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The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019Editor’s letterSeveral years after my family immigrated to the U.S., my father got a peculiar letter from a friend in the Soviet Union. The letter—no doubt the friend had been strong-armed or blackmailed into writing it—asked if he might be able to procure a technical manual for a DEC minicomputer banned from export to the Soviet Union. Obviously, that was the end of that relationship. In the story of my family’s immigration, this was a last tawdry reminder of the repressive, manipulative regime we’d left. Like so many other Soviet Jewish refugees, my family was committed to the United States, fiercely anti-Communist, and hopeful about regime change that would bring democracy to Russia and its captive nations. In all this, my family’s convictions were probably similar to those of another family…2 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019It wasn’t all badA Nationals fan was hailed as a World Series hero this week after he nabbed a home run ball while holding a beer in each hand. Jeff Adams had just bought two cans from a vendor in the second inning of Game 5 when the Astros’ Yordan Alvarez smashed the ball in his direction. Recalling his Little League days, Adams put his chest out, angled it down, and let the ball roll to the floor—all without spilling a drop of beer. Adams said he wished his old coach could have seen his feat: “This guy taught me how to do that.”A 13th-century painting that hung unloved for decades in a Frenchwoman’s kitchen was sold at auction last week for $26.8 million—the most ever paid for a medieval painting. The woman,…1 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019Only in AmericaA Massachusetts lawmaker has proposed making it a crime to call someone a bitch. Democrat Rep. Daniel Hunt’s bill, which free-speech advocates said is clearly unconstitutional, would classify as a “disorderly person” anyone “who uses the word ‘bitch’ directed at another person to accost, annoy, degrade, or demean,” with offenders fined up to $200 and/or jailed for up to six months.A Missouri jury has awarded nearly $20 million to a gay police officer who was told to “tone down” his gayness. Sgt. Keith Wildhaber was passed over 23 times for promotion, with superior officers describing him as “fruity” and “way too out there with his gayness.” The jury foreman said the award sends a message that “if you discriminate, you are going to pay a big price.”National debt nears $1…1 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019Why Iggy bares allIggy Pop likes to be as close to nude as possible, said Chris Heath in GQ. Even at 72, “I’m more relaxed the less clothes I wear,” the perpetually bare-chested punk rocker says. He takes frequent skinny-dips in the ocean and appears naked on the cover of his latest album. Pop, born James Osterberg, says the clothing aversion was at first a way of rebelling against the restrictive confines of childhood in a Michigan trailer park. In the late 1960s he formed the Stooges and developed into a transcendent performer, credited with inventing the stage dive. Pop also became famous for exposing his penis during shows. “Everyone’s got one,” he says defensively, before thinking to add, “Unless they don’t.” It was more a defiant act than a sexual one. “I’ve…1 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019In the newsHarvey Weinstein’s surprise visit to a Manhattan variety show bombed last week, as the disgraced Hollywood producer was repeatedly heckled and called a rapist. Sitting with a small entourage at a prime booth, Weinstein got through the first few acts unmentioned before comedian Kelly Bachman said, “It’s our job to name the elephant in the room. It’s a Freddy Krueger in the room.” When Bachman joked she didn’t realize women “needed to bring our own Mace and rape whistles” to the event, several male audience members booed. One attendee, Zoe Stuckless, confronted Weinstein at his table, screaming that he’s a “f---ing rapist” before being escorted out of the small club. Weinstein’s spokesperson called the hecklers “downright rude” and complained that their hostile comments serve as “an example of how due…2 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019I’m proud to be ‘human scum’Paul RosenzweigTheAtlantic.comIf standing up for American values “makes me human scum, I wear that title with pride,” said Paul Rosenzweig. President Trump recently condemned all “Never Trump” Republicans as “human scum!” I’ve been a proud “Never Trumper Republican” since Trump won the party’s nomination, and I refused possible positions in Trump’s administration. But nobody could accuse me of being a “raving liberal.” I’ve been a member of the conservative Federalist Society since 1983, I served in President George W. Bush’s administration, and I was a senior counsel for the investigation that led to President Bill Clinton’s impeachment. But as a true conservative, I believe that some principles apply “regardless of the party or persons in power”: the rule of law, separation of powers, limited government, a free press, and “the…1 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019I read it in the tabloidsA Chinese hitman hired to murder a businessman’s competitor hired another assassin to do the job, who then subcontracted the killing to another hitman, who hired another hitman, who hired another hitman. The saga began when businessman Tan Youhui paid a hitman, Xi Guangan, $282,000 to “take out” his rival. Xi hired another hitman for half that amount, and the subcontracting continued until a fifth would-be assassin met the intended target, identified only as Wei, and suggested faking his death. All five hitmen and Tan were convicted of attempted murder.A horse in South Korea has become a YouTube sensation by perfecting the art of playing dead whenever someone approaches to ride him. Jingang—dubbed “the world’s most melodramatic horse”—buckles his legs, theatrically collapses, and closes his eyes at the mere sight…1 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019European Union: Can human trafficking be stopped?It looks like “mass murder,” said The Guardian (U.K.) in an editorial. The bodies of 39 people, most thought to be Vietnamese, were found in a refrigerated container in southeastern England last week. In search of a better life, they had paid smugglers to transport them to the Belgian port of Zeebrugge, where they entered the airtight container and set off for the English port of Benfleet. Three hours before the box was opened, passenger Pham Thi Tra My, 26, sent a harrowing text message to her mother in Vietnam. “I’m sorry, Mom. My journey abroad hasn’t succeeded,” she wrote. “I’m dying because I can’t breathe.” The Northern Irish driver of the container truck has been arrested and charged with manslaughter, but the trafficking ring surely extends further. These deaths…2 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019Russia uses Maduro as a wedgeVENEZUELAJosé Gregorio MezaEl NacionalVenezuela will never be free of President Nicolás Maduro as long as Russia supports him, said José Gregorio Meza. “How many times have we believed that we were coming out of this nightmare” only to have fortunes suddenly turn and Maduro cling to power or even gain international legitimacy? Just last month, the Maduro regime won a seat on the United Nations Human Rights Council, even though it is arguably the worst human rights violator in the Americas. It was undoubtedly Russia that persuaded 105 countries to vote in favor of the measure. Heavily invested in our state oil company, Russia views Venezuela as a “gateway to the continent and a way to shadow the U.S.” It’s also using Venezuela to exploit the anger bubbling in Latin…1 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019NotedU.S. government officials have made 1,493 trips to properties owned by President Trump during his presidency. So have 121 foreign officials from 71 different governments and dozens of corporations and lobbyists seeking to influence federal policy. Trump “still considers himself to be in the hospitality business,” White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney says.Los Angeles TimesAbout 6 million children younger than age 11 have parents who suffer from drug addiction. Child welfare officials removed about 90,000 children and teens from their families in 2017 because of a parent who had a substance abuse problem.USA TodayThe federal government has obtained only 16 percent of the private land in south Texas that would be required to complete the 500 miles of new border fencing that President Trump promised to complete by 2020.