* The Teenage Tinkerer Behind an E-Bike Revolution, regarding the ebike company RadPower. I have my eye on their $1,000 electric single-speed.
* “This is Not The American Cultural Revolution.” A useful corrective to this analogy. It’s also useful to think about how much of this occurs online and with deference to pre-existing structures: “They are doing the only thing Americans in this century know how to do: creating a ruckus in hope that they can get the management to take their side (and enlarge its own powers in the process).”
* “The China Hawks Got It Mostly Right.” “So far,” I’d add.
* “How literature can mirror our complicated desires: There’s inequality in real-life relationships. Art shouldn’t hide that.” I wish Merkin had finished the novel she’s referencing: I’d read it. It also seems that many people driving the social media discourse should think more deeply about the human condition, rather than serving up endless stories about wicked villains and innocent damsels: there are relatively few of each wandering around.
* “Adam Tooze on the World After COVID-19.”
* “What I Learned From the Worst Novelist in the English Language.” Entertaining but also poignant.
* “Sweatpants Forever: How the Fashion Industry Collapsed.” Losing the worst and most absurd parts of it doesn’t seem so bad.
* Another piece on the higher education “bubble.”
* “TSA considers new system for flyers without ID.” The number of people who actually care about freedom is small.
* “‘I didn’t think I’d survive’: women tell of hidden sexual abuse by Phoenix police.”
* Mercy and “cancel culture.” See also the link above about literature and our complicated desires.
* Feds say Yale discriminates against Asian, white applicants.
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