The news is exhausting, and so fast-moving that we can find ourselves missing the slow and thoughtful. This weekly update can provide that for you. We do this by distilling the best of the web and recommending just three links every week that you absolutely must see. No fluff, no fuss, just three exceptional reads. Here are this week’s recommendations:
Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid (Jonathan Haidt / The Atlantic)
It’s been clear for quite a while now that red America and blue America are becoming like two different countries claiming the same territory, with two different versions of the Constitution, economics, and American history. But Babel is not a story about tribalism; it’s a story about the fragmentation of everything. It’s about the shattering of all that had seemed solid, the scattering of people who had been a community. It’s a metaphor for what is happening not only between red and blue, but within the left and within the right, as well as within universities, companies, professional associations, museums, and even families.
I Lived the #VanLife. It Wasn’t Pretty. (Caity Weaver / New York Times)
To suggest that the worst part of vacationing in a van is sleeping in a van is not fair to the other aspects of the endeavor, which are also all the worst part — but it is cramped, slovenly and bad. It is impossible to make a bed while already sprawled atop it. If you are sharing a vehicle that does not have rear doors on both sides, as ours didn’t, the portside sleeper will be effectively trapped on their half of the bed from the moment they enter it, as I was.
For some reason, it wasn’t until going to bed our second night that Michael wondered, preposterously, if closing the miniature curtains strung around the van windows for privacy and warmth might make our sleeping area too claustrophobic. I dismissed this idiotic notion as soon as he voiced it; we were obviously fine the night before, so Michael was inventing problems. Two hours later, I woke up terrified, surrounded on all sides by closed miniature curtains, positive there was not enough oxygen in the van and that Michael and I were suffocating to death.
Delivering Devastating News In Hospital (24 Hours In A&E)
Image: Samson