week purchased $700 million worth of shares in D.R. Horton
a bout in ever stranger
and another $100 million in shares of two other U.S. homebuilders.
ways, claiming that
The spending spree comes amid “a remarkable surge in homebuilder he was planning to
stocks” despite the sluggishness of the overall housing market this drive to Zuckerberg’s
spring. One reason is that homebuilders have employed new strategies Palo Alto, Calif. home
to attract buyers, such as price reductions and mortgage-rate buy- and fight him if he
downs. The scarcity of existing inventory has also boosted demand. answered the door.
Musk took other pokes
Epilogue: UBS pays to settle last 2008 crisis charges at his rival, slowing
After 15 years, UBS has finally settled the last remaining charges stem- links on X (the former
ming from the financial crisis, said Margot Patrick and Dean Seal Twitter) to Facebook
in The Wall Street Journal. The Swiss bank said this week it “will and Instagram; links to
pay $1.44 billion to settle U.S. Justice Department allegations that it news sites Musk seems
defrauded investors who bought bonds backed by mortgages” before to dislike, including
The New York Times,
the housing market collapsed in 2008. The case wasn’t brought until
2018, “after many of the cases against other banks were settled.” All were also slowed for a
Getty (2)

Financial Times short time.

told, the DOJ collected $36 billion in fines from banks.
THE WEEK August 25, 2023
 Making money BUSINESS 33

Aging: The math on the $1.8 million retirement plan

The money Americans think they’ll need thanks to investment gains. She frequently
to retire comfortably keeps growing and entertains guests at “a beach house she
growing, said Medora Lee in USA Today. named Camp Cocktail in Ocean City,
A recent survey by Charles Schwab found N.J.” Bob Bradley retired at age 66 with
that, on average, the figure that people $1 million in 2015. He supplements his
feel they need to have saved to retire is savings with $40,000 a year in consulting
$1.8 million, up from $1.7 million only income, and he and his wife have “main-
a year ago. Their math makes sense as a tained their pre-retirement lifestyle.”
conservative “rough estimate.” The aver-
age life expectancy is 83.3 years old, so Most Americans still need to get saving,
if you retire at 65 “you could expect to said Lorie Konish in CNBC.com. “The
spend at least 18.3 years in retirement.” To median retirement account balance
maintain an income of $100,000 a year, for high-income households was nine
the $1.8 million figure is just about right, if times that of middle-income households
your nest egg grows at the rate of inflation. What’s realistic for a comfortable retirement? in 2019—$605,000 compared with
Unfortunately, few Americans are close. In March, Schwab re- $64,300, respectively,” according to new research from the
ported that its average retirement account balance was $280,099. Government Accountability Office. Even worse, it found that
median savings for middle-income households ($86,800 in 2007)
That $1.8 million is yet another retirement number causing un- has actually shrunk over the past 16 years.
necessary panic, said Brett Arends in MarketWatch. “A $1.8 mil-
lion balance would buy a 65-year-old couple an immediate an- Barring a miraculous rise in wages, the gap isn’t going to fix
nuity paying a guaranteed lifetime income of $9,500 a month.” itself, said Nir Kaissar in Bloomberg. The federal government
Add Social Security and that’s $146,000 a year. That’s far more can do something easily that would benefit everyone’s retire-
than most seniors spend in retirement. Many people who retire ment: At an annual cost of about $37 billion, the U.S. could give
on $1 million to $2 million a year spend down much less than babies $10,000 at birth. Think about it. “If individuals were to
that, said Veronica Dagher and Anne Tergesen in The Wall Street invest $10,000 in stocks at birth,” by age 70 (assuming a reason-
Journal. Judy Hall, a onetime human resources executive, retired able growth rate of 10 percent a year before inflation) they’d
with $2 million in 2005. Now, 18 years later, she spends roughly have $10 million. Which happens to be the equivalent of that
$110,000 a year, and as of late last year still had $1.8 million, $1.8 million retirement number in today’s dollars.

