Embalming, Billionaires' Wives, East Jerusalem, work, Armenia, Globalization
Lenin’s Body Improves With Age
Jeremy Hsu | Scientific American | 22nd April 2015
Generations of Russian scientists have worked for 90 years to maintain the "look, feel and flexibility" of Lenin's body in its Red Square tomb. When body parts cannot be adequately preserved, they are replaced. "Researchers developed artificial skin patches when a piece of skin on Lenin's foot went missing in 1945. A moldable material made of paraffin, glycerin and carotene has replaced much of the skin fat" (1,220 words)
The Billionaires’ Wives’ Club
Lucy Kellaway | Financial Times | 27th April 2015 | | Read with 1Pass
Why do billionaires — with a few conspicuous exceptions — typically have long-lasting marriages, despite the demands of work and the temptations of wealth? "I wonder if it might be that when the truly weird find someone who suits them, they don’t give them up in a hurry ... Or it could simply be that if you hardly ever see your spouse, he or she is significantly less likely to get on your nerves" (850 words)
Slow Violence In East Jerusalem
Teju Cole | Guardian | 17th April 2015
"The Israeli oppression is not necessarily – or at least not always – as crude as Western media can make it seem. It is extremely refined, and involves a dizzying assemblage of laws and by-laws, contracts, ancient documents, force, amendments, customs, religion, conventions and sudden irrational moves, all imposed with the greatest care ... The permanent residency of a Palestinian in East Jerusalem is anything but permanent" (1,885 words)
The Asshole Factory
Umair Haque | Bad Words | 21st April 2015
I had great trouble resisting a suitable photograph to go with this fine rant. "Our world is now full of Asshole Factories. That’s what the stores, offices, industrial parks, skyscrapers, malls, low-rise blocks, gleaming headquarters, whimsically designed corporate campuses, really are. It’s the grand endeavor of today. We don’t make stuff anymore. We make assholes. The Great Enterprise of this age is the Asshole Industry" (1,580 words)
Epic Of A Genocide
James Reidel | New York Review Of Books | 24th April 2015
Franz Werfel "worked a miracle for Armenians around the world" by collecting memories of the 1915 genocide and working them into an epic novel, The Forty Days Of Musa Dagh, which immortalised the Armenian tragedy and foreshadowed the Jewish one. Musa Dagh was published in Germany in November 1933, banned in February 1934; Werfel was a Jew and a "burned author". He remains to this day "a virtual Armenian saint" (2,480 words)
The Great Unraveling Of Globalization
Jeffrey Rothfeder | Washington Post | 24th April 2015
Everybody said globalization was the future of industry. Everybody was wrong. Globalization "is proving a barely-profitable and perplexing strategy for most companies." Markets are closing, profit margins are falling, cost-savings are being competed away. "What was until recently a taboo topic inside multinationals — to wit, should we reconsider, even rein in, our global growth strategy? — has become an urgent, if still hushed, discussion" (2,530 words)
Video of the day: Hamburg, June 1945
What to expect: Newly discovered documentary footage of occupied Hamburg. The sound appears to be dubbed (2'44")
Thought for the day
Australians are just British people who are happy
Craig Hill