…1 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019Wit & Wisdom“Crime, once exposed, has no refuge but in audacity.”Roman historian Tacitus, quoted in The New York Times“I can’t understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I’m frightened of the old ones.” Composer John Cage, quoted in ArtNews.com“Love blurs your vision; but after it recedes, you can see more clearly than ever.” Author Margaret Atwood, quoted in Stylist.co.uk“A signature always reveals a man’s character—and sometimes even his name.” Humorist Evan Esar, quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle“To have doubted one’s own first principles is the mark of a civilized man.” Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., quoted in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette“Perhaps when we find ourselves wanting everything, it is because we are dangerously near to wanting nothing.” Poet Sylvia Plath, quoted in the Los Angeles Review of Books“In ancient…1 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019Innovation of the weekGoogle’s new “quantum machine” needs less than 3 ½ minutes to perform calculations that would take a traditional computer 10,000 years, said Cade Metz in The New York Times. The machine, which “scientists had been working toward since the 1980s,” uses the properties of particle-level physics to vastly exceed the speed of conventional computers. While classical computers encode information in “bits” representing either 0 or 1, quantum computers use a qubit, “which stores a combination of 0 and 1.” As more qubits are added, the machine becomes “exponentially more powerful.” While the complex calculation done by Google’s “quantum machine” has no immediate uses, it’s a demonstration of a technology that “could one day drive big advances in areas like artificial intelligence and make even the most powerful supercomputers look like…1 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019Clues on mystery paralysisResearchers have made a breakthrough in their hunt for the cause of acute flaccid myelitis (AFM), a rare polio-like condition that can result in paralysis in children. First documented in 2012, AFM affects fewer than one in a million kids. But its effects can be devastating: Children have been left unable to move their arms and legs and needing ventilators to breathe. Many researchers suspected the culprit was a virus, yet traditional testing methods could find no obvious cause. For a new study, researchers examined the spinal fluid of patients for signs of an immune response to enteroviruses—common viruses that cause cold-like symptoms but can occasionally trigger severe neurological issues. They found antibodies to two enterovirus strains in 70 percent of children with AFM and in only 7 percent of…1 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019Edison(Random House, $38)We return to the life of Thomas Edison again and again because “no inventor did more to nudge the world toward modernity,” said David Oshinsky in The New York Times. The latest Edison biography comes from Edmund Morris, a Pulitzer Prize winner who famously and controversially used a fictional narrator for his 1999 authorized biography of Ronald Reagan. For this 800-page project, Morris, who died in May, made the odd choice of telling Edison’s story backward, one decade at a time. But Morris could really write: “His ability to set a scene, the words aligned in sweet rhythmic cadence, is damn near intoxicating.” And though a reader has to hunt for a central theme, Edison emerges as an unusual and complex figure whose key strength was his relentless…2 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019Chosen by Stanley FishStanley Fish is a prominent literary theorist and legal scholar whose books include How to Write a Sentence. His latest is The First: How to Think About Hate Speech, Campus Speech, Religious Speech, Fake News, Post-Truth, and Donald Trump.Paradise Lost by John Milton (1667). Any question anyone has ever had about anything—creation, life, death, salvation, astronomy, heroism, faith, sex, marriage, history, science—is posed and plumbed in this supreme achievement of mind. Paradise Lost reads you.The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan (1684). This is at once the ultimate quest story and a psychological primer deeper than Freud’s. Bunyan’s hero becomes aware that he shoulders an unbearable burden (it is original sin), and his efforts to rid himself of it are thwarted when his fears and anxieties take external form and attack…2 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019American UtopiaHudson Theatre, (855) 801-5876David Byrne isn’t the first rock veteran to hit Broadway with a concert-musical hybrid, said David Rooney in The Hollywood Reporter. His new show, though, is “less a concert than a participatory religious experience,” a party meant to lift every viewer’s spirit. The former Talking Heads frontman appears first holding a model of a human brain, mulling over its various parts as he works toward a rendition of “Here,” a song from his 2018 album, American Utopia. Gradually, he’s joined by a total of 11 musicians, vocalists, and dancers, all free to move about the stage and dressed as he is: barefoot but in a gray suit. From there, a playful mix of music, movement, and musings becomes an evening of “pure bliss.” Though “there’s no story…2 min
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The RPG Codex's Top 70 PC RPGs (And Some Hidden Gems) :: rpg codexFramingham Public SchoolsSwimgs Black Friday Kevin Chamberlin’s Birthday Steven Colloton Tune 3 Tabs WInnie The Pooh Halloween Bob The Builder Christmas Autumns Cow Dog Pig Cadbury Commons Hockey Game Congratulations Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood Full The Alpha Baa Baa TwinkleThe Week Magazine|November 8, 2019Jesus Is KingKanye West’s new gospel album “might be the definitive assertion that West’s golden period is over,” said Dean Van Nguyen in TheGuardian.com. Arriving a year after his “half-baked” Ye, it effects a sharp turn toward praise music, as West promised he would following his recent Christian re-awakening. But most of the songs in the brief set feel like mere sketches, and the lyrics are “as thin as Bible paper.” As with West’s recent past misfires, “the album’s saving grace is the quality of the production,” said Andrew Barker in Variety. He frequently leans on a gospel choir, and the song “Everything We Need” features “an absolutely glorious, multitracked vocal hook.” But most of the words West chooses when he raps or sings himself are “alternately alienating or bland.” When the…1 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019Motherless Brooklyn(R)Tourette’s can’t kill a sleuth’s thirst for truth.Ed Norton’s new gumshoe noir is a labor of love that’s “as loving as it is laborious,” said Peter Bradshaw in TheGuardian.com. Adapting a Jonathan Lethem novel but pushing its setting back to the 1950s, Norton both directs and stars, playing Lionel Essrog, a detective with Tourette’s syndrome who discovers a deeper conspiracy when he begins investigating the murder of his mentor. Twenty years in the making, the movie “piles up detail upon detail, incident upon incident, all swirling in a smoky, sooty world,” and becomes almost too much to absorb. A villain eventually emerges in the character of a Robert Moses–like city planner played by Alec Baldwin, said Todd McCarthy in The Hollywood Reporter. But as Essrog grows fond of a Harlem…1 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019His Dark MaterialsThe first screen adaptation of Philip Pullman’s acclaimed Y.A. fantasy trilogy turned out to be a profound disappointment. But forget The Golden Compass, because this series appears poised to set things right. Viewers will acclimate quickly to Pullman’s richly imagined multiverse, populated by armored polar bears and other fantastical creatures, including a “daemon” double for every human. Dafne Keen plays Lyra, the smart 12-year-old protagonist who’s just beginning her coming-of-age journey. This is all-ages fare—maybe even a Game of Thrones–level habit for the whole family. Monday, Nov. 4, at 9 p.m., HBO…1 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019Riesling“U.S. riesling is especially exciting now,” said Dave McIntyre in The Washington Post. Though plenty of casual drinkers wrongly associate the name solely with sweet expressions of the grape, riesling is highly versatile, “a