I’m continuing my project of relearning how to read books. Remembering that as a voracious teenage reader, I would discover an author and read everything I could find by him, until I was caught up or had at least read everything by that author in the local mall bookstores and libraries. Asimov. Clarke. Heinlein. Ellison. Niven. Joe Haldeman.
I am adopting that strategy now, starting with Michael Connelly. He’s written about 40 books. I’m now reading his fourth. This is going to be a while.
In 30 years as a journalist, I’ve never been part of a crowd of reporters shouting questions while chasing a public official or other famous person. I’d probably trip and fall down.
Wyoming Republicans are fighting to keep child marriage legal.
Wyoming Limiting Child Marriage Sparks Republican Outrage (Nick Reynolds / Newsweek)
Mars Wrigley fined after workers fall into vat of chocolate (AP)
Have we learned nothing from Augustus Gloop?
Codebreakers have been able to read a cache of more than 50 encrypted letters written by Mary Queen of Scots more than 400 years ago. (Jennifer Ouellette / Ars Technica)
Bernie Sanders Has a New Role. It Could Be His Final Act in Washington. (Sheryl Gay Stolberg / The New York Times)
As chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, Sanders has a platform to go after Moderna for price-gouging on the taxpayer-funded Covid vaccine, and Amazon and Starbucks for union-busting.
A Yale Professor Suggested Mass Suicide for Old People in Japan. What Did He Mean? (Motoko Rich and Hikari Hida / NYTimes). An appalling proposal. Everybody counts or nobody counts.
And the headline is cringe. It’s clear what Yusuke Narita meant. The “I didn’t really mean it” defense doesn’t work in 5th grade and it doesn’t work at Yale either.
J.K. Rowling and “Separating the Art from the Artist."
Charlie Jane Anders discusses how you can’t separate the art from the artist when the artist—Rowling—has spent her career as the public face of her art.
Anders is uniquely positioned to discuss this issue, as she is a trans woman science fiction and fantasy writer with a large public presence. I’m a fan.
After the Ohio rail disaster, Buttigieg is silent on restoring the safety standards Trump repealed. “Civil War-era brake systems were good enough for General Sherman… “ (Cory Doctorow / Pluralistic)