What the experts say Charity of the week

Sky-high prices for luxury rooms
Hotel prices are rising to unprecedented
heights, especially for five-star stays, said
Nikki Ekstein in Bloomberg. Prices at brands
like Holiday Inn and Best Western have risen
19 percent in the U.S. and 32 percent in
Europe since 2019. But luxury travel advisers
say their clients “are ponying up $1,700 per
night on average” for their opulent accom-
modations this summer. That’s a 69 percent
increase from the $979 a night that a similar
survey showed travelers were spending in
2019. Data from a broader range of luxury
hotels confirmed the uptick, with one bro-
ker reporting the average rate for a night
in Europe is up 57 percent from 2019. One
travel adviser said “pent-up demand” from
the pandemic has become “the travel indus-
try’s mantra.” His clients splurged to the tune
of $3,682 per night for their stays last year.
Gen Z’s wandering ways
that short since 2006.” About one-third
switched employers within two years. Gen Z’s
apparent willingness to load up entry points
on the résumé “may be a response to what
younger employees perceive as corporations’
unyielding focus on the bottom line.” But re-
cruiters say many employers still regard itiner-
ant candidates with suspicion. In a survey of
hiring managers by Robert Half, “77 percent
named job hopping” as their “top concern
when evaluating a candidate’s resume.”
S&P drops ESG scores in bond ratings
S&P Global said last week it will stop hand-
ing out scores to corporate borrowers based
on ESG criteria, said Patrick Temple-West in
the Financial Times. “The debt rating agency
has since 2021 published scores from 1 to 5
for a company’s exposure to each element of
environmental, social, and governance risks.”
Visa, for example, had received a 3 for its
governance performance and 2s for its work
Last week, the deadliest U.S. wildfire
in more than century razed the entire
community of Lahaina in Maui, Hawaii.
In response, the Hawai’i Community
Foundation,
a century-old
nonprofit,
established
the Maui
Strong Fund
(hawaiicom-
munityfoun-
dation.org/
maui-strong) to collect and distribute
donations that will help provide shelter,
food, and financial support for Maui
residents. The fund is collaborating
with state and local elected officials,
and 100 percent of contributions—
now at over $27 million—go to Maui
relief efforts. The Hawai’i Community
Foundation is one of numerous organiza-
tions mobilizing to help wildfire victims.
The Maui Mutual Aid Fund also accepts
donations and deploys volunteers to
support victims.

Should young workers be more worried
about how often they switch jobs? asked
Eilene Zimmerman in The New York Times.
According to the Employee Benefit Research
Institute, “22.3 percent of workers ages 20
and older spent a year or less at their jobs in
Getty
in the other departments. “The move comes
amid skepticism over ESG ratings” and pres-
sure from conservatives over the use of ESG
as an investment criterion. S&P’s debt ratings
are used by bond buyers, and any negative
marks can have a major effect on a company’s
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.

2022, the highest percentage with a tenure borrowing costs.

THE WEEK August 25, 2023
34 Best columns: Business

China: A slowdown sends tremors worldwide

The world’s economic engine is sputter- up debts to finance state-directed infra-
ing, said The Economist. When China structure overhauls are now threatening
abandoned its draconian zero-Covid con- default. They could sell off pieces to pri-
trols last year, the expectation was that vate companies, but Chinese President
it “would stage a rapid recovery, even Xi Jinping “objects to entrepreneurs get-
as other countries courted recession.” In ting their hands on ‘state assets.’”
fact, China’s economic growth has been
slowing, and the troubles keep mount- China’s pain is the U.S.’s gain, said
ing. “Three headlines in the space of two Daniel Moss in Bloomberg. Without
days” last week captured the gravity of the usual lift from China, “who will
China’s economic plight. Exports fell by the world rely on?” The United States.
more than 14 percent from the year be- “Derided as being in its sunset years,”
China’s consumers have shut their wallets.
fore. Country Garden, one of the nation’s the U.S. is seeing a “resilient” labor
biggest property developers, missed two bond-interest payments. market, “buoyant” consumers, and diminishing odds of a reces-
And consumer prices declined. “In sum: China’s export boom sion. There’s a great opportunity here for Washington, said Adam
is long over. Its property slump is not. And, therefore, deflation S. Posen in Foreign Affairs. “Instead of trying to contain China’s
beckons.” China’s central bank cut interest rates further this growth at great cost to their own economy,” through tariffs and
week, in a sign of heightened concern from policymakers. technology bans, “American leaders can let Xi do their work for
them.” The U.S. can easily “position itself as a better alternative—
This isn’t like the China we’ve come to know, said Peter S. Good- a welcoming destination for Chinese assets of all kinds.”
man in The New York Times. “Over the past decade, China has
been the source of more than 40 percent of global economic In a visit to Beijing this spring, I didn’t detect an economic mal-
growth,” almost double the U.S. contribution. But in a sign of aise, said Steven Rattner in The New York Times. Yes, “China’s
“general erosion of public faith,” Chinese families have stopped rebound from Covid has been weaker than many expected,” but
spending and are stashing cash at a record pace. Weakening I saw executives “mostly radiating optimism” about their busi-
Chinese demand carries global implications—“from soybeans nesses. “A robust pipeline” of startups suggests China is continu-
harvested in Brazil to beef raised in the United States to luxury ing to innovate. China’s economic growth may be slowing, but
goods made in Italy.” Beijing needs to get its act together, said the it’s still greater than ours. The country does have a significant
Financial Times in an editorial. The “psychological malaise that youth-unemployment problem, but “much of that stems from
besets many Chinese households” requires bolder reform and an economy that hasn’t quite revved up enough” for the close to
stimulus. Cutting mortgage rates and loosening housing restric- 12 million people graduating college this year. That can change.
tions “would be a good start.” But local governments that racked So dismiss China at your own peril.