megaphone for terroir,” and a great food wine because of its balance of acidity and fruit. Below, three examples of its range.2017 Hermann J. Wiemer Vineyard Dry Riesling ($22). This taut Finger Lakes, N.Y., riesling “never disappoints.” It “weaves a filigree of lime zest, apricot, and peach across the palate.”2017 Bryn Mawr Vineyards Estate ($26). “Flavors of quince, green apple, jasmine, and a hint of mineral oil” give this Willamette Valley wine “a classic riesling profile.”2017 Barnard Griffin ($12). A model Columbia Valley riesling, this terrific value combines notes of peach and mango “as well as…1 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019California’s best-preserved ghost townVisiting Bodie, Calif., “might be the closest you’ll get to traveling back to the Old West,” said Michele Debczak in MentalFloss.com. The former boomtown, built in the 1870s and ’80s atop a rich gold deposit just east of the Sierra Nevada, has been preserved in a state of arrested decay since California’s park system took control of it in 1962. The buildings that have so far survived every blow of fate include a church, a schoolhouse, and Miner’s Union Hall, which once hosted Christmas celebrations and is now a small museum. On a nearby hillside stands the Standard Stamp Mill, a large complex where the rocks hauled out of the mine were pulverized to extract gold. The small, two-story Swazey Hotel is more popular, though, because the lopsided structure remains…1 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019Bakers’ helpersKing Arthur Flour Fresh Sourdough Starter“Sourdough baking can be challenging, to say the least.” This starter-in-a-jar takes the stress out of creating a fermented dough, and because it descends from a strain that’s over 100 years old, “you know it’s going to be bubbly, active, and reliable.”$9, shop.kingarthurflour.comSource: BonAppetit.comSilpat Half-Size Baking MatDon’t want to fuss with parchment paper? Place this French-made mat on a baking sheet to create a nonstick surface. Made of dishwasher-safe silicone embedded with heat-conducting fiberglass, the Silpat “performs beautifully.”$21, webstaurantstore.comSource: Cook’s IllustratedWhetstone Woodenware French Rolling PinTapered, French-style rolling pins offer far better control than pins with handles, and they’re also easier to clean. This 23-inch maple pin is “ideal for rolling rounds of crust for pie,” and it’s “sturdy enough to last a lifetime.”$27, whetstonewoodenware.comSource: TheWirecutter.comJenaluca…1 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019Suburban Boston homesNewton This six-bedroom, Queen Anne Victorian on 0.6 acre lies near two parks. The 1898 home retains original details like leaded glass windows, carved oak paneling and wainscoting, and dentil crown molding. The chef’s kitchen was updated in 2014. Lined with stone paths and walls, the property has a patio, mature trees, and perennial landscaping. $3,050,000. Jayne Friedberg, Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage–Brookline, (617) 899-2111Lincoln Lying on 17.1 acres next to conservation land, this mid-century modern, four-bedroom home was built in 1972 and restored in 2012. The living room has a double-height ceiling and an oversize fireplace, and the chef’s kitchen includes Viking appliances and a full pantry. The property features two ponds, a saltwater gunite pool, a Zen garden, and a three-stall horse stable. $3,750,000. Thomas Kennedy, Gibson/Sotheby’s International Realty,…2 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019The bottom lineRepublican House districts produced $32.6 billion in economic output per district in 2018, down from $33.3 billion in 2008. By comparison, Democratic House districts produced $49 billion, an increase from $35.7 billion a decade ago. Democratic districts also had 71 percent of digital and professional jobs.The Wall Street JournalThe 40-day GM factory strike cost the automaker $2.9 billion before 48,000 striking workers agreed to go back to work last week with a four-year contract.CNN.comAmong the 100 most common searches on Google, a Google product or service is the top result 29 times, including for “news,” “weather,” “NBA,” and “calculator.”Bloomberg.comSome 1.5 million packages are delivered daily in New York City. Last year, delivery trucks operated by UPS and FedEx racked up more than 471,000 parking violations, a 34 percent increase from…2 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019What the experts sayTesla beats the shortsTesla’s surprising earnings report cost its short sellers an estimated $1.4 billion in one day last week, said Thomas Franck in CNBC.com. The most heavily shorted stock in the U.S. recorded its best day on Wall Street since 2013, popping almost 17 percent to around $300 per share after unexpectedly reporting a third-quarter profit. The surge wiped out “almost 70 percent of short sellers’ year-to-date profit” after the stock had slid 23 percent since the start of 2019. Tesla CEO Elon Musk “has over the years taken to Twitter to do battle against” investors betting heavily against his company. Tesla reported earnings well beyond analysts’ expectations and revealed to shareholders it is ahead of schedule with a new factory in Shanghai, as well as its Model Y…2 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019Big Tech: Setting the table for a major breakup?The year 2020 is poised to become “the year of the great antitrust reawakening,” said Joe Nocera in Bloomberg Businessweek. The last time antitrust was a dominant theme during a presidential election year was 1912. For the first time in decades, “a genuine rethinking of the way antitrust laws are enforced appears to be taking place,” and the focus is squarely on the big four companies: Facebook, Amazon, Apple, and Google. Cutting their power is a big part of the Democratic agenda. But Republicans, too, come with a long list of complaints. And then there’s President Trump, whose frequent “potshots” at Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos—who also owns the loathed-by-Trump Washington Post—raise the specter of a president “weaponizing antitrust for his own political purposes.”Last week, the head of the Justice Department’s…2 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019A ransom for WeWork’s mad kingMegan McArdleThe Washington PostThere have been bigger failures in the history of U.S. business, but WeWork’s implosion “has to be the most literally incredible,” said Megan McArdle in The Washington Post. In the end, the Japanese conglomerate SoftBank “will have invested $18.5 billion in this disaster, more than the gross domestic product of Jamaica.” Masayoshi Son, the CEO of SoftBank, and his investing partners could have bought everything produced on the island for an entire year. Instead, Son gave that money to WeWork’s founder, Adam Neumann, “to rent empty offices, buy a lot of plate glass,” and create “a high-tech prison with concentric rectangles of fully transparent cells.” Despite all the money he invested, Son let Neumann have voting control of the company, letting him “take WeWork hostage and demand…1 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019The trailblazing congressman who fell from gloryRep. John Conyers technically represented Detroit, but he became known to many as the congressman-at-large for black America. When the Democrat was first elected in 1964, he was one of just six African-American members of the House of Representatives. Conyers quickly emerged as a leading voice for the black community on Capitol Hill and an unabashed champion of progressive causes such as criminal justice reform and national health insurance. He co-sponsored the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and led the fight to make Martin Luther King Jr. Day a federal holiday. In 1971, he co-founded the Congressional Black Caucus, which has since grown from 13 to 55 members. But his 52-year career came to an unceremonious end in 2017 amid multiple allegations of sexual harassment. Conyers resigned as the sixth-longest-serving…2 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019The impact of al-Baghdadi’s deathWhat happenedPresident Trump this week hailed the killing of ISIS leader and founder Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in a U.S. Special Forces raid in northwest Syria as the biggest-ever victory in the war on terror, even as American military leaders warned that the fight against the terrorist network remains unfinished. In a White House speech, Trump said that al-Baghdadi fled “whimpering, screaming, and