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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.
A billion dollar lawsuit against Fox News, a divorce from Jerry Hall and a broken engagement have made for an interesting 12 months for the 92-year-old media baron.
(Vanity Fair, approx 33 mins reading time)
At the age of 91, Murdoch blew up his fourth marriage. [Jerry] Hall was waiting for Murdoch to meet her at their Oxfordshire estate last June when she checked her phone. “Jerry, sadly I’ve decided to call an end to our marriage,” Murdoch’s email began, according to a screenshot I read. “We have certainly had some good times, but I have much to do…My New York lawyer will be contacting yours immediately.” Hall told friends she was blindsided. “Rupert and I never fought,” she told people. There had been disagreements over his antiabortion views and some friction with the kids over Hall’s rules about masking and testing before they saw Murdoch, according to sources. But Hall never felt Murdoch treated these as major issues. Hall and Murdoch finalized their divorce two months later. (One of the terms of the settlement was that Hall couldn’t give story ideas to the writers on Succession.) Hall told friends she had to move everything out of the Bel Air estate within 30 days and show receipts to prove items belonged to her. Security guards watched as her children helped her pack. When she settled into the Oxfordshire home she received in the divorce, she discovered surveillance cameras were still sending footage back to Fox headquarters. Mick Jagger sent his security consultant to disconnect them.
An interesting look at coincidences – whether they exist, and why they appeal to us so much – with some peculiar examples.
(The Guardian, approx 21 mins reading time)
There is a part of me that, despite myself, wants to entertain the possibility that the world really does have supernatural dimensions. It’s the same part of me that gets spooked by ghost stories, and that would feel uneasy about spending a night alone in a morgue. I don’t believe the universe contains supernatural forces, but I feel it might. This is because the human mind has fundamentally irrational elements. I’d go so far as to say that magical thinking forms the basis of selfhood. Our experience of ourselves and other people is essentially an act of imagination that can’t be sustained through wholly rational modes of thought. We see the light of consciousness in another’s eyes and, irresistibly, imagine some ethereal self behind those eyes, humming with feelings and thoughts, when in fact there’s nothing but the dark and silent substance of the brain.
The CEO of an online bookshop that supports independent bookstores speaks about how it came up against Amazon during the pandemic, and the importance of shopping local.
(Wired, approx 25 mins reading time)
Even though Catapult kept him plenty busy, Hunter really believed in his vision of a souped-up ecommerce platform uniting the indies. Little stores deserved to find customers online, too, even if they didn’t have the resources to set up their own online shops. Offering them a way to band together felt like a righteous crusade. Plus, Hunter figured it could be a low-effort side gig. What started as a favor done on a business-trip whim has since become the great project of Hunter’s professional life. In its first few years of existence, Bookshop defied even its founder’s expectations and demonstrated how helpful its model could be for small businesses. Now, Hunter has a new plot twist in mind: He wants to show business owners how to scale up without selling out—without needing to kill the competition.
Every three years, magicians gather at the World Championship of Magic to compete for the title of world’s best. To win, they have to fool each other.
(National Geographic, approx 14 mins reading time)
Very few of FISM’s attendees earn a full-time income from magic: There are nuclear physicists, chess players, gastroenterologists. Years ago, Allison Shelley became a flight attendant to pay her way to FISM and now she visits her fellow magicians on layovers. On long hauls, she practices her own flight attendant-themed act. “What else is there to do when the passengers are sleeping?” she said. “I use the mask and seatbelt as props and the window as a mirror.” The pressure-cooker contest can supercharge a magic career. A trick that impresses FISM’s 10-judge panels opens doors with retailers, TV show scouts, and theatrical bookers. It can even spark new trends in the magic world. But it’s also a place where a lifetime’s worth of sweat and practice might only receive curt applause.
Beginning in June, four volunteers will spend a year locked in a 3D-printed habitat pretending to live on Mars as part of Nasa’s next step to sending humans to the red planet.