A summer Women own this summer’s hot entertainment

economy, said Sarah Krouse and Anne Steele. Taylor
ruled by Swift’s summer tour has been so hot that the Federal
Reserve in July touted it “for boosting the Phila-
women delphia area’s hotel industry.” Swift and Beyoncé
together have accounted for 66 percent of ticket
Sarah Krouse and revenue for the top 10 touring acts worldwide.
Anne Steele Women propelled watershed success for the Barbie
The Wall Street Journal film, which crossed $1 billion in box-office returns.
What’s notable is that these events “drew crowds
compelled by a common theme: art made by women
that speaks to the experience of being female.” This
empowerment motif has carried what some econo-
mists are calling a “women’s multiplier effect.” Some
men go to events in groups, “but this summer, it was
women who gathered the biggest groups of movie
and concertgoers and opened their wallets repeatedly
on those experiences to an unusual degree.” More
than 80 percent of people who went to see Swift
or Beyoncé bought more than two tickets, and the
shows have been “at once girlfriend raves, rallies, and
retreats.” These groups of women are spending more
to support other female acts, too. The average ticket
price for a top-50 female artist is $660, compared
with $245 for male artists. It’s time to stop underesti-
mating women as an economic force.

Wall Street’s “The most talked-about story on Wall Street” these

days is just how badly Goldman Sachs CEO David
most hated Solomon is disliked, said Jen Wieczner. Usually, “the
only real non-negotiable” for running Goldman “is
boss that you be skilled at making money.” But Solomon
has pushed that principle to the limit. Though he
Jen Wieczner began his CEO tenure “with outward signs that he
New York magazine might rule as a ‘kinder’ and maybe even ‘woker’
boss” (he DJs in his spare time and relaxed the dress
code), Solomon’s “rougher qualities” eventually won
out. “He always sounds like he’s shouting—always,”
is a typical assessment. Senior women left Goldman
away with hefty employment settlements. Solomon
was caught flying private jets for Caribbean vaca-
tions “even as he was reprimanding workers for not
logging more hours in the office.” And the divorced
Solomon’s bragging about his sexual conquests hasn’t
helped. “Goldman’s official view is that his tempera-
ment is irrelevant as long as the bank is performing
well.” But Solomon mismanaged a push into con-
sumer banking that has lost $3 billion and counting
since 2020. The most recent quarter saw year-over-
year profits fall more than 60 percent. It’s enough to
make some Goldman veterans openly long for the
Getty

“at a clip that was hard to ignore,” some walking post–financial crisis vampire-squid days.
THE WEEK August 25, 2023

