TheNewsGal, Edition No. 95
What a week! These are the standouts.
All the things
The Cactus That Came Back From The Dead: When a plant barely exists in the natural world but lives on your windowsill, is it really endangered? This made my brain spin. (Amir Aziz, The Walrus, ~8 min.)
Jeopardy!, Eugenics, And Me: When Cynthia Greenlee got a chance to compete on Jeopardy!, she did not expect her appearance to become a referendum on race and intelligence. Ugh. (Cynthia Greenlee, Harper’s Bazaar, ~9 min.)
Divorce can be an act of radical self-love. Someone had to say it. (Lara Bazelon, New York Times Opinion, ~6 min.)
Displaced: Graham Pruss on why more people are living in cars and RVs. Fascinating. (Thacher Schmid, The Sun, ~26 min.)
A Peer-Reviewed Portrait Of Suffering: James and Lindsay Sulzer have spent their careers developing technologies to help people recover from disease or injury. Their daughter’s freak accident changed their work — and lives — forever. Holy schnikees, I couldn’t put this down. (Daniel Engber, The Atlantic, ~32 min.)
Adele, Reborn: The British icon gets candid about divorce, body image, romance, and her “self-redemption” record. Finally. (Giles Hattersley, British Vogue, ~20 min.)
“I Was Part Of Something Unusually Evil”: In Kansas with Stephanie Grisham, who does not believe she will be redeemed. This is why we can’t have nice things. (Olivia Nuzzi, Intelligencer, ~16 min.)
The Happiest Place On Earth? Oh, Disneyland — I wish I knew how to quit you. (Albert Samaha, Paris Review, ~6 min.)
The Starlet-Spy: She was an international superstar. She was a world-class spy. The untold story of Josephine Baker. Thrilling. (Hanna Diamond, Truly Adventurous, ~30 min.)
The Femicide Case That’s Captivated Pakistan ... and barely made news in the U.S. (Rafia Zakaria, The Cut, ~5 min.)
The Myth Of Asian American Identity: We’re the fastest-growing demographic group in the U.S. But when it comes to the nation’s racial and ethnic divisions, where do we fit in? Another winner from the brilliant Jay Caspian Kang. (Jay Caspian Kang, New York Times Magazine, ~33 min.)
How Kumail Nanjiani Got Huge. I’m a fan. (Skipper Clay, GQ, ~10 min.)
The Moose And The Showgirl: The life and times of the Bullwinkle statue, 1961-2021. A stemwinder of an outing crammed full of delightful tidbits, asides, and ephemera, both literal and figurative. (Harry McCracken, Harry-Go-Round, ~62 min.)
Will the mainstream media ever face its failure to tell the truth about Jan. 6? Excellent. (Chauncey Devega, Salon, ~7 min.)
The Battle Of Jan. 6 Has Just Begun: Nine months after the storming of the Capitol, Trump is more popular with the G.O.P. and his Big Lie is more widely believed. Susan, say it ain’t so. (Susan B. Glasser, New Yorker, ~7 min.)
Giving Birth In The End Times: Writer Emily Holleman stares down the apocalypse and into the terrifying optimism of motherhood. Good god. (Emily Holleman, The Cut, ~13 min.)
Sri Yatun’s Escape: Every year, more than a thousand domestic workers are brought to the U.S. by diplomats and other foreign officials. What happens when those workers face abuse? Harrowing. (Noy Thrupkaew, Washington Post Magazine, ~29 min.)
We gave them our leftover frozen embryos. Now, we’re a family. Inside an extraordinary new fertility trend. Just awesome. (Joanna Long, Maclean’s, ~20 min.)
The curious incident of Sherlock Holmes’s real-life secretary. Who knew? (C.T. Scott, 1843, ~11 min.)
If you read one thing this week
The Nasty Logistics Of Returning Your Too-Small Pants: What happens to the stuff you order online after you send it back? Extra ugh. (Amanda Mull, The Atlantic, ~14 min.)