crying” into an underground tunnel as the elite Delta Force raided his compound and that he “died like a dog.” Unable to escape, al-Baghdadi detonated an explosive vest that killed himself and three of his young children. “Osama bin Laden was very big,” Trump said. But “this is a man who built a whole, as he would like to call it, a country, a caliphate.”The CIA and Special…5 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019Impeachment: Why not President Pence?Of all the arguments against impeaching and removing President Trump, said Bill Scher in Politico.com, perhaps the strangest is that using a constitutional process would somehow “overturn” the 2016 election. In the still-unlikely event that two-thirds of the GOP-held Senate does vote to oust the president, the Democrats won’t gain control of the White House. “America’s reward for convicting Trump would be President Michael Richard Pence,” as rock-ribbed a conservative as any Republican in public office. Not only would a President Pence keep appointing conservative judges, deregulating business, and fighting for Christians’ religious liberty, he would do so without the constant drama and chaos of his predecessor. The pious, low-key Pence would be a refreshing change, said B.J. Rudell in TheHill.com, and he could pick a vice president to “broaden…3 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019Scorched earthCaliforniaAlmost 2.5 million Californians lost power in pre-emptive blackouts this week as thousands of firefighters scrambled to contain wildfires statewide. Officials feared a catastrophic flare-up after the National Weather Service issued an unprecedented “extreme red flag” warning—forecasting 30 hours of winds with gusts up to 80 mph accompanying dangerously dry air—yet those once-in-a-decade conditions failed to materialize. Still, 4,900 firefighters battled the Kincade Fire in Northern California, which destroyed 76,000 acres plus 189 structures and forced 200,000 residents to flee. Around Los Angeles, which hasn’t seen rain in four months, the Getty Fire burned 650 acres and forced famous residents such as LeBron James and Arnold Schwarzenegger to evacuate. The blackouts are meant to keep electrical equipment from igniting additional flames, though this year’s fires have been less severe than…4 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019LuPone’s Broadway bullyingPatti LuPone is an old-fashioned Broadway diva, said David Marchese in The New York Times Magazine, but she wasn’t always afforded star treatment. “I’ve been bullied all my life,” says LuPone, 70. Even at the pinnacle of her career, when she starred in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Evita in 1979 and made “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina” a hit, LuPone says she was often treated like a “stupid chorus girl.” Hal Prince, the legendary theater producer who died this year, worked on Evita and made LuPone miserable. At one rehearsal he showed up “with a bullhorn turned up to 10,” she says, and berated LuPone in front of the cast about her stage positioning. “This humiliation ensued for the entire rehearsal,” she recalls. “I ended up in a fetal position in…1 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019A people without a stateThe U.S. withdrawal from Syria left Kurds at the mercy of Turkey, Russia, and Syria. Why are the Kurds still homeless?Who are the Kurds?A tough mountain people, the Kurds are the fourth-largest ethnic group in the Middle East—after Arabs, Persians, and Turks—and have their own distinct culture and language. Nearly all are Sunni Muslims, but they have many tribes and are far from a monolithic group. Over the centuries, they have handed down their traditions through music, with bards singing folktales and stories of Kurdish feats in battle. Spread out mostly over four countries and now numbering some 30 million, the Kurds have pressed time and again for a homeland since the 19th century, only to have their hopes dashed when great powers broke their promises. Several times since the…5 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019Please don’t call me ‘Latinx’Giancarlo SopoUSA TodayThe Spanish language spoken by my parents and 570 million people around the world is apparently “insufficiently ‘woke,’” said Giancarlo Sopo. Progressive activists have persuaded politicians, marketers, and the media that in referring to people with Hispanic heritage, they should use the invented, Anglicized word “Latinx,” rather than “Latino.” Why? Because, the activists say, the gendered nature of Spanish nouns is unfair, sexist, and transphobic, excluding individuals who do not identify as male or female. This patronizing “fix” of Spanish offends many Latinos, because it presumes that “the way our families speak is fundamentally inadequate to the U.S. and progressive American culture.” We’ve been fighting “English-only ordinances” for decades, but now it’s the Left that objects to our beautiful, mellifluous language. Not incidentally, the Real Academia Española, the…1 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019What’s in a pastry’s name?SWITZERLANDClaudia WirzNeue Zürcher ZeitungThe language police are coming for your cookies, said Claudia Wirz. First they cried racism over the Mohrenkopf, or Moor’s head, a cream cake coated in chocolate. Two years ago, activists demanded the “decolonization of the patisserie,” damning those who made and enjoyed Moor’s heads as “violent racists.” Apparently undeterred by their failure, they are now back and out to get the Meitlibei, that delicious, finger-thick, U-shaped pastry with the hazelnut filling, because its name means “girls’ legs.” Sexism, they say! Objectification! One Basel-based bakery chain is now offering the traditional Bernese treat under the new name “lucky charm”—an apparent attempt to make consumers think of horseshoes rather than crotches. This “obsessive judgment of virtue” isn’t merely tiresome, it is intensely divisive. A world in which “everyone…1 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019Canada: A weakened Trudeau and a divided nationIn his second term in office, Justin Trudeau will face “not only a divided House of Commons but a dangerously fragmented country,” said the Montreal Gazette in an editorial. The Canadian prime minister’s Liberal Party is no longer in the majority following last week’s general election, in which it won 157 seats in the 338-seat commons, down 20 from the last vote in 2015. The Conservative Party took 121 seats (a gain of 26) and actually beat the Liberals in the popular vote, 34.4 percent to 33 percent. The leftist New Democratic Party won 24 seats (down 15), and the Green Party three seats (up one). But the real story is the rise of separatism. The Bloc Québécois made great gains, bringing to Ottawa 32 parliamentarians—22 more than in 2015—“who…2 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019Hill: A congresswoman downed by #MeTooRep. Katie Hill’s resignation this week “is what accountability looks like—but it’s also what slu*t shaming looks like,” said Molly Roberts in WashingtonPost.com. The first-term California Democrat was a rising star until RedState.com revealed her “throuple” with her husband and a 22-year-old female campaign staffer. The openly bisexual Hill, 32, conceded the relationship was “inappropriate,” but adamantly denied the conservative website’s charge she was also conducting an active affair with a male Capitol Hill aide. RedState.com published photos of Hill kissing the female campaign staffer and holding a bong while naked, pictures Hill claims were supplied by her “monster” soon-to-be-ex-husband. Taking nudes with a subordinate was “unbelievably stupid,” said Robin Abcarian in the Los Angeles Times. But Hill’s resignation smacks of a “double standard.” Look at the all the male…2 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019Booing the president: Was it justified?President Trump is “an avid sports fan,” yet he “stays away from most sporting events,” said Christine Brennan in USA Today. “Now we know why.” After the Washington Nationals’ public address announcer introduced him during Game 5 of the World Series, the hometown D.C. crowd greeted him with “intense and long-lasting” boos. A lusty chant of “Lock him up!” followed “for several minutes” from the outfield and upper deck. Trump, who rarely travels beyond the protective bubble of his rallies and properties, is the only president since William Taft in 1910 not to throw out a ceremonial first pitch at a Major League Baseball game. He hasn’t even attended a single game. “Odds are, he won’t come back anytime soon.”Donald Trump, the man, may deserve the “karmic payback” the crowd…2 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019TikTok: Teen app infiltrates the U.S.The world’s fastest-growing social network, TikTok, is the latest powerful platform to draw the ire of U.S. lawmakers, said Tony Romm and Drew Harwell in The Washington Post. Sens. Charles Schumer (D.