The Handmaid's Tale is now eligible to win best documentary. A law written to escape the oversight of the Supreme Court has achieved its goal as a 5-4 majority allowed Texas's anti-abortion law, known as SB 8, to stand. The law isn't just about restricting abortion, it's also about enabling, and even encouraging, financially-based vigilante justice. It's no surprise that a Supreme Court majority built to overturn Roe would lean into the effort. But that this absurd law has been allowed to stand is definitely a shock to the Constitution. I'll let Justice Sonia Sotomayor explain: "In effect, the Texas Legislature has deputized the State's citizens as bounty hunters, offering them cash prizes for civilly prosecuting their neighbors' medical procedures ... Taken together, the Act is a breathtaking act of defiance—of the Constitution, of this Court's precedents, and of the rights of women seeking abortions throughout Texas ... Today, the Court finally tells the Nation that it declined to act because, in short, the State's gambit worked. ... It cannot be the case that a State can evade federal judicial scrutiny by outsourcing the enforcement of unconstitutional laws to its citizenry." (It's bad enough when men make decisions about women's bodies. It's worse when those men include Brett Kavanaugh, Clarence Thomas, and Donald Trump.)
"Members of the Sackler family who are at the center of the nation's deadly opioid crisis have won sweeping immunity from opioid lawsuits linked to their privately owned company Purdue Pharma and its OxyContin medication. Federal Judge Robert Drain approved a bankruptcy settlement on Wednesday that grants the Sacklers 'global peace' from any liability for the opioid epidemic." The Sacklers, Who Made Billions From OxyContin, Win Immunity From Opioid Lawsuits. (El Chapo should have hired the Sacklers' lawyers.)
New Orleans has spent years preparing for storms like Hurricane Ida. NYC wasn't at all prepared for what hit it (because what hit it was so unexpected). Yesterday, I explained that the Caldor fire in California is only the second fire in recorded history to cross from one side of the Sierra Nevada to the other. The first was the Dixie that did it just a few weeks ago. Ida similarly smashed a NYC rain record that was set just last month. Apocalyptic is the new normal. AP: "A stunned U.S. East Coast faced a rising death toll, surging rivers, tornado damage and continuing calls for rescue Thursday after the remnants of Hurricane Ida walloped the region with record-breaking rain, filling low-lying apartments with water and turning roads into car-swallowing canals." More than 25 deaths after Ida remnants slam Northeast. The images and videos from NY are insane. And here's a stunning video of a tornado ripping across New Jersey.
"They're just unbelievable young ladies who should be playing in the backyard, playing on the swing set, playing with their friends, and here they're in a very bad situation for doing nothing more than playing soccer." Effort underway to rescue girls soccer team from Afghanistan.
The minister who married R Kelly and Aaliyah has spoken publicly about it for the first time. (If it wasn't to admit that he's an enabling piece of garbage, I'm not interested. It takes a village to raise a monster like R Kelly.)
+ "From the vantage point of 2021, it is hard to imagine how a sexual-abuse scandal involving two of the biggest names in popular music would not derail the alleged abuser's career. But Kelly thrived as an artist and producer in the years that followed; he would go on to sell a total of more than a hundred million records." The New Yorker: The Focus Finally Turns to Aaliyah, in R. Kelly's Trial.
6
JOE (DON'T) BLOW
"If you're not vaccinated, you shouldn't travel over the long Labor Day weekend. That's the bottom line, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky." Sadly, the unvaccinated are not much for following CDC guidelines. They're more likely to listen to radio hosts like Joe Rogan, the latest man behind a mic to announce that he has Covid, and as a bonus for listeners, he's also been taking Ivermectin. (Ancient humans worried about idol worship. It's idiot worship that's gonna get us.)
7
BORROWED TIME IS NOW
"The burst in digital borrowing has helped many readers, but it has also accelerated an unsettling trend. Books, like music and movies and TV shows, are increasingly something that libraries and readers do not own but, rather, access temporarily, from corporations that do." The New Yorker: An App Called Libby and the Surprisingly Big Business of Library E-books.
8
MONKEY SEE, MONKEY DON'T
"Earl gestured the dot closer to a colorful target zone, just as he had done thousands of times before. This time, he expected a big reward, but instead—time's up." Wired: You're Not Alone: Monkeys Choke Under Pressure Too.
"The grand slam rule book says players should take a 'reasonable' amount of time, but does not provide an exact number of minutes that would be acceptable. On Wednesday, Tsitsipas took a toilet break that created an eight-minute delay between the end of the third set and start of the fourth." Stefanos Tsitsipas defiant after latest US Open toilet break leads to boos. (This is the ultimate nightmare of every IBS sufferer: Being booed by thousands of people after exiting a public restroom.)
+ Abba reunite for Voyage, first new album in 40 years (and their digital avatars will appear in London concert residency in 2022.)
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The most interesting and non-obvious stories of the week.
Dear Rim,
The world is burning and flooding, which made it hard to focus on anything else in the stories this week ... but it was actually a great week for lots of stories about other less catastrophic events, so that's what I'll do this week. In the stories below you'll read about Asian superheroes, how dogs actually know when you're keeping snacks from them on purpose, Yahoo's meaningless rebrand, and whether you can actually get Tourette's from watching a YouTube video. And in bonus stories: the missing eon, a new ninth planet (not Pluto!) and China's big move to limit minors to only three hours of online gaming per week. Enjoy the stories!
