TheNewsGal, Edition No. 99
What a week! These are the standouts.
All the things
Amazing Photos Of Airport Reunions After The Coronavirus Pandemic Separated Families. I’m not crying, you’re crying. (Pia Peterson, BuzzFeed News, ~5 min.)
The Coming Age Of Climate Trauma: Three years after a devastating wildfire, a California community faces another crisis: PTSD. Is what’s happening there a warning to the rest of us? Yeesh. (Andrea Stanley, Washington Post Magazine, ~24 min.)
Jeff Goldblum on achieving “self-trustfulness” and making movie scientists cool. Yes, please. (Kory Grow, Rolling Stone, ~9 min.)
The Strange, True Story Of John Williams And Charles Pennock: In the early 1900s, it wasn’t unusual for men to suddenly go missing. Among them were two accomplished bird experts whose lives turned out to be surprisingly intertwined. The craziest story about bird enthusiasts I read this week. (Tal McThenia, Audubon Magazine, ~20 min.)
The Cancer Celebrities: Why I love Farrah Fawcett and hate Sheryl Crow. So good. (Caitlin Flanagan, The Atlantic, ~8 min.)
The Butcher Of Havana: How a drifter from Milwaukee became the chief executioner of the Cuban Revolution — and a test case for U.S. civil rights. Hold onto your hat. (Tony Perrottet, The Atavist, ~35 min.)
The Thinking Man’s Guide To Hitting A Moose: I’m really sorry it happened and really glad I survived. Notes on the flabbergasting climax of an Alaska road trip that changed my life. What a read. (Ted Genoways, Outside, ~19 min.)
Left Behind: The Build Back Better Act makes families a bargaining chip. Ugh. (Lydia Kiesling, The Baffler, ~6 min.)
The Human Cost Of Recycled Cotton: Everyone in the fashion world wants to find a more sustainable, environmentally friendly way to make cotton clothes. But almost no one understands the social costs of innovation. This is why we can’t have nice things. (Alden Wicker, Craftsmanship Quarterly, ~20 min.)
This tribe helped the Pilgrims survive for their first Thanksgiving. They still regret it 400 years later. Today in Things I Never Learned In School. (Dana Hedgpeth, Washington Post, ~14 min.)
Powell’s Books survived Amazon. Can it reinvent itself after the pandemic? For my Oregon readers. (Peter S. Goodman, New York Times, ~8 min.)
We’re All Homeschoolers Now: How the pandemic revealed the value of lessons learned outside the classroom. This isn’t what I thought it was, and all the better for it. (Catherine Womack, Alta Journal, ~14 min.)
Susan Orlean On Selling The Farm: The On Animals author says goodbye for now to her upstate New York menagerie. Oh, my heart. (Susan Orlean, Elle, ~6 min.)
This SeaWorld Twitter thread is just cool. (Matthew Strugar, Twitter, ~5 min.)
Nikole Hannah-Jones Keeps Her Eyes On The Prize: Beloved by the hopeful, besieged by the right, America’s groundbreaking public intellectual talks about creating the 1619 Project, the harms of social media, and how the anti-CRT crusade avoids our country’s truth. Huge fan. (Alexis Okeowo, Vanity Fair, ~16 min.)
The Best Defense: Paul K. Chappell on the urgent need for peace literacy. An utterly fascinating Q&A with a leading peace educator. (Leslee Goodman, The Sun, ~25 min.)
Selling Certainty: In a sea of skeptics, this physician was one of fibromyalgia patients’ few true allies. Or was he? Holy schnikees. (Eric Boodman, Stat, ~33 min.)
The High Cost Of Living In A Disabling World: For all the advances of recent decades, disabled people cannot yet participate in society “on an equal basis” with others — and the pandemic has led to many protections being cruelly eroded. I wish everyone would read this. (Jan Grue, The Guardian, ~20 min.)
The Incredible Tale Of The Greatest Toy Man You’ve Never Known: He brought Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, and Cabbage Patch Kids to our living rooms. He made and lost fortunes. Can Al Kahn stay in the game? Full of fun and surprises. (Scott Eden, Inc., ~24 min.)
A Death Full Of Life: If they’re not simply abandoned, they’re accused of wastefulness and pollution — cemeteries have a hard life in our current times. And yet, they can play an essential role, on both environmental and human levels, for those still living. Food for thought. (Gabrielle Anctil, Beside, ~11 min.)
He’s the youngest Chief in his First Nation’s history. Now he’s leading their fight against climate change. And he’s got an incredible personal story, to boot. (Tik Root, Washington Post, ~19 min.)
Where’s My Order? Tracing one container through a broken global supply chain. Smart explainer. (Jon Healey, Los Angeles Times, ~9 min.)
Cresting The Wave: A surfer comes to grips with a dark family secret born from the swells near Texas’ Bob Hall Pier. Love me a moving personal essay. (Joe Hagan, Texas Highways, ~14 min.)
Three Trials In America: The conversations playing out in courtrooms in Kenosha, Charlottesville, and Georgia are revealing. This country, my god. (Nikki Lew and Dahlia Lithwick, Slate, ~8 min.)
Would You Manage 70 Children And A 15-Ton Vehicle For $18 An Hour? How the nationwide school bus driver shortage helps explain our economic weirdness. Yeesh. (Maggie Koerth, FiveThirtyEight, ~17 min.)
Doctors gave her a choice: Let COVID-19 kill her child, or amputate his limbs. The pandemic horrors just keep coming. (Peter Holley, Texas Monthly, ~12 min.)
And Just Like That … Carrie’s Back! Sarah Jessica Parker opens up about a grand return. OK, I’m in, sheesh. (Naomi Fry, Vogue, ~15 min.)
If you read one thing this week
Where Is The Mystery Monkey Of Tampa Bay? The primate who ruled the news vanished again. A quest to find him led deep into Florida’s monkey kingdom. Delightful. (Stephanie Hayes, Tampa Bay Times, ~21 min.)