-N.Y.) and Tom Cotton (R.-Ark.) sent a letter last week to the acting director of national intelligence asking officials to examine whether the wildly popular video-sharing app is a “potential counterintelligence threat.” TikTok, which has been downloaded more than a billion times around the world, including 110 million times in the U.S., is owned by a Chinese company, ByteDance, raising concerns it might “support and cooperate with intelligence work” by the Chinese government. ByteDance denied the allegation and said it stores U.S. user data inside the country. But it has “declined repeatedly to discuss its content-moderation policies,” and lawmakers…2 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019Brain damage on the soccer fieldFootball isn’t the only sport that can be bad for athletes’ brains: A new study has found that pro soccer players also face a heightened risk of dying from neurodegenerative diseases. Commissioned by England’s Football Association, the research appears to confirm long-held fears that repeatedly heading a soccer ball can cause chronic brain trauma. Researchers from the University of Glasgow compared the causes of death of 7,676 male former pro soccer players with more than 23,000 people from the general population. The ex-players were less likely to die from heart disease and certain cancers and had an average life expectancy that was about three years longer. But they also had a 3.5 times higher risk of dying than the control group from diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. While soccer…1 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019The world’s noisiest birdOrnithologists have identified the noisiest bird on the planet, with a call as loud as a pile driver. Native to the Amazon rain forest, the male white bellbird can reach volumes of 125 decibels—at least nine decibels louder than its noisiest rival. A typical human voice is only about 60 decibels. The bellbird’s call—a bizarre metallic-sounding squawk—forms part of a highly unusual mating ritual, researchers discovered. When a female lands nearby, the male sings the first note of his deafening song facing directly away from his potential mate—then sharply swivels his head around and yells the second note right in her face. The female knows it’s coming, because just before the turn she flutters back a few feet. Whether such raucous behavior actually helps male white bellbirds secure a mate…1 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019All This Could Be Yours(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $26)Jami Attenberg is “a master of warped family sagas,” said Heller McAlpin in NPR.org. Her sixth novel unfolds “with the precision of an opera on a revolving stage”: A ruthless 73-year-old developer is felled by a heart attack, and during his final hours we come to know a handful of people close to him who are waiting for him to die. An adult son in California keeps his distance, while an adult daughter rushes to New Orleans eager to learn exactly what her father did for a living and why her mother put up with him. Tellingly, the eventual revelation of Victor Tuchman’s misdeeds is the novel’s “least satisfying” feature, said Brock Clarke in The New York Times. Attenberg, the author of The Middlesteins in 2012, makes…1 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019The Irishman(R)A mobster revisits highlights of his ugly life.For a while, before its full power kicks in, Martin Scorsese’s new mob epic “plays like a highly watchable retread,” said A.A. Dowd in AVClub.com. The gang’s all here: Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, Harvey Keitel, even Godfather alum Al Pacino. And the assignment is “another backstage tour of organized crime,” this time a look back, from old age, at the career of a midlevel thug, Frank Sheeran, who returned from World War II, drifted into enforcement work for a Philadelphia mobster, and eventually accepted the job of killing Teamster kingpin Jimmy Hoffa in 1975. But there’s no glamour in this life. De Niro portrays Sheeran as a passive man, “an instrument of others’ ambition and corruption,” and the approach of death renders…2 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019The Week’s guide to what’s worth watchingIndependent Lens: Decade of FireIt’s been four decades since the Bronx burned, but the New York City borough still hasn’t shaken its reputation as a locus of urban decay. In this compelling documentary, filmmaker Vivian Vázquez Irizarry, a child of the South Bronx, digs into the causes of the 1970s fires, linking the destruction to government and greedy speculators, not the poor residents so often blamed for the blight they lived in. Monday, Nov. 4, at 10 p.m., PBS; check local listingsThe Little Mermaid Live!The beloved 1989 animated Disney adventure gets the Broadway treatment, as a clutch of stars sing and dance their way through the movie’s soundtrack in spectacular staged vignettes woven into a rebroadcast of the original film. Auli’i Cravalho, the young actress who voiced the title character…3 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019Steak with anchovy butter: A Chicago chef’s umami blast“Your average person doesn’t think of meat and anchovies going together, but anchovies’ code name is umami,” said Paul Kahan in Cooking for Good Times (Lorena Jones Books). When I make a steak, I prefer it panfried, not grilled, and I sometimes deepen the savoriness by ladling on an anchovy butter. Here, I add roasted leeks too.Recipe of the weekSteak with leeks and anchovy butterKosher salt and black pepperTwo 1-lb steaks or one 2-lb steak (such as flank, hanger, strip, or rib eye)¼ cup oil-packed salted anchovies¼ cup red wine vinegar2 small shallots, minced1 cup (2 sticks) plus 6 tbsp unsalted butter½ cup chopped Italian parsley leaves3 lbs leeks, trimmed, rinsed, and split lengthwise½ cup dry white wine2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil¼ cup grapeseed or pure olive oil4 cloves garlic,…2 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019In Mexico for the Day of the DeadEntering the main square in Pátzcuaro, “I felt like I had tumbled into Disney’s Coco,” said Patricia Harris in The Boston Globe. The Mexican town of 80,000 has become “almost too famous” for its Day of the Dead celebrations, yet the joy in the air that afternoon was irresistible. A day before the actual observances began, an arts fair filled the tree-shaded plaza while mariachi music spilled from restaurants tucked into the colonnades of the surrounding colonial buildings. Marigolds were everywhere, filling the mountain air with their wonderful aroma, and at the vendors’ stalls, stacks of decorated sugar skulls “attracted children and bees in equal measure.” Women of all ages were having their faces painted to transform into “La Catrina,” the elegantly dressed skeleton figure that has become an emblem…2 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019SLS Beverly HillsLos AngelesThe $22 million makeover seems to have worked, said the editors of Condé Nast Traveler. Just named by our readers as the best hotel in the world, this chic Philippe Starck–designed property “rockets guests into the future as soon as they walk in.” The linked dining, drinking, and lounge spaces create an adult playground feel that’s heightened by the furnishings’ surrealist touches. One of José Andrés’ on-site restaurants has earned two Michelin stars, and the rooftop pool has been voted one of the city’s best. The spa, done in pure white, has been called a haven for starlets.slshotels.com; doubles from $269Last-minute travel deals‘Best of the Adriatic’Serene lakes, baroque buildings, Roman history, and natural beauty await on Indus Travel’s 12-day tour of Croatia and Slovenia. Available at two for the…1 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019When to buy travel insuranceTravel medical insurance: When you travel abroad, you can’t count on being covered by your existing health insurance. Consult with your provider in advance and secure extra coverage as needed.Trip cancellation insurance: Cancellation coverage is most worthwhile when you’ve booked a cruise or tour package—not when you’re traveling independently. It’ll pay out a reimbursem*nt if, say, you miss a flight or if the tour company folds. Read the fine print, though, because inclusions vary.Baggage insurance: You typically can buy up to $1,000 of coverage on lost, stolen, or damaged baggage. But check first to see whether your homeowner’s or renter’s insurance would already cover such losses.Medical evacuation insurance: Consider this if you’re taking real risks. It’ll cover a medevac, of course, but also an evacuation in cases of terror threats…1 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019Boeing: How could the CEO know so little?Members of Congress this week confronted Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg with evidence that “numerous people inside Boeing were aware of the potential dangers” of Boeing’s troubled emergency warning system, said David Gelles and Natalie Kitroeff in The New York Times. Rep. Pete DeFazio (D.