The guitarist who wrote the Band’s classic hits
Robbie As a songwriter, Robbie
Robertson Robertson thought big.
1952–2023 The lead guitarist and
principal writer for the
Band crafted cinematic songs steeped
in a mythic, Southern Americana that
reflected a Canadian’s fascination with
his adopted home. “The Night They
Drove Old Dixie Down,” sung by
Arkansan drummer Levon Helm, gave
voice to a defeated Confederate Civil
War soldier. “The Weight” spun an enigmatic tale
of a wayward traveler’s encounters with Crazy
Chester and Miss Moses; the narrator in “Up
on Cripple Creek” celebrates a Louisiana lover
who’s “a drunkard’s dream.” Such classics helped
make the Band one of the most influential groups
of the rock era. Steeped in folk, country, and
blues, their homespun 1968 debut Music From
Big Pink was a lodestar for generations of roots
musicians, landing in the tie-dyed psychedelic era
like a sepia-toned daguerreotype. “I wanted to
write music that felt like it could’ve been written
50 years ago, tomorrow, yesterday,” Robertson
said in 1995, “that had this lost-in-time quality.”
Born in Toronto to a Native American mother
and a Jewish gambler father who died before he
was born, Robertson took to the guitar early, said
Rolling Stone. He left high school “long before
The therapist who started a hunt for the G-spot
For Alice Ladas, the
Alice
Ladas spot itself was never
1921–2023 really the point. The
psychologist who co-
authored the 1982 best-seller The G
Spot: And Other Recent Discoveries
About Human Sexuality wanted to
revolutionize women’s relationship to
their pleasure. Popularizing the newly
discovered G-spot—supposedly a
patch of erectile tissue behind a wom-
an’s pubic bone that can elicit a response similar
to an orgasm—was one way to accomplish that.
Her collaborators, two sex researchers, tested the
theory that this spot existed by examining around
400 women, all of whom eventually located their
G-spots. The book sold over 1 million copies but
faced intense backlash from doctors, who said
the research was not a scientific study. Ladas
shrugged off the criticism. “This whole business of
‘You have to find the G-spot’ is silly,” she said in
2010. “Being able to communicate, to enjoy your
body—that’s important.”
Ladas was born in Manhattan to a father who
was a cotton merchant and a mother who sup-
ported the ethical humanism movement. In the
1940s, she earned her undergraduate and mas-
ter’s degrees at Smith, a women’s college, study-
Getty
ing political science and then social work. There
Obituaries 35
The artist who
twice reimagined
graduation,” joining rockabilly
modern painting
singer Ronnie Hawkins’ band
as lead guitarist at 16. There he Brice Marden had an unshak-
met all four of the other future able faith in the power of
Band members. They “formed paint. One of his generation’s
a tight musical bond,” eventu- most celebrated artists, he
ally striking out on their own electrified the art world in
the 1960s
as Levon and the Hawks, and
Brice by fusing
in 1965 backing Bob Dylan on Marden minimalism
his first electric tour. In 1967, 1938–2023 with abstract
they moved into a house near expressionist
Woodstock, N.Y., that they dubbed Big Pink flourishes in a series of color
and began working on the songs for their debut. blocks that, on closer inspec-
Big Pink “sent shock waves through the industry,” tion, revealed texture and
said The Washington Post. The follow-up, 1969’s depth. Decades later he revo-
The Band, was another classic, but soon “infight- lutionized painting a second
time with his 1989–91 Cold
ing and drug use” among the bandmates began to
Mountain series, in which
interfere with recording. dancing lines took inspiration
from the graceful loops of
The Band gave a farewell concert in 1976, filmed
Chinese calligraphy. “People
by Martin Scorsese for the acclaimed movie
were saying painting was
The Last Waltz. The other members “would
dead,” he said in 2009. “This
reunite many times” in later years, but without was my way of thinking,
Robertson, said NPR. He had a decades-long col- well, there are things that
laboration with Scorsese, composing and super- haven’t been done.”
