Fracking, America, Parenting, Nick Hornby, Jeff Bezos
Life On The Oil Frontier
Maya Rao | Longreads | 23rd April 2018
Notes from the North Dakota oilfields. “For all the technological marvels of this great fracking boom, gender mores date to the nineteenth century. Men come here to pay off child support debts, leaving struggling single mothers across America. Some oil workers owe so much back child support that it’s a felony. Men unyoked from their families, reeling from broken bonds, are the norm: some contrite and faithfully sending checks, others blowing their money on meth, pickups and good times” (2,550 words)
The Reinvention Of America
James Fallows | Atlantic | 23rd April 2018
An optimist’s case for America. It looks better close up. “America is becoming more like itself again. Even as the country is becoming worse in obvious ways — angrier, more divided, less able to do the basic business of governing itself — it is becoming distinctly better on a range of other indicators that are harder to perceive. The pattern these efforts create also remains hidden. Americans don’t realize how fast the country is moving toward becoming a better version of itself” (5,900 words)
How I Got This Baby
Tara | The Cut | 19th April 2018
A mother discovers at seven months that her baby has severe chromosomal disorder. “My abortion happened over four days. The first day they do what’s called feticide; I’m not sure how I feel about that word, but that’s what they call it. That’s definitely the most emotionally difficult day, because they have to inject the baby with a chemical that stops the heart. I remember it was raining. And I was glad about that — I thought that it would have been hateful if it were sunny” (3,500 words)
Arsene Wenger Exits Arsenal
Nick Hornby | ESPN | 23rd April 2018
There will “never be a better Arsenal manager and there will never be a smarter or more likeable one”. But it was high time for Wenger to go. “If you’re over a certain age, the Golden Age of Arsene only seems like yesterday, but my sons and their friends are fed up of hearing about what a 68-year-old man did a decade or more ago. They are disoriented: Arsene has been the manager of Arsenal their entire lives. By comparison, they have lived under four Prime Ministers and eleven Chelsea managers” (1,200 words)
Inside Jeff Bezos’s Washington
Ben Wofford | Washingtonian | 22nd April 2018
America’s richest man raises his profile in Washington, DC, where his liabilities include a feud with the president and his assets include the biggest newspaper in town, the Washington Post, and the biggest house in town — a $12 million former museum which he is refitting with 191 doors, 25 bathrooms, 11 bedrooms, five living rooms or lounges, five staircases, three kitchens, two library/studies, two exercise rooms, two elevators and a ballroom. When he moves in, will Amazon move with him? (5,770 words)
Video of the day Kut
What to expect:
Animated exercise by Lucija Mrzljak modelling the laws of perspective and gravity (2’05”)
Thought for the day
I’m no longer quite sure what the question is, but I know the answer is Yes
Leonard Bernstein
Podcast The Scarcity Trap | Hidden Brain
Shankar Vedantam and guests discuss how deprivation skews our judgment. We fixate on what we lack
(36m 40s)