-Ore.) produced an email showing that as early as 2015 Boeing employees asked what would happen if the airplane’s “angle of attack” sensor failed. Other documents showed that Boeing knew pilots could face “catastrophic” failure if they “took 10 seconds to respond” to the sensor’s warning. With victims’ families seated behind him, Muilenburg acknowledged that, “We have work to do.”The most revealing exchange in Muilenburg’s Senate hearing was with Sen. Ted Cruz (R.-Texas), said Brooke Sutherland in Bloomberg.com. Pressed by Cruz, Muilenburg said he was “generally aware”…1 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019Mounting evidence of Ukraine quid pro quoWhat happenedNew testimony from a top National Security Council official punched holes in President Trump’s defenses against impeachment this week, as House Democrats planned a vote to formalize their investigation and begin its “public-facing phase.” Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a decorated Army officer and the NSC’s top Ukraine expert, told House investigators that he listened in on Trump’s July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, during which Trump asked for “a favor”—investigations into Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, and a 2016 conspiracy theory. After the call, Vindman told a White House lawyer that he thought Trump’s request was improper. He also tried to restore portions of the call’s transcript that the White House cut, including references to Biden and a Ukrainian company that had…3 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019Good week/bad weekGood week for:Prosperity theology, after Kanye West announced that he was rewarded for becoming a born-again Christian with a $68 million tax refund in 2019. “God is using me to show off,” West said.American greatness, after Oregon’s Rogue River Blue won top prize at the prestigious annual World Cheese Awards in Italy. The French daily Ouest-France called it “sacrilege” that “the world’s best cheese is not French.”Mementos, after the gray, cigarette-burned cardigan worn by the late Kurt Cobain in Nirvana’s legendary MTV Unplugged session sold at auction for $334,000—the most expensive sweater ever sold.Bad week for:Cineastes, after Netflix, the streaming service, announced a trial program that will let viewers watch films and TV series at up to 1.5 times the original speed—what some are calling chipmunk mode. Director Judd Apatow…1 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019Mosque shootingBayonne, FranceAn elderly far-right supporter tried to set fire to a mosque in the Basque region of France this week and shot two men who caught him in the act. Claude Sinké—an 84-year-old former candidate for the anti-immigrant National Front—was attempting to torch the building when he was interrupted by two worshippers, ages 78 and 74. He opened fire and wounded both men, then set his car on fire before fleeing. Sinké, who was arrested and charged with attempted murder, told police he wanted to “avenge the destruction of Notre Dame Cathedral.” Authorities say the April blaze at the Paris cathedral was likely caused by faulty wiring, but far-right groups have spread the conspiracy theory that the fire was an act of arson by Muslims.U.S. Marine deportedSan Salvador, El SalvadorA…7 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019How LaBeouf got soberShia LaBeouf knows he has a terrible reputation, said Danny Leigh in The Guardian. “On paper, I’m a f--k-up,” concedes LaBeouf, 33. After blossoming from child stardom into a leading man, LaBeouf derailed his career with erratic, booze-fueled behavior and several confrontations with police. He nearly ruined his most recent film, which he says was also his most challenging: playing a supporting role alongside Zack Gottsagen, who has Down syndrome, in The Peanut Butter Falcon. “This didn’t feel safe,” LaBeouf says. “This felt like lighting yourself on fire.” The two bonded while filming, staying up at night watching wrestling on TV and indulging in vices—for Gottsagen, ice cream; for LaBeouf, gin. Then one night, LaBeouf got arrested for public drunkenness, and a video of him ranting at a black officer…1 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019Viewpoint“What we are calling polarization in the United States seems not to be ideological or even rational. What we are in fact doing is satisfying a deep, atavistic craving to belong to an in-group and to bind ourselves to our group by feeling and displaying animosity toward an out-group. If group solidarity requires us to excuse Donald Trump for behaviors far worse than those we condemned in Bill Clinton, no problem. As a result of their ideological somersaults, [partisans] continued to be aligned with the same in-group and opposed to the same out-group. The Republican base likes Trump precisely because the Democratic base hates him.”Jonathan Rauch in National Affairs…1 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019Royalty: A hard and stupid jobUNITED KINGDOMDavid AaronovitchThe TimesPrince Harry and his wife, Meghan, don’t much like being Windsors, said David Aaronovitch, and who can blame them? Members of the British royal family have staggering wealth and privilege, yet their “freedom of choice about their lives is almost as constrained as a slave’s.” And we, the Windsors’ ostensible subjects, drool for gossip about them, saying that because they live on the taxpayer’s coin, we have the right to judge their every move and utterance. It’s oppressive, as the couple told us last week in a TV documentary about their recent trip to Africa. Meghan was tearful about relentless criticism of her in the tabloids, while a protective Harry invoked his mother, Diana, who died in a Paris car crash fleeing paparazzi. “I will not be…1 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019Flaws in the Kims’ perfectionNORTH KOREALee Je-hunThe Hankyoreh (South Korea)In North Korea, the Kim ruling family is seen as godlike, said Lee Je-hun. State propaganda hails Great Leader Kim Il Sung—the Hermit Kingdom’s first dictator—and his son Dear Leader Kim Jong Il as the embodiment of wisdom. But the Kim now in charge, Kim Jong Un, has dared to hint that his forefathers made mistakes. Last week, he ordered officials to raze the “unpleasant-looking” buildings at the Mount Kumgang resort. The complex, which is just a few miles inside North Korea and was built largely by South Korea, opened in 1999 with the goal of luring tourists from the South. But the resort has largely sat empty since 2008, when a soldier shot dead a South Korean visitor. Kim said building the resort was…1 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019Barr: Turning the tables on Democrats?President Trump “has officially weaponized the Justice Department to go after his rivals,” said Ryan Bort in RollingStone.com. Attorney General William Barr’s review into whether the origins of the 2016 Russia investigation were politically motivated is now “officially a full-scale criminal investigation,” The New York Times reported last week. The U.S. attorney Barr tapped to lead the inquiry, John Durham, will now be able to issue subpoenas and impanel a grand jury to file criminal charges against FBI and intelligence officials involved in investigating Russia’s interference in the election. It’s a stunning development: Barr is clearly using the vast power of the Justice Department to investigate “baseless conspiracy theories” in the “service of the president’s political agenda.”Despite their dim view of Barr’s motivations, Democrats should be nervous, said Henry Olsen…2 