vising music for many films, and he released five
solo albums. But he never returned to performing. Growing up in the suburbs
of New York City, said The
“It’s a wonderful way to make a living—going New York Times, Marsden
out and people cheering for you,” he said in 2020. had an interest in art encour-
“But I don’t know, I just have a different hunger.” aged by “a kindly neighbor.”
After earning a master’s
degree in painting from
Yale in 1963, he moved to
New York and worked as an
she met Eleanor Roosevelt assistant to painter Robert
Rauschenberg. By 1966,
and was “inspired by the first
he'd had his first solo show,
lady’s feminism and activism”
and critics had proclaimed
to march for civil rights, said him a young star. “Marden
The New York Times. After maintained this exalted sta-
graduation, she worked for tus throughout his career,”
Austrian psychologist Wilhelm but by 1980, he faced what
Reich, who focused on psycho- he called a “silent creative
sexual theories about the death” and started traveling
orgasm, and she became one through Asia. The trip proved
of the first people to teach the rejuvenating, yielding grand
works that earned him a spot
Lamaze childbirth method in the U.S. Her disser-
in the 1997 Venice Biennale.
tation for her doctorate in education, awarded by
Columbia University in 1970, focused on support They also became “some
for breastfeeding. of the most sought-after
in the auction market,”
The G-spot “remained a topic of contention” long said Artforum. The diptych
after Ladas’ book came out, said The Washington Complements (2007) alone
Post. As recently as 2021, a medical review of fetched nearly $31 million. A
year after being diagnosed
31 studies called it “unproved,” saying there was
with cancer in 2017, Marden
agreement that the spot existed but disagreement
unveiled his most monu-
on its location. Ladas, meanwhile, went on to have
mental work, the five-panel,
a long career as a therapist and “was still seeing
39-foot-long tableau Moss
patients at her home office the day before she Sutra With the Seasons. But
died” at 102, said The Seattle Times. Her devotion “I’m not thinking of these
to exploring the connection between mind and paintings as a kind of sum-
body never dissipated. “I work with words, and mation,” he said in 2019. “I’d
I work with the body,” she said. “I was always rather they lead to some-
interested in women being able to own their own thing else.”
bodies and use their bodies the way they wanted.”
THE WEEK August 25, 2023
36
Chased by a wall of fire
2QHRIWKHGHDGOLHVWZLOG¿UHVLQ86KLVWRU\HQJXOIHG0DXL¶V/DKDLQDZLWKDOPRVWQRZDUQLQJ
said Joshua Partlow in The Washington Post. 5HsidHnWs ZKR sXUYiYHd EaUHO\ HsFaSHd WKH inIHUnR
L
ISA VORPAHL, a bank teller,
woke to the sound of
someone shuffling on her
lanai. It was 3 a.m. on Tuesday
when she looked out her bed-
room window—along a dry,
grassy slope overlooking her
slice of tropical paradise—and
realized it was just the wind.
Alexa Caskey couldn’t sleep,
either. On the farm where she
grew taro and breadfruit for
her plant-based restaurant, she
listened to gusts that would
dislodge her garage door and
topple the Hong Kong orchid
tree outside.
Flames swallow Lahaina’s historic Waiola Church.
Photographer Rachael
Zimmerman woke up before dawn in her
condo on Front Street, Lahaina’s seaside
boulevard of restaurants and surf shops, to
the howls rattling her window screens.
If there was any warning that fitful night
that Hawaii was about to endure one of the
most horrific and deadly natural disasters
in the state’s history, it was only the wind.
For two days, National Weather Service
employees in Honolulu had been sending
out ominous alerts about powerful easterly
gusts, whipped up by Hurricane Dora pass-
ing 500 miles to the south. They hit Maui at
a time when much of the tropical island had
been parched by severe drought, including
the drier leeward side that includes Lahaina.
The next time Vorpahl woke up, she
smelled smoke. The power was out. A fire
had started in the dry grass near her home
on Lahainaluna Road, on a slope just east
of the highway that bypasses downtown.
