Author Topic: In the New Yorker...  (Read 1913127 times)

Offline serious crayons

  • BetterMost Moderator
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 22,697
Re: In the New Yorker...
« Reply #1680 on: May 31, 2017, 08:52:58 am »
I should have spent the weekend catching up on my New Yorkers, but I didn't feel like it, so instead I spent the weekend finishing up one Tony Hillerman Navajo murder mystery and reading an entire Margaret Cole Arapaho murder mystery.

I think you could safely change that "should" to a "could." There's no "should" in reading choices (in most cases), and the New Yorker is completely optional.




Offline Jeff Wrangler

  • BetterMost Supporter!
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 31,154
  • "He somebody you cowboy'd with?"
Re: In the New Yorker...
« Reply #1681 on: May 31, 2017, 09:52:11 am »
I think you could safely change that "should" to a "could." There's no "should" in reading choices (in most cases), and the New Yorker is completely optional.

Thanks. I just get so daunted when I see the magazines pile up, and lately I haven't had as much time to read at lunch as I usually do.

But the late Tony Hillerman and Margaret Coel tell good stories. Hillerman was so precise in locations that you could almost follow along with a Google map. Coel's stories have the added pleasure of taking place in territory that I've visited--Lander, Riverton, and along the Wind River Mountains.

Last year I read a Longmire novella by Craig Johnson that he set in the same region of Wyoming as Coel's novels. At one point he has Sheriff Longmire and his friend Henry Standing Bear talk to the "red-haird priest" at St. Francis Mission. That would be Margaret Coel's main character, Father John Aloysius O'Malley, an Irish Jesuit from Boston who is the pastor at the mission. I wrote to Johnson to ask if that was "a tip of the hat" to Margaret Coel, and he replied that indeed it was.
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline Front-Ranger

  • BetterMost Moderator
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 30,266
  • Brokeback got us good.
Re: In the New Yorker...
« Reply #1682 on: June 01, 2017, 09:57:15 am »
You're in luck, Jeff. The latest issue is the fiction issue and it spans two weeks, so you have time to catch up.

Apparently, I missed the review of "Anne With an E" which was in the May 11 issue.

There is quite a big controversy about this Netflix series. I haven't seen the review, the series, or even read the book Anne of Green Gables, but I love a good literary controversy!! Is there anyone out there who knows more about this?


"chewing gum and duct tape"

Offline Jeff Wrangler

  • BetterMost Supporter!
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 31,154
  • "He somebody you cowboy'd with?"
Re: In the New Yorker...
« Reply #1683 on: June 01, 2017, 11:14:06 am »
Apparently, I missed the review of "Anne With an E" which was in the May 11 issue.

I guess I missed it, too. I have no memory of it.

Edit to Add:

Maybe that was just on the Web site? There was no "May 11" issue. The cover dates were May 8 and May 15. Neither had anything about Anne of Green Gables. I just checked the TOCs.
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline Front-Ranger

  • BetterMost Moderator
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 30,266
  • Brokeback got us good.
Re: In the New Yorker...
« Reply #1684 on: June 01, 2017, 04:19:48 pm »
Well, that explains why we have no memory of it!!

Speaking of The NY, there was a cartoon in the latest issue that made me laugh out loud! It was on page 85. But maybe, it's a chick thing.
"chewing gum and duct tape"

Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

  • BetterMost Supporter!
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 10,011
Re: In the New Yorker...
« Reply #1685 on: June 02, 2017, 01:33:46 am »



One explanation for Trump’s mishandling of the Europeans is that he is unwilling to accept that there are powerful people in the world who do not think that climate change is a joke, or a hoax, or something to just prattle about to naïve voters.




http://www.newyorker.com/news/amy-davidson/angela-merkel-and-the-insult-of-trumps-paris-climate-accord-withdrawal

AMY DAVIDSON
ANGELA MERKEL AND THE INSULT OF
TRUMP’S PARIS CLIMATE-ACCORD WITHDRAWAL

By Amy Davidson   June 1, 2017


During the past few days, Merkel seemed to have had it with Trump, in some significant measure because of his flashy contempt
for the climate deal and for his fellow world leaders.
  PHOTOGRAPH BY BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI / AFP / GETTY




On Wednesday, at around the time that news outlets were reporting that President Donald Trump had decided to pull America out of the Paris climate accord, the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, was at the Berlin airport, greeting Premier Li Keqiang, of China. As their national anthems played, Li and Merkel stood on a red carpet that had been cut to look like a giant arrow. It seemed to point definitively away from Trump. There was a connection between the two moments that was more than symbolic. China has made it clear that, with America’s abdication, it sees Paris as a vehicle for its efforts to assert itself as a leader of the international community. (Whether this means that it would also make sure that carbon emissions fell is another matter.) And Merkel, during the past few days, seemed to have had it with Trump, in some significant measure because of his flashy contempt for the climate deal and for his fellow world leaders.