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019Democrats: Looking for a ‘white knight’Panicky Democrats are asking, “Is there anybody else?” said Jonathan Martin in The New York Times. Alarmed by former Vice President Joe Biden’s “lackluster” debate performances and doubtful that Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s embrace of Medicare for All and other leftist policies can win over swing voters, Democratic donors and strategists are “longing for a white knight” to jump into the 2020 presidential race. Biden continues to lead national polls but isn’t generating excitement or campaign contributions and has only about a third of the cash that Warren and Sen. Bernie Sanders have on hand. With other centrist Democrats failing to gain momentum, some moderates are looking for a new standard-bearer. Former Secretary of State John Kerry, Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, and former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg are among…2 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019What’s new in techInauguration hack revealedA Romanian couple hacked into the street-camera system of Washington, D.C., days before the 2017 presidential inauguration, said Drew Hinshaw and Valentina Pop in The Wall Street Journal. “The 20-something couple with a history of small-time scams” had sent hundreds of thousands of emails embedded with so-called ransomware “in an attachment disguised as an invoice.” By chance, the list of emails they bought included the Washington, D.C., police department, where a recipient “took the bait” and opened the attachment, giving the couple in Bucharest access to 126 of the 186 computers linked to the cameras “that keep watch over the U.S. capital.” The hackers tried to get $60,800 in Bitcoin as a ransom. Authorities tracked down the perpetrators because one used the same email address to place an…2 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019A gene-editing ‘word processor’Scientists have developed a new gene-editing tool that they say could one day be used to correct 89 percent of the genetic mutations that cause inherited diseases such as cystic fibrosis and sickle cell anemia. The most popular existing gene-editing approach, CRISPR-Cas9, uses “molecular scissors” to home in on a faulty piece of genetic code, then cuts both strands of the DNA double helix and splices in a new section of code. Though cheap and fast, CRISPR-Cas9 often damages nearby code or inserts the new material in the wrong place. That’s not a problem when researchers are working in the lab and can toss out the samples, reports TheGuardian.com, but it becomes an issue when scientists want to rewrite genes inside a person’s body. The new technology, known as prime…1 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019Toxic metals in baby foodsMany common baby foods contain potentially harmful levels of arsenic, lead, and other toxic chemicals, reports NBCNews.com. The nonprofit group Healthy Babies Bright Futures (HBBF) tested 168 common baby foods from 61 brands. Ninety-four percent contained lead, 73 percent arsenic, 75 percent cadmium, and 32 percent mercury. A quarter contained all four metals; 1 in 5 had over 10 times the lead level deemed excessive by public health bodies. The harmful effects of these metals is well established: Lead exposure can affect brain development in children; arsenic is a carcinogen. “Even in the trace amounts found in food, these contaminants can alter the developing brain and erode a child’s IQ,” the authors write. “The impacts add up with each meal or snack a baby eats.” Among the highest-risk foods identified…1 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019Wild Game: My Mother, Her Lover, and Me(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $27)Adrienne Brodeur and her mother had “an exceptionally complicated” relationship, said Marion Winik in The Washington Post. When Adrienne was 14, her mother swore her to secrecy immediately after revealing to her during a summer on Cape Cod that she had just begun an affair with her husband’s married best friend. Adrienne’s beloved stepfather was one of the dupes, and the deception perpetuated by the other three lasted for years, warping the author’s life up through and including her first marriage. But Brodeur never depicts her mother as cruel for burdening her with role of enabler and accomplice. This stylish page-turner “manages to be both elegant and trashy at the same time, elevating 40-year-old gossip to an art form.”“Wild Game reads very much like a novel,” said…1 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019Jenny SlateThere has always been more to Jenny Slate than quirk, said Kate Dwyer in MarieClaire.com. The writer, actress, and comedian has built a career on a combination of loopiness and daring. After a season on Saturday Night Live and a star-making turn on Parks and Recreation, she played the lead in a romantic comedy, Obvious Child, about a stand-up comic who decides to have an abortion. So when she started writing her first nonchildren’s book, which became Little Weirds, she of course created her own rules. Written at a low point, shortly after a 2016 divorce, it consists of 48 short, poetic, whimsical, yet emotionally honest stream-of-consciousness musings. “I started to write things to myself to soothe myself,” Slate says. “And to just remember why I liked myself.”“Rest assured: Little…1 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019VagabonFor the artist known as Vagabon, “home isn’t a set location,” said Harry Todd in PasteMagazine.com. Cameroon-born, New York City–raised Laetitia Tamko carved a place for herself in white-dominated indie rock with her 2017 debut, Infinite Worlds. But her ambitious sophom*ore album breaks from that guitar-centric past, offering instead “a cosmic journey” that combines “synthetic sounds, lush orchestral suites, and lyrical self-realization.” Mostly self-produced by Tamko using computer software and her guitar, Vagabon is an ambient shelter big enough for her dreams, hopes, and fears. And it finds needed energy in the New Wave–like “Flood” and the pulsing, synth-driven “Water Me Down.” The mood “toggles between small-room intimacy and cathedral-size grandeur,” said Ann-Derrick Gaillot in Pitchfork.com. And though the evocative lyrics of “Please Don’t Leave the Table” are obscured by…1 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019Harriet(PG-13)The making of an abolitionist legendWhen Cynthia Erivo gazes straight into a camera, “she looks just like you’d imagined Harriet Tubman might have looked,” said Owen Gleiberman in Variety. That stare “communicates anger and anguish, fear and resolve, all held together by something like possession,” and it anchors a performance that lends depth to a long-overdue and “rock-solid” biopic that’s also “a rather prosaic piece of filmmaking.” It’s “essentially an origin story,” said Eric Kohn in IndieWire.com. A 27-year-old slave escapes from a Maryland plantation in the 1840s, finds a safe haven in Philadelphia, but then worries about loved ones left behind and begins leading daring nighttime group escapes. But even as the movie’s Harriet Tubman is establishing herself as the Moses of the Underground Railroad, the story “settles into…1 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019Movies on TVMonday, Nov. 4The ApostleIn a drama he wrote and directed, Robert Duvall delivers one of his finest performances playing a preacher who flees Texas after committing a brutal crime. (1998) 8 p.m., MovieplexTuesday, Nov. 5DesperadoAntonio Banderas plays a Mexican guitarist who can’t avoid gunfight upon gunfight in Robert Rodriguez’s own sequel to his 1992 art-house breakout, El Mariachi. (1995) 8 p.m., the Movie ChannelWednesday, Nov. 6BowfingerSteve Martin and Eddie Murphy team up for a comedy about a low-budget producer who hatches a scheme to make a movie without ever informing its very bankable star that cameras are rolling. (1999) 8 p.m., StarzThursday, Nov. 7Little Shop of HorrorsA geeky florist sees his life change when he befriends a talking Venus flytrap with a taste for blood. With Rick Moranis, Steve Martin…1 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019The best of Oakland: Too delicious to be overlooked“Forget San Francisco,” said Jessica Yadegaran, Linda Zavoral, and Jackie Burrell in the San Jose Mercury News. When we recently scoured the rest of the Bay Area for its best restaurants, we found “hundreds of incredible dining experiences,” topped by the region’s only kitchen that has earned a three-star rating from the Michelin