The slickest cities, Epstein requests mansion arrest, and Orange is the new Blackhawk Down.
Things have been going well in Texas. Well, parts of Texas. In the cities. Well, some of the cities. The NYT on The Texas Miracle That Missed Most of Texas. “Few parts of America have nurtured faster job growth than Texas in the years since the 2008 financial crisis, in what is now the longest sustained economic expansion in American history. But that growth has largely left cities like Longview in the dust. No state — not even California, long held up as the embodiment of America’s widening geographic inequality — has seen a larger post-recession divergence between its elite cities and everywhere else.”
+ When it comes to the concentration of wealth in a few key metros, the lone star state has a lot in common with the rest of America. The “winner-take-all dynamic has led to stark inequalities and rising tensions — both inside and outside city limits — that are helping to drive our politics off the rails.” Axios with a look at the age of winner-take-all cities.
Arrest in Peace
Jeffrey Epstein’s lawyers argued their client should be granted bail and placed under house arrest in his $77 million NYC mansion. As they explained, “Mr. Epstein feared the toxic political climate might tempt the government to try and end-run the NPA — yet continually returned home from travel abroad, fully prepared to vindicate his rights under the agreement and otherwise mount a full-throated defense.” (You know, that toxic political climate in which pedophilia, human trafficking, child rape are frowned upon…)
+ NY Mag: Everything We Know About Jeffrey Epstein’s Private ‘Pedophile Island‘.
Cage Match
The New Yorker’s Isaac Chotiner talks to an expert about how America treats its detained children compared to other countries. “Anytime we are looking at deficiencies in terms of conditions of detention, lack of access to needed programming, lack of attention to mental-health and other health services—the cause of that is not that there is not money, or there is no capacity, or there is no expertise, as has been the case in some places that I have been. It’s a policy choice. It’s a choice to inflict these kinds of conditions on people, and in this case on children.”
+ NYT: Thousands Are Targeted as ICE Prepares to Raid Undocumented Migrant Families.
+ “It is this next step that is being test-marketed now. It is being done in Italy by the far-right leader and minister for the interior Matteo Salvini. How would it go down if we turn away boatloads of refugees? Let’s do a screening of the rough-cut of registering all the Roma and see what buttons the audience will press. And it has been trialled by Trump: let’s see how my fans feel about crying babies in cages. I wonder how it will go down with Rupert Murdoch.” Fintan O’Toole on the test marketing of barbarism.
Face Time
“For several years in parts of Asia, guys have been dabbing on color cosmetics and buying products such as BB cream—or beauty balm, a tinted moisturizer. Now such products are slowly catching on with men in big cosmetics markets such as the U.S. and China, creating a potentially massive opportunity for beauty companies.” Bloomberg: Gen Z Is Blowing Open the Market for Men’s Makeup.
+ Wells Fargo Says ‘Retro’ Has Peaked. Goodbye Logo Sweatshirt. (I wasn’t even trying to be retro. I just never buy new clothes…)
Citizenship Ahoy
“Any action to get past the Supreme Court ruling would likely draw an immediate legal challenge, and officials were still scrambling to finalize language in the hours after Trump’s tweet.” AP: Trump to announce new executive action on census question.
Park Avenue
“Almost a third of the roughly 60,000 people experiencing homelessness in Los Angeles County live in their vehicles, according to the 2019 Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority point-in-time count. In Venice, that population increased by 65% last year to 447 people.” Santa Monica Daily Press: Vanlord parks homeless crisis in residential neighborhoods.
+ “The company reviewed mileage records and learned that a certain number of its vehicles were being returned after having ‘traveled no distance.'” The Verge: People in Japan are renting cars but not driving them.
Rain on the Scarecrow
“It’s hard, monotonous labor that supports an industry worth approximately $990 billion—and feeds the nation. Many Americans, maybe most, don’t think about that, Anciso says. “You go and have your salad but don’t realize someone’s breaking their back to harvest that.” Most shocking of all, hundreds of thousands of these workers are minors—and it’s perfectly legal.” Pacific Standard: The Young Hands That Feed Us.
Orange is the New Black Hawk Down
“Our assignment for him was simple. Use the interviews and facts laid out in the Mueller report (plus those from reliable, fact-checked sources and published firsthand accounts) to do what he does best: Tell a story recounting Mueller’s report that’s so gripping it will hold your attention (and maybe your congressional representative’s).” Insider: We hired the author of ‘Black Hawk Down’ and an illustrator from ‘Archer’ to adapt the Mueller report so you’ll actually read it. (If only they could squeeze the whole thing into a tweet…)
Achoo, Achoo, Aha
“If further research bolsters this relationship between allergies and mental health, it could provide a fascinating glimpse into how our bodies might influence our minds, and possibly vice versa. Two seemingly unconnected diseases, each affecting millions of Americans, could turn out to be not so different after all.” The Atlantic: The Reason Anxious People Often Have Allergies. (The mind body connection: the neck.)
Bottom of the News
“Though the Apollo Guidance Computer (ACG) was cutting-edge technology for its time, when compared to the computer-based items we use every day, they were pretty basic. Computer Weekly reported that these ‘ingenious computer systems’ were no more powerful than a pocket calculator and that the ACG was ‘more basic than the electronics in modern toasters that have computer controlled stop/start/defrost buttons.'” 50 Facts About the Apollo 11 Moon Landing for Its 50th Anniversary.
+ Legal marijuana looks to be boosting snack sales. (Shocker…)
+ Metallica to publish children’s book, The ABCs of Metallica.
+ “A turquoise lake in Siberia has become a sparkling background for Instagram photos, drawing so many people that a nearby coal plant operator had to issue a warning: It’s not a pristine oasis, it’s a chemical dump.”