Power poles fell in the neighborhood, and
wires had snapped—leading several neigh-
bors to later question whether electrical
equipment had started the blaze.
Maui County authorities got the first
reports of the fire by 6:37 a.m., and not
long afterward, police were circulating in
her neighborhood, calling out on mega-
phones for people to evacuate. Using a
nearby hydrant, firefighters doused the
flames.
She didn’t feel panicked. Fires were a regu-
lar occurrence. The blaze was small and
didn’t appear threatening as she and her
husband, Eddy, drove past. “It’s Hawaii,”
she said. “Nobody thought anything of it.”
THE WEEK August 25, 2023
The last word
They spent a few hours at their daughter’s
apartment but returned home after Maui
County—at 9:55 a.m.—sent out an alert that
the brush fire was “100 percent contained.”
It looked that way to Eddy. “Nothing was
happening. A couple fire engines were there.
They were all packing stuff up,” he said. “It
looked 100 percent fine.”
L
AHAINA SITS ON Maui’s western flank,
a historic town rimmed by white-sand
beaches at the foot of the ancient
Pu’u Kukui volcano. On most days, it’s a
postcard-perfect symbol of tropical bliss.
But an early-morning blaze was ominous.
And Mark Stefl, a tile setter, had reason to
be wary.
He lived down the hill on Lahainaluna Road
in a home he rebuilt after another wildfire
burned it down five years ago. He had heard
that the early-morning blaze had been extin-
guished. Around 2:30 p.m., he heard his
wife, Michele, shout: “Oh, my God.”
The blaze had kicked up again farther
down the hillside. Wind dragged the flames
toward Lahaina. It was still a few hundred
yards away. Mark tried to reassure Michele
that firefighters would handle it. But the
speed of its approach was like nothing
he had seen. “Within minutes, there was
a wall of fire 30 yards from the house,”
he said.
Overhead, dry air—the result of a high-
pressure system—was jetting over and
down the slopes of the volcano, sending
ferocious winds into his town, spraying
gravel and ripping shingles off the roof-
tops. It was a worst-case scenario that
some emergency planners had
long warned about. The couple
scrambled to gather their dogs and
cats. One rescue dog, Poppy, got left
behind in the chaos. Stefl hit the gas
in his truck as flames licked at the
side of the house. “I was praying to
God that we didn’t die,” he said.
Not far away, on Komo Mai Street,
AnnaStaceya Arcangel Pang saw
the distant fire marching closer.
The Lahaina native and fam-
ily members—her grandmother,
her mother, various cousins—live
within blocks of one another, and
all had decided to leave.
Pang, 31, texted her husband, who
had left early that day to work in
another town, to see what he wanted her to
pack for him. He replied eight minutes later,
but by then, her backyard was in flames,
and she hastily fled alongside a caravan
of relatives. As she drove away with her
dogs and a few clothes she had grabbed
she could hear the sound of propane tanks
exploding up and down the street, one after
another.
“When I looked back, all I saw was black
smoke,” she said. “It was then that I knew:
If we come back, we are coming back to
nothing.”
B
Y THIS TIME, that same black cloud
was starting to smother Lahaina. The
town of 12,000 had been the capital
of the former Hawaiian Kingdom and a
trade hub for 19th-century whaling ships.
Lahaina had the oldest house in Maui, the
Baldwin Home Museum, and a treasured
banyan tree that has grown in a courtyard
by the sea for 150 years. These days, tour-
ists come to surf or snorkel, sunbathe and
zip-line.
Caresse Carson, 41, catered to those visitors
at her job at Captain Jack’s Island Grill. She
had spent nearly two decades in Lahaina
and valued its rich history. Mark Twain had
visited the Pioneer Inn—across the street
from Captain Jack’s. She liked to imagine
herself tracing his long-ago footsteps.
Even though the power was out, Carson
had reported to work that afternoon to help
keep food from spoiling. On the drive in,
she passed the home of her boss, Sam, and
watched a chunk of his roof as big as her
truck get ripped off by the wind. As she and
AP