Guide. But if you haven’t landed a reservation at David Kinch’s Manresa, in quaint Los Gatos, your first stop should be Oakland. San Francisco’s neighbor across the bay put three restaurants in our top six, led by a place that might be familiar.Nyum Bai The authentic Cambodian fare that Nite Yun serves wowed critics so much last year that her simple Fruitvale eatery was on several lists of America’s best new restaurants. You don’t just stumble upon…1 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019 Hawaii’s nighttime attractionsIf you travel all the way to Hawaii, “don’t end your day once the sun goes down,” said Valerie Stimac in the San Francisco Chronicle. On the main islands, there’s a lot to do after dark, including moonlit walks to Oahu’s Waimea Falls or stargazing from atop Maui’s largest volcano (mauistargazing.com). Families visiting Honolulu should see the Kailua Night Market, a Hawaiian interpretation of an Asian night market. Staying on the beach? Starlit strolls along the sand might also be illuminated by bioluminescent plankton, which thrive in local waters. Nocturnal travelers can also snorkel alongside Pacific manta rays, which flock to an LED-lit feeding area off the Big Island’s western coast, said Stacey McKenna in OutsideOnline.com. The massive fish, which can reach 21 feet wide, are sung about in a…1 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019The 2020 Subaru LegacyAutoblog.comSubaru’s most easily overlooked vehicle “deserves more love from whatever sedan fans are left.” For its latest incarnation, the Legacy has been “decisively improved.” It now rides on the same platform as the Outback, offering a “whisper-quiet” ride and more passenger room than any midsize rival except the barely larger Honda Accord. But the Legacy costs less and has all-wheel drive. And though the exterior “may have some people stifling yawns,” the interior “will have them catching their breath.”AutomobileSubaru’s new 11.6-inch tablet-style touch screen—standard in all but base trim—“has more than a touch of Tesla to it.” And the cabin as a whole proves to be unexpectedly elegant and well-appointed. Though the Legacy “has a tendency to float like a ’72 Buick over high-speed bumps,” it’s “surprisingly good in the…1 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019For obscure films and classic TVCriterion Channel offers an $11-a-month service that grants access to more than 1,000 classic and contemporary movies, including a lot of international and art-house titles. “You can really get lost in here.”Tubi takes viewers back to the ’80s, when local channels brimmed with sci-fi, martial arts, horror, and heavily edited erotic thrillers that were meant to compete with cable TV’s programming. “For a mix of Oscar winners and Jean-Claude Van Damme without spending a dime, search no more.”Shudder was once devoted to horror classics, but the $4.75-a-month streaming service owned by AMC Networks has branched out into thrillers and current horror flicks.Mubi is an “oddly curated” platform that streams only 30 little-known titles at a time, swapping in one new movie each day. Customers can either subscribe for $11 a…1 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019JEDI: Pentagon chooses Microsoft over AmazonThe Department of Defense picked Microsoft over Amazon for a $10 billion cloud-computing contract, said Kate Conger in The New York Times. Bidding for the 10-year agreement for the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, known as JEDI, was “closely watched after President Trump ramped up his criticism of Amazon’s founder, Jeff Bezos, and said he might intervene.” In a new book, the communications director for former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis says that Trump told Mattis to “screw Amazon” out of the bidding, but Mattis objected.Investing: Fed cuts rates in booming marketWith the stock market soaring, the Federal Reserve approved a rate cut for the third—and perhaps final—time this year, said Patti Domm in CNBC.com. After another quarter-point cut trimmed the benchmark interest rate to a range of 1.5 to 1.75 percent,…2 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019Charity of the weekFounded in 1988, Fourth Street Clinic (fourthstreetclinic.org) gives medical care to Utah’s homeless population. The charity began as a response to Salt Lake City’s demolition of single-room occupancy hotels, which fueled the homeless crisis. Starting as a small office, Fourth Street grew into a full-fledged clinic offering primary health, dental, and on-site and off-site specialty care. Uninsured homeless men, women, and children can see a doctor at no charge, and volunteers also help coordinate referrals for them to see social workers, get help at drug-treatment centers, and find temporary or permanent housing. Last year, Fourth Street Clinic served almost 5,000 homeless people, with more than 27,000 visitors. This year, the charity launched a mobile clinic to bring medical services to shelters across the city.Each charity we feature has earned a…1 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019The grande dame who ruled Cuban balletIn 1941, Alicia Alonso seemed destined for greatness. Recently recruited by New York City’s Ballet Theater, the Cuban ballerina was already dancing principal roles. Then disaster struck: The 20-year-old suffered retinal detachments in both eyes. She had to undergo three surgeries, the last of which required her to lie almost motionless in bed for a year after. Yet Alonso never stopped dancing: She practiced the steps of her dream role, the doomed peasant girl Giselle, with her fingers on the sheet. Left almost blind, she nevertheless returned to the Ballet Theater in 1943 and made her debut as Giselle, using the glare of specially placed lights to guide her onstage. It was a performance of grace, precision, and power, and Alonso—who later founded the National Ballet of Cuba—was soon named…2 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019The hustler who procured hookups for Hollywood starsFor years, movie insiders gossiped about a handsome former Marine who ran a prostitution ring out of a Hollywood gas station, supplying hookups for both straight and closeted gay screen idols. This hustler, Scotty Bowers, exposed his work in his 2012 memoir, Full Service. Bowers claimed to have arranged 20 tricks a day over several decades—free of charge—for clients including Cary Grant, Rock Hudson, Katharine Hepburn, Vincent Price, and Ava Gardner. He said he often provided the services himself, attending orgies with Cole Porter and bedding an inexhaustible Vivien Leigh. Some critics accused Bowers of exaggerating his encounters and slandering Hollywood greats, a charge he denied. “All of my famous tricks are dead,” he said. “The truth can’t hurt them anymore.”Raised in Chicago, Bowers joined the Marines in 1942 “and…1 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019Becoming AmericanTwo boys set out from Afghanistan on a harrowing journey through hostile waters and detention camps, said journalist Griff Witte in The Washington Post. In the suburbs of Dallas, they’ve found home.On the day that President Donald Trump slashed refugee admissions to their lowest level in four decades, the arrival of a dazed traveler at Dallas’ international airport last month offered a quiet rebuke. The newcomer was walking the final steps of an improbable, 15,000-mile odyssey. There to greet him were four others who had followed the same epic path to an American life, along with a native-born citizen clutching a hand-drawn, red-and-blue sign: “Welcome to Texas!”None would have been there had Trump had his way. In a nearly three-year campaign that has encompassed walls, travel bans, and the forced…9 min
The Week Magazine|November 8, 2019Hit jobThis week’s question: A Chinese hitman hired to murder a businessman’s competitor hired another assassin to do the job. After a series of other attempts to subcontract the killing, which never occurred, five men were convicted of attempted murder. If a film studio were to make a crime caper about this tale of outsourcing assassins, what title could it give the movie?Last week’s contest: A French chef is suing the Michelin Guide for downgrading him to two stars and accusing him of using cheddar cheese in a soufflé; chef Marc Veyrat insists he used fine local cheeses. If Hollywood were to make a courtroom drama about Veyrat’s quest for justice, what could it be called?THE WINNER: “Dirty Gratin Scoundrels” Kim Doyle, Woolwich, MaineSECOND PLACE: “A Few Gouda Men” Jason Winston,…1 min