(The Guardian, approx 7 mins reading time)
The four crew members will live in a small housing unit that was constructed using a huge 3D printer to simulate how Nasa may create structures on the Martian surface with Martian soil. They’ll conduct experiments, grow food and exercise – and be tested regularly so scientists can learn what a year on Mars could do to the body and mind. “This is really an extreme circumstance,” said Dr Suzanne Bell, who leads the Behavioral Health and Performance Laboratory at the Nasa Johnson Space Center. “You’re asking for individuals to live and work together for over a one-year period. Not only will they have to get along well, but they’ll also have to perform well together.”
The actor who plays Logan Roy shares his thoughts about that twist in last Sunday’s episode of Succession. Be warned, the following interview contains major spoilers.
(The New York Times, approx 7 mins reading time)
At 76, Cox is a titan himself, albeit of a different kind. A native Scotsman and a renowned Shakespearean stage actor, he has won two Laurence Olivier Awards and was named a commander of the Order of the British Empire. For his screen works, he has earned an Emmy (“Nuremberg,” 2001), a Screen Actors Guild Award (for “Succession,” which he shared with the ensemble cast) and dozens of other nominations in North America and Britain. And yet, at an age when many successful actors might be tempted to bask in the glow of their trophies, Cox dove headlong into what has become a career-defining role, the kind for which strangers stop you on the street and beg you to do a bit
…AND A CLASSIC FROM THE ARCHIVES…
An interview from 2020 where Joe Biden speaks about his stutter.
(The Atlantic, approx 28 mins reading time)
Maybe you’ve heard Biden talk about his boyhood stutter. A non-stutterer might not notice when he appears to get caught on words as an adult, because he usually maneuvers out of those moments quickly and expertly. But on other occasions, like that night in Detroit, Biden’s lingering stutter is hard to miss. He stutters—if slightly—on several sounds as we sit across from each other in his office. Before addressing the debate specifically, I mention what I’ve just heard. “I want to ask you, as, you know, a … stutterer to, uh, to a … stutterer. When you were … talking a couple minutes ago, it, it seemed to … my ear, my eye … did you have … trouble on s? Or on … m?”
Note: The Journal generally selects stories that are not paywalled, but some might not be accessible if you have exceeded your free article limit on the site in question.
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So healthcare workers should have to put their lives at risk when there has been a warning for people to stay indoors? I’m sorry, I don’t think so. Why didn’t the person try to organize family to come or else organize to go to a care facility for the said time? I’m sorry but people were instructed to stay indoors.
@Greeneyes17: I’m sorry but who said healthcare workers should put their lives at risk? I’m sorry but that’s a touch of a straw man.
@Greeneyes17: Well this comment shows your level of ignorance on the topic. First of all most of those people with care packages don’t have family or family close by. Second of all what care facility do you suggest ?,These don’t exist. There are nursing homes for elderly people which are usually are full with waiting lists to get in. There are no care facilities that people can just go to. No one expects people to travel when they can’t but measures have to be introduced for national weather emergencies. Temporary live in carers would be an answer but an expensive one. Bottom line is just not as simple as you say and you should stop blaming the disabled for not being able to look after themselves.
@Greeneyes17: you are missing the point care providers can avail of help from the civil defence and defence force to go to there client in a emergency when code red is declared when the weather is bad
@Catherine Sims: excellent Catherine you go and temporarily live in with a vulnerable client juring the next red weather event????????
The health services and army and Gardai did a great job. But the volunteers in the Civil Defence who are volunteers did a fantastic job, on their own time. Often forgotten.
@Porterkev: “volunteers in the civil degence who are volunteers”…. wow thanks for pointing that out
@Porterkev:
One ambulance had to be dug out 6 times
https://www.dublinlive.ie/news/father-son-ambulance-team-praise-14381478
You know what one of the problems was? Too many people didn’t believe it was going to happen. Look back at the Journal comments. This narrative that joe public knew more than the scientists and meteorologists who have studied these things for years, was common.
@Dermot Lane: The cold bite was always coming but there was an admitted real possibility of Storm Emma changing course a few days before coming to Ireland and diverting from the course of going over any part of Ireland at all.