Sam hauled bags of ice, black smoke started
billowing through town.
It came on in an instant. “All of a sudden,
it was starting to barrel over the building,”
Carson said. “It was completely black. You
couldn’t see an inch in front of you. This
was broiling smoke.”
Zimmerman, the photographer, was also
downtown. She grabbed a small safe with
her hard drives, passport, and some cash.
Plus her computer, some food for her dog,
Zya, and a handful of shirts. At 3:38 p.m.,
already fearing the worst, she snapped a few three climbed over the rocky barrier to get
hasty photos of their rooms, their closets,
their furniture—think-
ing she might need the
pictures for insurance
claims. She called her
parents in Colorado a
half-hour later, saying
she and her partner,
Nicole, were stuck in
traffic as the fire bore
down, and she didn’t
know whether they
would make it out.
They encouraged her to
stick close to the ocean,
and to just keep going.
Carson was also trying
to drive out of Lahaina
in her Nissan pickup.
The sea was the only exit for some. parking lot, flames encroaching
Glowing embers show-
ered into her open window, perforating the
blanket in the back seat. There was gridlock
downtown as panicked people tried to
escape and others abandoned their vehicles.
Carson watched a couple running barefoot
through the street pushing a stroller. She
watched person after person run down
the side streets until they got to the sea
wall and then threw themselves into the
Pacific Ocean.
Carson recorded video on her phone as
she drove, searching for a way out. Power
lines and palm trees whipped around wildly.
She came to a road that was blocked by a
downed utility pole. “I don’t know if I’m
going to make it,” she recorded herself say-
ing. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.
Look at that. That’s all burnt debris. The
fire’s getting closer and closer.”
Reuters, tephen Lam/San Francisco Chronicle/Polaris
It was 4:25 p.m. when she saw her friend,
Kaleo, get hit in the head by a piece of
debris. “Get in the car,” she screamed to
him. “Get in my car.”
He was panting. “Oh, my God,” she said.
The air was black. Carson was disoriented.
A light emerged in the sky. “Look at the
moon,” she told him. “Look at the f---ing
moon, dude.”
The last word
It was 4:30 p.m. He told her it was the sun.
T
HERE WAS NO emergency siren. No
organized evacuation. Few instruc-
tions about how to proceed. Just a
headlong grasp toward survival.
Annelise Cochran, a 30-year-old who
worked for an ocean conservation non-
profit, couldn’t get out by car, and the
building next to her was on fire. So she
ran to the water. She saw her neighbor,
Freeman, 86, struggling to walk. Another
neighbor, Edna, was with him. Together, the
away from the flames.
They spent hours in the water
and on the rocks, Cochran said,
trying to stay away from flying
embers and choking smoke.
Cars abandoned on Front
Street began to explode. Waves
of heat and toxic fumes washed
over the sea. At times, they had
to move toward the fire when
they began to feel dangerously
cold. Cochran watched in hor-
ror as people held onto debris
and floated away from shore.
“People still chose just to drift
out,” she said.
By that time, Kevin Foley, 42,
was stranded in a Safeway
Cochran goes through her surviving belongings.
on multiple sides. He had been heading to
his bartending shift at Longhi’s Kaanapali,
an Italian restaurant in Marriott’s Maui
Ocean Club, when the smoke forced him
off the bus. He walked back to where he
had left his bike.
Worried about his roommates, Foley tried
to ride home but kept getting blocked. As
he moved, he recorded fires all around him.
When darkness fell, the sky turned a menac-
ing orange. He watched flaming utility poles
spraying showers of embers onto the pave-
37
ment. He saw the fire consume a three-story
apartment building on Keawe Street. He
narrated the conflagration as he traveled.
When sparks landed at the base of a palm
tree and blossomed into flame, he said:
“This is how it starts. One little spark flies
to an area, and the next thing you know, it
goes up, just like that.”
Sometime after midnight, a man staggered
out from the burning homes, toward a Shell
gas station. His shorts were smoldering.
Skin was peeling from his face. He collapsed
on the pavement.
Foley encouraged the man to stand and led
him toward Safeway. Foley rode around
looking for help until he found a police offi-
cer. Maui police and firefighters had been
out throughout the day trying to save lives
and help people evacuate. But the fire was
overwhelming.
“The cop couldn’t do anything for him,”
Foley recalled. “He just gave him water.”
Foley and some other people entered the
Lahaina Cannery Mall—connected to the
supermarket—to try to escape the smoke
and wait out the night. Every so often,
he would go outside to see whether the
Safeway had started to burn.
In the dark, cold water off Lahaina on
Tuesday night, Cochran and her neighbor
Edna clutched each other, both women shiv-
ering and struggling to breathe through the
smoke and fumes. Cochran felt
like she was losing consciousness.
