Reading archive 2025-01-17

In Greenland, a cold shoulder for Trump, but curiosity about U.S. ties - "As a self-governing territory of distant Denmark, Greenland has limited self-rule but is also a welfare state. A third of the gross domestic product and half the state budget are supplied by Denmark, about $500 million a year."

Where Biden Turned the Battleship: The outgoing president’s legacy of revived antitrust enforcement won’t be easy to undo.

As L.A. considers rebuilding, here’s what people say they’re willing to change: For those who plan to rebuild, a natural question has emerged: What can be done differently to prevent the sort of destruction that has killed at least 24 people, leveled thousands of structures and inflicted untold billions in damage?

Ukraine hawk removed from House intelligence role, reportedly at Trump’s request: The move by Speaker Mike Johnson provides the latest evidence of a changing posture more favorable to Russia under Donald Trump.

Trump’s soft touch on China and Russia rears its head again: His maneuvers to “save TikTok” and the ouster of the hawkish chairman of the House Intelligence Committee evoke a familiar dynamic. - "'We won young people,' Trump said of the 2024 election. 'And I think that’s a big credit to TikTok. So I’m not opposed to TikTok.'"

Influencers Are Using the Los Angeles Fires to Hawk Wellness Products: Essential oils, detox regimens, and the booming disaster economy.

For L.A.’s homeless population, the fires upend hard-earned stability: Los Angeles County had started to curb homelessness. Will the fires undo it?

How resistance to Trump may look different in his second administration: Inauguration protests are expected to draw fewer people than in 2017, but activists say they are gearing up to oppose the new president with a movement that goes beyond marches.

‘I’m terrified’: TikTok’s looming ban sends creators scrambling: As the clock counts down, creators on the app that changed the online economy are hoping for a miracle. - "Dozens mobilized this week via live-stream 'phone-a-thons,' explaining to audiences of hundreds of thousands on TikTok what would be lost if the popular video app used by roughly 170 million U.S. users disappears." [ed. note: nothing. Nothing would be lost.]

The education of Elon and Vivek: For decades, reformers have laid siege to the bureaucracy and failed. DOGE could be different. - "The initial reaction to DOGE has been largely skeptical. There have been myriad attempts to reform federal spending in the 44 years between Stockman’s endeavor and this one. Each time, like Stockman before them, policymakers have come up against the intractable math: You can’t meaningfully reduce federal deficits without slashing the entitlement programs voters cherish or the military spending that members of Congress covet for their districts."

Lions playoff game puts Tom Brady’s conflict under brighter spotlight: Brady is set to call a postseason game for Fox involving two Lions coordinators who are head coaching candidates for the Raiders, partially owned by Brady.

Gay couples race to the altar before Trump takes office: Panicked about the incoming administration, some LGBTQ couples are rushing to say “I do” before Inauguration Day.

Starting Monday: The Trump administration’s days of blunder: Talk of tattoos, Jesus, enemies lists and a war with California mark the week before inauguration. - "On the same day Bannon spoke about Days of Thunder, I was in a hearing room in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, watching the most extravagantly unqualified nominee I have ever seen. Pete Hegseth makes the closest runner-up, Harriet Miers, George W. Bush’s ill-fated Supreme Court nominee, look like Oliver Wendell Holmes."

D.C. Council bill would allow bottles and cans to be recycled for cash: The bill would add a refundable 10-cent deposit to the price of beverage containers sold in D.C. stores and create a system for people to return empty bottles and cans.

Distinctive Jordan sneakers help ID suspect in Md. Lyft shooting: Brandon Leonard, 21, is accused of fatally shooting 36-year-old Oluwatosin Adetula after requesting a ride on New Year’s Day.

The Case for Letting Malibu Burn: Many of California’s native ecosystems evolved to burn. Modern fire suppression creates fuels that lead to catastrophic fires. So why do people insist on rebuilding in the firebelt? - "'Total fire suppression,' the official policy in the Southern California mountains since 1919, has been a tragic error because it creates enormous stockpiles of fuel. The extreme fires that eventually occur can transform the chemical structure of the soil itself. The volatilization of certain plant chemicals creates a water-repellent layer in the upper soil, and this layer, by preventing percolation, dramatically accelerates subsequent sheet flooding and erosion. A monomaniacal obsession with managing ignition rather than chaparral accumulation simply makes doomsday-like firestorms and the great floods that follow them virtually inevitable." [ed. note: from 1998 with postscript from 2018]

Catching Up with a Guy Who Had His Legs Surgically Lengthened by Three Inches: Checking in with "Alan," who is all healed up after going from 5'6" to 5'9".

‘I’m literally Joan Baez right now’: gen Z women relate to Bob Dylan’s toxic situationship: The film A Complete Unknown has sparked interest in the folk singers’ doomed romance, and with it the realization that a similar dynamic is ‘happening to girls everywhere’

Looting Season in America: The oligarchy blooms. - "This is simply the logic of capitalism at work. The strongman president demands the loyalty of the oligarchs, and the oligarchs in turn are granted the blessing of the state to loot an ever greater share of the nation’s wealth. Why would you assume that America is any different from the many nations around the world that already practice this political method in earnest? This is the system most conducive to the perpetuation of the oligarchs’ interests. They financially support the political revenge and repression that will flow forth from the strongman, and they themselves are insulated from its consequences, and granted license to get as rich as they want, however they want. The arrangement works for both sides. This is gangster capitalism in full flower."

On First Looking into Brand’s Whole Earth Catalog: Are we in the present that the past envisioned… or just the one they invested in?

The Future Of West Coast Wildfire Is Whiplash - "In some cases, fires can also makes soil hydrophobic, so kind of water-repellent, because the heat changes the chemical properties of the soil. So the dry state caused some physical changes in the landscape that led to the mudslides occurring. [It might have] just been a flood and not a mudslide if there hadn't been a wildfire."