@Shane Corry: people were saying met E had it wrong the evening it hit because it didn’t come at 4pm On the button
Plans should be put in place for those needing care like mentioned above and halls made available to those who need it.
Spending millions yearly on ploughs etc is not viable once in a decade weather.
@Pilib O Muiregan: Dont agree. A snow plough is just a truck that can be used for other purposes. Just bracket on front 2 hold v shaped piece os steel. snow tires not v expensive.
@gregory: in Warsaw they put ploughs on the front of the bin lorries when it’s snowing.
Im supported by clarecare twice a day. Clarecare told their workers to just go to emergency cases on thurs morning but many workets chose to stay at home. All services in Ennis and surrounding areas were fine up til about 6/7pm that eve. No one checked in on thursday no one checked in on friday Saturday or Sunday ie even a phone call.
There was no contingency plans what would have been really useful was phone contact with people who were vulnerable. Many had no one from Wed to Monday.
Conditions were too bad to travel on friday or Saturday but Alternative plans to check in with people would have been better.
The National Standard, even if this exists…, for burying water pipes underground needs to have the depth increased.
@gregory: there is a national standard but it was ignored during the boom. But it never got cold enough for pipes to freeze, this time.
I think the publicity for the emergency services is over done during the storm. There’s very good stories of great work no doubt but if you’re working in this area it’s just part of the job we don’t need to heap praise in them just pay them more where they should be.
1/2 What will become of people like my brother when they are forced out of their residential centres into dispersed housing in rural communities (where many roads were not even treated during this weather event)? Unlike the people with disabilities who were able to pick up the phone and ring Tom Clonan, my brother now 41, cannot speak, pick up a phone, dial a number, call for help, walk, feed or get himself a drink or change his own nappies – his intellectual age is 6 months to 1 year. Yet ‘disability advocates’ gung ho on independent living and wiping out ‘institutions’ insist even those with severe and profound needs should live an ‘ordinary life’ in an ‘ordinary place’ with ‘no special treatment’ – just because that’s what the majority of people with disabilities want for themselves.
A formal buddy system needs to be set up by HSE for all vulnerable persons where a designated person such as a neighbour can volunteer to check up if a carer doesn’t turn up it. It might simply mean making a quick phone call during the crisis or looking in for 10 minutes.
2/2 Once the HSE’s Time to Move On from Congregated Settings policy is fully implemented, the 76 residents who occupy ten houses (mainly large chalets) on my brother’s beautiful campus will be scattered here, there and everywhere in small houses of 3 or 4 with agency staff coming and going. Whereas during this storm they had a continuation of care thanks to a well staffed campus where nurses and carers could stay with them, in the future they will be in the very position those who contacted Tom Clonan were in this time around. Only unlike them, they won’t be able to call him or anyone. There are people with disabilities who fully rely on others for their survival – leaving cold food & drinks next to my brother’s bed would not work for the same reason it wouldn’t work with an infant.
No mention of other voluntary agencies that have been doing great work, the likes of Order of Malta, St Johns and Red cross, who mobilised vehicles and personnel all over the country during the bad weather! IT’s not just the civil defence you know!
Global warming causing Sudden Stratospheric Warming’s hasn’t really kicked off yet and when it does then these things will get more common and WORSE.
@Alois Irlmaier:
Please define “Global warming causing Sudden Stratospheric Warming’s” as even google struggle with that one.
I fully expect that the Gestapo will issue a curfew for a future weather event.
This will be the inaguration of the new Irish Communist State.
It is up to the government to make sure that there is enough of a supply of crack, mack, cocaine, heroin, alcohol etc for those who refuse shelter.
What a kip of a country, we are great for meddling in other peoples business but cant mind our own, I’m a pensioner &recently got a bill from my electric company for almost a thousand euros? I know I don’t owe that money as I live in a one bed apt & i’m seldom home, the bill was for eighty four days, The company are saying that I do owe the money so I asked them to prove to me that I owe them the money but they haven’t come back to me, My point is that there are a lot of unqualified people in jobs that they are not qualified to be in, In other words they are chancers, God help us & save us from the vultures
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