The Rich Are Crazier Than You and Me (Paul Krugman)
"(Politician Honda Hiranao) comment came amid a discussion on raising Japan’s age of consent for sex from 13 years of age. Last month, Japan’s parliament finally changed the law, raising the age of consent to 16. Under the previous law, which was written in 1907, a person aged 13 or older had to prove in court that they had resisted sexual advances in order to be able to prove that any encounter was non-consensual, and thereby rape." (Priyanka Borpujari/The Diplomat)
"Christian evangelicals in the United States sometimes like to identify the ancient Persian emperor Cyrus the Great with Donald Trump. Both are vessels for God’s plan on earth. This may seem surprising: Trump is no more obviously Christian than Cyrus, who died half a millennium before Christ was born, and neither would score highly on a morality test. But, it turns out, the leakier the vessel, the greater the god.” (Josephine Quinn/(LRB)
“For those who do not know her (and apparently there are still plenty who don’t): Octavia Estelle Butler is one of our greatest writers, though in the larger culture she is described as the first Black woman to write science fiction professionally. That biographeme—Black Woman Science Fiction Writer—defined Butler her entire career in spite of the fact that her extraordinary and most well-known novel, Kindred (1979), was not science fiction at all, but a neo-slave narrative that Butler herself described as ‘grim fantasy.’” (BRB)
"Barely two weeks since being sworn into office, Finland’s new coalition government is reeling from a string of controversies that have shone a spotlight on the prevalence of far-right ideology within one of its key players. The scandals surrounding the anti-immigration Finns Party – from one minister casually firing off jokes about Nazi phrases and KKK snowmen, to another repeatedly invoking the racist ‘Great Replacement’ conspiracy theory – have already triggered the resignation of Economic Affairs Minister Vilhelm Junnila, and led to calls for another minister to follow suit. " (VICE)
“But there is a way for Washington to take the lead in supporting these countries’ ambitions and reflecting their increasing clout: jump-starting the long-stalled debate over expanding the UN Security Council. Many of the world’s most powerful developing states have long sought a place in the body, and a credible U.S. drive to add them would have singular, symbolic significance.” (Suzanne Nossell/Foreign Affairs)
“The United Nations Security Council consists of 15 members, out of which only 5 nations – the United States, the UK, France, Russia and China — are permanent and hold the power to impose a veto on the council’s resolutions. Considering the geopolitics of today, such a configuration seems …. almost quaint.” (The Corsair)
“Three hundred years of colonial rule produced an intense syncretism of indigenous and European cultures, a bold new aesthetic accompanied by many new paradoxes, and these can be glimpsed today in both lighter and darker manifestations, some playful and others barbaric. Mexican Baroque emerged from the conquest of the New World, from the long, fraught process of negotiation and subjugation that began to unfold once the Spaniards established their rule in 1521.” (Chloe Aridjis/The Paris Review)
"His fresh culinary approach (it’s not every day you see Nigerian-inspired Egusi dumplings or the words ‘hot pocket’ and ‘bodega special’ on an upscale menu) has not only won him scores of praise, but it’s also quietly changing perceptions of fine dining—and who gets to lead its kitchens. " (Baze Npija/Vogue)
“Despite talk of U.S.-China economic decoupling, recent data show that the world's two largest economies remain deeply linked, with two-way trade hitting a record $690 billion last year. ‘We seek healthy economic competition that is not winner-take-all but that, with a fair set of rules, can benefit both countries over time,’ Yellen told Chinese Premier Li Qiang in a meeting on Friday that the Treasury said was ‘candid and constructive.’” (Andrea Shalal and Joe Cash /Reuters)
Initially inspired by African-American feminists such as bell hooks, Michele Wallace and Alice Walker, I asked myself: ‘Where are Africa’s feminists?' (Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah)
“Staggered 18-year terms would bring regular turnover to the bench. The result would be a Court that better reflects prevailing public values.” (Alicia Bannon and Michael Milov-Cordoba/The Brennan Center)
“The federal government just reached a historic deal with California, Arizona, and Nevada to provide cities, irrigation districts, and tribal governments with around $1.2 billion to temporarily use less water from the Colorado River. This is great news for states along the Colorado River, which now have more time to come up with longer-term solutions for the ongoing drought crisis. In Arizona, however, these solutions will require unpopular political decisions – and there isn’t much time to enact them. One problem is Arizona’s ballooning population …” (Hayley Brown and Matt Sedlar/CEPR.net)
“Photography has long been considered mainly as expression in the service of a language of the eye.” (David Gibson)
"Another important part of the story of the standardisation of Kiswahili is that it was central to a variety of community-building projects across the course of a century. It was used by formerly enslaved students and missionaries alongside native speakers on Zanzibar and was central as a language of administration in Tanganyika, Zanzibar, Kenya and parts of Uganda during the colonial period. Kiswahili also played a political role in the anti-colonial movements of eastern Africa and among southern African freedom fighters who trained in Tanzania in the 1960s and 1970s. It was even embraced by some US civil rights activists. All these communities used the language at various times to strengthen ties and communicate across barriers that otherwise might have kept people apart. " (Morgan Robinson)
"As Jonathan Majors prepares for a May 8 court appearance on domestic violence charges, his PR problems are about to get bigger. Sources familiar with the matter tell Variety that multiple alleged abuse victims of Majors have come forward following his March arrest and are cooperating with the Manhattan district attorney’s office." (Variety)
How the West can forestall green OPECs (Prashant Rao/semafor)
Cornell West Should Run as a Republican. ( D.D. Guttenplan and Bhaskar Sunkara/The Nation)
"As a scholar who specializes on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and has written a book about it, I believe that this latest military operation will, in fact, only worsen that legitimacy crisis. Indeed, when three senior Palestinian Authority officials attended a mass funeral in Jenin on July 5, 2023, for some of the Palestinians killed in the fighting – at least 12 Palestinians were killed, most confirmed as militants – they were accused by mourners of weakness and quickly forced to leave by an angry crowd chanting, ‘Get out! Get out!'" (Dov Waxman/The Conversation)
"Inspired by Andreas Malm’s radical 2020 manifesto of the same name, this pulsating eco-thriller follows a group of climate activists as they plot the destruction of a new segment of oil pipeline running through West Texas." (NME)
“Nancy Yao, who had been tapped to serve as founding director of the Smithsonian’s forthcoming American Women’s History Museum in Washington, DC, has said she will not take up the role.” (ArtForum)