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As one would hope from a data visualizer (especially when his graphics are developed by my creative colleagues Amanda Shendruk, Sergio Peçanha and Yan Wu), Wexler’s op-ed imaginatively explains the why and how of this aural emergency, putting first a four-piece, then eight-piece, then 16-piece, then 128-piece band on your screen.
You might be surprised by how modestly this crowding of the stage increases the decibel level — and by how much just nudging up the amp does.
But the pots-and-pans DJ lovers need not fret; Wexler has listened to decades of loud live music and retains the hearing “of someone half my age.” He explains that a little squishy earplug goes a long way.
Chaser: Could someone please make sure Marc Thiessen, who recently wrote about his lifelong obsession with live concerts, sees this one?
Trump and the dark prince
Meet the man David Ignatius calls “the dark prince of the Ukraine war.” Russia has tried to assassinate him at least 10 times.
His name is Lt. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, and he’s the head of Ukraine’s intelligence service. David spoke with him for an hour and a half last month in his “forbidding office,” where armor and a very much in-use machine gun were heaped next to his desk.
Budanov is steely in David’s profile, and it’s wild to read his record of service, but his quotes are mostly what you’d expect — about Ukrainian resolve, Putin’s hubris, etc. — until he gets to Donald Trump.
David writes that Budanov’s opinion of Trump surprised even him — though maybe it’s all just tradecraft and a testament to “what a canny intelligence operator” the dark prince is.
Meanwhile, Trump’s MAGA acolytes in the House of Representatives are anything but, Josh Rogin writes, in their attempt to use Iran’s missile attack on Israel to further delay U.S. aid to Ukraine.
Josh explains (not for the first time) how the conflicts are connected and why aid to Israel and Ukraine would be most effectively passed in one joint package — arguments that far-right Republicans either fail or refuse to understand.
In short, Josh writes, “by pointing to Israel as a reason to abandon Ukraine, Republicans … are further politicizing the Israel issue, exacerbating the suffering of Ukrainians, and preventing U.S. leaders in both parties from finding the political compromises needed to ensure the security of Israel, Ukraine and the United States alike.”
More politics
In their op-ed, scholars of rural politics Nicholas Jacobs and Daniel Shea write that they have observed among these voters “a unique set of resentments or grievances that arise from real and perceived slights against rural communities.”
Why on Earth would these rednecks/hillbillies/white-trash folks feel any slights!
Such insults, Jacobs and Shea write, are “the last ones you can utter in respectable conversation” in the big cities of the coasts, whose dwellers ostensibly prize empathy. Where these tropes always seem to lead is the grand stereotype of the enraged rural voter.
But the story of rural America is so much more complicated than that, they write; it’s one of pride, belonging and, yes, some frustration. Propagating “angry redneck” stereotypes only adds to that frustration — and carries with it political consequences.
“As long as rural America is treated with disdain,” Jacobs and Shea write, “should we really be surprised when, once again, it reluctantly turns to Trump?”
Smartest, fastest
- Missourians deserve a vote this fall to enshrine abortion protections in the state constitution, writes model and activist Karlie Kloss.
- After three decades of unchallenged power, South Africa’s ANC finally faces a reckoning at the ballot box. Good, the Editorial Board writes.
- The nation toboggans right past another trillion-dollar deficit milestone, George Will writes — whee!
It’s a goodbye. It’s a haiku. It’s … The Bye-Ku.
DJ, drop the beat!
(And the decibels, too, please?)
Responsible rave
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Have your own newsy haiku? Email it to me, along with any questions/comments/ambiguities. See you tomorrow!