Marvel's First Asian Superhero Is Here, And It's Just The First Of A New Era
"Throughout our history in this country, Asian Americans have seen the dire consequences of compliance and invisibility: exploitation, exclusion, internment. Shang-Chi isn't the first Asian protagonist we've seen on a screen. But as a big-budget, big-screen Marvel superhero, he'll be ubiquitous.
In his wake will come more Asian heroes ... [and] their casting ensures that a generation of young Asian Americans will, for the first time, see themselves front and center, larger than life, on the biggest of screens. So will the rest of the world, which is arguably even more important — when people see us as heroes, they're forced to see us as humans."
Tomorrow is the official release of Marvel's "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings," the first film from the popular studio to center on an Asian superhero (played by Canadian-Chinese actor Simu Liu). It's a big deal for the widespread Asian community, as an op-ed from Asian author Jeff Yang shared in this week's New York Times. It is also the signal that the world's biggest movie multiverse is shifting course in a positive new direction for diversity and inclusion.
After nearly a decade of formulaic sequels: Iron Man 3 followed by Captain America 2 followed by Avengers 2, the next few Marvel films are exploring entirely new characters. Shang Chi, The Eternals, and The Marvels are just three of the planned new franchises, each with a diverse cast of characters. Superheroes can do anything. The fact that they are finally starting to look like the rest of us matters.
The Pandemic Was Supposed To Kill Cash. Has the Opposite Happened?
Last week traveling through the Denver airport, I saw this sign at one of the quick service restaurants. A few days later, I read a report from American Banker suggesting that an assumption many of us might have made about the effect of the pandemic on the usage of cash may be wrong. An article about currency usage in the UK a few months ago from The Economist suggested the same puzzling conclusion, even as other reports were suggesting that usage of cash "plunged" during the pandemic. So which report is right?
Interestingly, they both are right. It turns out that cash reserves in many countries during the pandemic have become more scarce due to supply chain disruptions in producing currency. Added to that, the uncertainty of the pandemic has made many consumers more likely to hold on to cash "as a store of value rather than for near-term transactional purposes." So, yes, cash has become harder to get AND people are using it less at the same time. It's almost impossible not to end this story without a Dad joke about there being two sides to every coin (or story) so I'll just leave it there. :-)
Dogs Can Tell When You're Keeping Snacks From Them On Purpose
Yup, this is for all of you dog teasers ... apparently there's new research published this week that proves your dog can tell specifically when you are intentionally keeping food from them versus when you are "accidentally" unable to feed them. As an article about the study notes, "the findings could mean that dogs possess an aspect of cognition often considered unique to humans: the ability to acknowledge the inner workings of others." The research suggests one explanation for why dogs excel at providing companionship for humans. Unless you keep diabolically teasing your dog with treats, of course.
Comedy Central Inspires Backlash By Canceling The Office's Cringy Diversity Day Episode
I'm a big fan of The Office, but there are some cringe-worthy episodes. The second episode, where the branch decides to hold a painfully insensitive "Diversity Day" is definitely one of them, so on some level it makes sense that Comedy Central made the call not to air it. The move has created an uprising among fans, though, because the episode is actually a brilliant commentary on everything that workplaces often get wrong about diversity. Like many others, I always saw it as a clever cautionary tale that could actually help many managers and leaders to get diversity right by watching just how hilariously and obviously the show gets it wrong.
This is exactly the kind of education about diversity that we need because it's memorable and likely to inspire change. In a week where we saw other great moves from brands in support of equity, such as Michelob Ultra's announcement they will commit $100M to support women's sports, it is more important than ever to bring more visibility to these topics. Canceling an episode is the wrong response. We need less fear and more conversation and commitment to action.
Yahoo Masters the Art of Meaningless Brand Announcements
This morning I got an email delivered in my inbox with a decent amount of fanfare breathlessly announcing that Yahoo has apparently changed it's name and logo back to Yahoo. I'm a brand guy and even I was finding it hard to care about this, but I had to dig further. Apparently, at some point Yahoo rebranded to Verizon Media, and has since rebranded to Yahoo. This is after missteps with trying to rebrand as Oath back in 2017. The whole thing is the perfect example of how often we
In case you're interested, here's the actual message: "Today, we rebrand from Verizon Media to Yahoo and we're excited to launch this new chapter with you. As a part of Apollo's portfolio, we have even more potential to unlock, with an entrepreneurial spirit and clear vision that puts people first, builds partnerships, and is driven to perform."
They Saw a YouTube Video. Then They Got Tourette's.
Can a YouTube video about a medical condition actually be contagious and cause that same condition in others? This is the curious mystery that unfolded at Hanover Medical School in Germany and this WIRED UK article explores exactly how it happened and what they discovered. It's a bit of a long read, but fascinating once you do get into it. A good one if you find yourself with some free time this week!
Even More Non-Obvious Stories ...
Every week I always curate more stories than I'm able to explore in detail. In case you're looking for some more reading this week, here are a few other stories that captured my attention ...
Beyond Diversity is coming on November 9th! The book features more than 200 voices and explores how to create a more inclusive world. You can be among the first to read an excerpt and request a digital or physical review copy by joining our Launch Team!