The women tried to stay awake.
They talked about their families
and promised each other they’d
make it. At one point, Cochran
called out to Freeman, her elderly
neighbor, who was a little farther
down the rocky beach, and asked
how he was. He smiled and made
a shaka gesture with his hand—
hang loose—to indicate he was all
right. Later, she saw him slumped
against the wall, unmoving. She
believes he might have died from
the smoke.
Sometime around midnight, fire-
fighters rescued Cochran and several dozen
other people from the water. She has spent
the past few nights at shelters. Her body is
covered with bruises and lacerations; her
feet and face are burned. “I feel blessed to
be alive,” she said.
This story originally appeared in The
Washington Post, and was reported by
Joshua Partlow, John Farrell, Brady Dennis,
Brianna Sacks, and Joanna Slater. Used
with permission.
THE WEEK August 25, 2023
38
Crossword No. 709: Only the Names Changed by Matt Gaffney
ACROSS
1 To win sandwiches
for life, almost 10,000
people have offered to
adopt this chain’s name
as their legal first name;
a winner will be picked
later this month
7 Pack animal
11 Org. for the Yanks
14 Seoul-based airline
15 Do as instructed
16 Feel unwell
17 Muscle that stretches
18 Morning notes
20 A sheriff candidate in
Wisconsin changed his
name to this famous
TV actor’s for a 2007
election; after losing, he
was sued by the actor
22 Acorn or macadamia
25 “Chandelier” singer
26 Doubtful, casually
27 First zodiac sign
30 Ending for persist
32 Finds adorable
36 A New Yorker legally
changed his name
to this in 2012, after
playing the role each
December for years
39 Stat for cornerbacks
40 Upset stomach help
41 Wheat Thins maker
44 Tall tale
45 A 30-year-old U.K. man
got drunk in 2020 and
legally changed his
name online to this
famous singer’s while
watching her on TV
THE WEEK August 25, 2023
The Puzzle Page
The Week Contest
This week’s question: A Colorado driving school
employee accidentally slammed his car into the school’s
front window, leaving the wreckage lodged under a sign
that says “Learn to Drive.” In seven or fewer words, come
up with a caption for a photo of this accident scene.
Last week’s contest: A TikTok “life coach” is recom-
mending fellow 20-somethings find “Lazy Girl Jobs”:
low-stress, white-collar positions that allow them to work
remotely and focus on their non-work lives. Come up
with a job title for a uniquely low-effort role.
THE WINNER: “Navel Observation Specialist”
Jon Braunersreuther, Tomball, Texas
SECOND PLACE: “Every Other Day Trader”
Bill Levine, Belmont, Mass.
THIRD PLACE: “C.O.O.O.O.: Chief Out of Office Officer”
Lark Pinney, Minneapolis
For runners-up and complete contest rules, please go
to theweek.com/contest.
How to enter: Submissions should be emailed to
contest@theweek.com. Please include your name,
address, and daytime telephone number for verifica-
tion; this week, please type
“Crash caption” in the sub-
ject line. Entries are due by
noon, Eastern Time, Tuesday,
Aug. 22. Winners will appear
on the Puzzle Page next issue
and at theweek.com/puzzles on
Friday, Aug. 25. In the case of
47 Hawkins of dance fame 9 Jeans possessive
50 ___ Moines Register 10 Sight to see identical or similar entries, the
(newspaper) 11 Landlocked African land first one received gets credit.
51 “Johnny B. ___” 12 Pleasing vocal feature
52 Leaky tire sound 13 Expression of disgust WThe winner gets a one-year
54 Long or Vardalos 19 Conditional statement subscription to The Week.
56 Mr. Flanders 21 Followed right-of-way
57 A British marijuana laws
advocate legally 22 Many French vowels Sudoku
changed his name 23 Muse of astronomy
to this in 1994 to 24 Like some car windows
Fill in all the
promote his legalization 28 Pickup hour, briefly boxes so that
campaign 29 ___ fly (run scorer) each row, column,
63 Final defeat 31 Neighbor of Algeria and outlined
64 JetBlue rival 33 CEO’s need square includes
68 “Can ___ now?” 34 Make difficult to read all the numbers
69 Yemen neighbor 35 High as a kite from 1 through 9.
70 To a greater degree 37 The prez, in shorthand
71 Pale and weak-looking 38 Part of SDSU Difficulty:
72 Baby’s cries 42 Implore hard
73 This musician 43 Affirmative statement
changed his name to 46 John and Sean, for two
an unpronounceable 48 “Got it”
symbol in 1993; it was 49 Third-party
both a creative lark arrangement
and an unsuccessful 53 Hayek in Frida
attempt to escape 55 Hit ___ in the road
contract obligations 57 “Just so you know,”
briefly
Find the solutions to all The Week’s puzzles online: www.theweek.com/puzzle.
DOWN 58 Indian song
1 Occupied an ottoman, 59 James Bond’s alma
say mater
©2023. All rights reserved.
2 Manipulate 60 He parked an ark
The Week (ISSN 1533-8304) is published weekly, except January 6, January 13,
3 Container with 61 “Are you ___ out?” July 14, and September 15. The Week is published by Future US LLC, 130 West
recyclables 62 iPhone feature 42nd Street, 7th floor, New York, NY 10036. Periodicals postage paid at New York,
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maybe
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