Jerry Weintraub, Haiti, British Slavery, Economics, Ta-Nehisi Coates
Jerry Weintraub Presents
Rich Cohen | Vanity Fair | 6th July 2015
A Rolls-Royce among profiles, from 2008, updated for Weintraub's death last week. "Jerry is old like God (70) and he too lives on a mountain in the desert, the Sinatra wilderness around Palm Springs. In the cool of the morning, he walks in his garden, or moves over the surface of the earth in one of his many cars. Before he wades into his swimming pool, his face, for a moment, is reflected in the chlorinated waters" (8,500 words)
Why Can’t We Stop Cholera In Haiti?
Rose George | Mosaic | 7th July 2015
Haiti's five-year-old cholera epidemic is the worst in modern world history. Nine thousand have died and there is no end in sight. Cholera should be relatively easy to eradicate; but Haiti has almost no sanitation and no functioning public health services to do the job. The only lab equipped for microbial analysis shut last year. "We’ve no clean drinking water, there are no toilets. We are not going to escape this” (4,200 words)
The History Of British Slave Ownership
David Olusoga | Guardian | 12th July 2015
Britain has forgotten its history of slavery in the West Indies, the source of many English fortunes, but the documents remain. When Britain abolished slavery in 1834 it paid slave-owners £20 million in compensation, equal to 40% of government expenditure for the year. Slaves had been a popular investment. Middle-class families in England bought slaves in the Caribbean and leased them to plantation-owners there (2,100 words)
Samuelson And Friedman: The Rivals
David Warsh | Economic Principals | 12th July 2015
When J.M. Keynes died in 1946 he was eulogised as a second Darwin, the father of modern economics. But within a year he was old news. Paul Samuelson's Foundations of Economic Analysis, published in 1947, "conquered the profession, high and low" with its recasting of economics in the language of mathematics. The rivalry between Samuelson and his only American peer, Milton Friedman, shaped economics for next 80 years (10,200 words)
The Hard Truths Of Ta-Nehisi Coates
Benjamin Wallace-Wells | New York | 12th July 2015
Hailed as America's new James Baldwin, Coates is changing the debate on race by arguing persuasively that America has always been organised for White supremacy. When slavery went, the oppression and exploitation of African-Americans continued by other means. “When people who are not black are interested in what I do, frankly, I’m always surprised. I don’t know if it’s my low expectations for white people or what” (5,600 words)
Video of the day: All Things Must Fall
What to expect: Zoetrope depicting the Massacre of the Innocents. Horrific subject, astonishing technique (2'14")
Thought for the day
Machines are for answers; humans are for questions
Kevin Kelly