IT’S A DAY of rest, and you may be in the mood for a quiet corner and a comfy chair.
We’ve hand-picked the week’s best reads for you to savour.
1. My travels in White America
You might have seen a clip of Gary Younge meeting Richard Spencer, champion of the so-called ‘alt right’. Here’s the in-depth write-up by Younge of his travels in white America.
(The Guardian, approx 14 mins reading time)
Across from the counter, Ted sits in a T-shirt emblazoned with a Native American in full headdress. He thinks white America is getting a rough deal and will soon be extinct. “There’s not many white Americans left. They’re a dying breed. It’s going to be yellow-white Americans, African-American white Americans, you know what I’m saying? The cultures are coming together,” he says, with more than a hint of melancholy. “Blending and blending, and pretty soon we’ll just be one colour.”
2. My restaurant ruined my life
For those who haven’t read this yet – an absorbing (and stressful) read about a man who decided to set up his own restaurant. It didn’t go well.
(Toronto Life, approx 29 mins reading time)
The next step was to find a space. I scoured listings and realized that my $60,000 could barely cover the cost of a chip truck. I contacted the banks to apply for a business loan, but I didn’t qualify. I looked into a few angel investor groups, but it turned out that they didn’t “do” restaurants. I even considered Dragons’ Den. As it turns out, no one invests in first-time restaurateurs, no matter how mind-blowing they think their cooking is.
3. The shocking truth behind the illicit ape trade
A fascinating – and horrifying – look at the illicit ape trade and how social media gives clues as to what’s happening.
(New York Times, approx 14 mins reading time)
Daniel Stiles, a self-styled ape trafficking detective in Kenya, had been scouring Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp for weeks, looking for pictures of gorillas, chimps or orangutans. He was hoping to chip away at an illicit global trade that has captured or killed tens of thousands of apes and pushed some endangered species to the brink of extinction. “The way they do business,” he said of ape traffickers, “makes the Mafia look like amateurs.”
4. Meet the ‘freemen’ who say they’re beyond the law
These ‘freemen’, who say they live beyond the law, explain how they ended up doing so.
(Buzzfeed News, approx 17 mins reading time)
The thing that got me more into this was when someone turned round and told me about birth certificates. You’re born into this world, you’re given a birth certificate, it’s got a code on it. You have this code all your life, and if you took that number into a stockbroker’s market he would tell you how much you’ve earned throughout your life and how much taxes you’ve earned. So basically they are banding you. And I don’t want to be banded.
5. I learned to love the right
Is it possible to leave the ‘liberal bubble’ and learn to love the right? This writer says he did.
(Daily Beast, approx 19 mins reading time)
In general, our view of policy and ideology is driven by signaling; that is, our political perspective is often shaped by what others are suggesting we should think rather than by any careful and independent consideration of the issues. The research on this goes a long way back and mostly suggests that political scientists like to fuck with voters.
More horrific stories and allegations are emerging about Harvey Weinstein and the women he allegedly abused.
(New Yorker, approx 28 mins reading time)
In the fall of 2016, Harvey Weinstein set out to suppress allegations that he had sexually harassed or assaulted numerous women. He began to hire private security agencies to collect information on the women and the journalists trying to expose the allegations. According to dozens of pages of documents, and seven people directly involved in the effort, the firms that Weinstein hired included Kroll, which is one of the world’s largest corporate-intelligence companies, and Black Cube, an enterprise run largely by former officers of Mossad and other Israeli intelligence agencies.
…AND A CLASSIC FROM THE ARCHIVES…
Here’s the side to the children’s classic Goodnight Moon that you haven’t heard: a lognread about “broken homes, broken noses”.
(Joshua Prager, approx 20 mins reading time)
Holding up a photo of himself when he was 12 next to one of Ms. Brown, Albert Clarke, his hair now white, his nose misshapen from multiple breaks, says the resemblance is clear. “The chin, the shape of the mouth, the nose, the shape of the eyes,” he says. “I believe she is my mother.” Besides, he says, the inheritance is strong proof of his maternity. He adds: “Isn’t that why most people leave money to most people?”
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