That contempt was well on display on Thursday afternoon, when Trump confirmed America’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement. In his remarks, delivered in the Rose Garden, Trump attacked not only the terms of the deal but also the goodwill of those who argued for it. He spoke like a man unravelling a conspiracy or a con job. The climate accord had been pushed by America’s economic rivals, whose real reason for wanting us to stay in was “so that we continue to suffer this self-inflicted major economic wound,” and by “global activists that have long sought to gain wealth at our country’s expense.” Paris was just a “scheme to redistribute wealth outside of the United States.” Only Trump really cared about the environment, and he would get a much better deal for it.

The only question now is how far away from America Merkel’s frustration leads the Chancellor, her country, and her continent. It’s not that she hasn’t tried; she even invited Ivanka Trump to Berlin, flattering her all the way. Last week, as Merkel endured Trump’s company at NATO and G7 meetings in Belgium and Italy—along with his boasts about the “unbelievable chemistry” that the two of them supposedly shared—she and the other leaders present made time to talk to him about the importance of protecting what had been gained for the planet in Paris. She said, later, at a press conference in Taormina, Italy, at the close of the G7, that, of all the points raised at the conferences, one that was “very difficult, not to say very dissatisfying, was the entire conversation on the subject of climate change.” That is, one person, representing one country, had dissatisfied her: “Here you have a situation in which six—if you count the European Union, seven—stand as one. And no one has any idea whether the United States is even going to stay in the Paris accords.” Indeed, one of the many ways in which Trump seems to have thoroughly annoyed his European counterparts is with his manufactured drama around the announcement of the Paris decision. After all, there wasn’t much mystery, given that Trump had put an end to American efforts to comply with Paris, back in March, when he issued an executive order discarding, among other things, President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan. The other world leaders just wanted to know if Trump would at least pretend to respect the pact and, perhaps, the idea that international pacts have value. They had all travelled to Belgium and Italy precisely so that important matters could be shared. Couldn’t he just tell them? But, perhaps, that would have given them a chance to tell Trump to his face that it was not, as he claimed again in his remarks on Thursday, “a very, very successful trip. Believe me.”

One explanation for Trump’s mishandling of the Europeans is that he is unwilling to accept that there are powerful people in the world who do not think that climate change is a joke, or a hoax, or something to just prattle about to naïve voters. Merkel, at her press conference, said, “This Paris climate accord is not just some accord or the other. It is a central accord in defining the contours of globalization.” She added, “I believe that the issue of Paris is so important that one simply can’t compromise on it.” But Merkel’s concerns may only matter to Trump if he sees it as an opportunity for bullying, or as ammunition in the trade war he seems ready to Twitter-start—or maybe just as a chance to get back at her for what she had said the day after arriving back in Germany from the G7, under a tent at a campaign beer rally in Bavaria.

The rally was in support of candidates for the Christian Social Union (the Bavarian sister party of Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union) ahead of the parliamentary elections in September, so Merkel spent a good deal of time on ordinary political concerns: the rent in Munich, taxes on medium-sized businesses, shout-outs to various allies (“our friends in Schleswig-Holstein!”). But she also talked about how her recent travels had reminded her “what a treasure Europe is,” and how a strong Germany relied, for example, on a strong France. As the crowd applauded, Merkel paused to adjust the two microphones in front of her and then moved to the toughest part of her remarks—the words that, it seemed, she had really come there to say.

“The time in which we could fully rely on others is a bit in the past,” Merkel said. “I have experienced that in the past several days. And, because of that, I can say now that we Europeans truly have to take our fate into our own hands—naturally, in friendship with the United States of America, in friendship with Great Britain, as good neighbors wherever that may work, with Russia and other countries.” It was striking that America was just another name on the list. Merkel continued, “But we must understand that we must fight for our future, as Europeans, for our own fate—and that I will gladly do with you.” The “you” there was the Germans in the tent.

Earlier in the speech, Merkel had emphasized that “we’re working for the people in Germany.” That included upholding values such as freedom of expression and religious tolerance, and being ready to help refugees—although she said that, since the refugee crisis of 2015, “we’ve tightened things up.” But it also meant focussing specifically on German dreams. On this, she was speaking to the German mainstream. Her opponent in the September elections, Martin Schulz, the leader of the more left-of-center Social Democratic Party, gave a speech at a Party gathering in a far less measured tone, in which he directly called Trump’s treatment of “our Chancellor” unacceptable, indeed unbearable. He later called Trump “a destroyer of all Western values such as we have never before experienced in this form.”

For many Europeans, and for people on many continents, addressing climate change speaks to the most fundamental of values. Trump spent so much time congratulating himself on his “historic” trip that he may have been surprised by the reaction of Merkel and others. He may not have thought that it was very nice. After Merkel’s beer-tent speech, he tweeted, “We have a MASSIVE trade deficit with Germany, plus they pay FAR LESS than they should on NATO & military. Very bad for U.S. This will change.” Something will change. After Trump’s sour, shrill withdrawal from Paris, though, Merkel isn’t likely to be the one who is alone. The day before Li came to visit her in Berlin, Merkel had welcomed the Indian Prime Minister, Narendra ModI. Merkel is a busy woman.



Amy Davidson is a New Yorker staff writer. She is a regular Comment contributor for the magazine and writes a Web column ( http://www.newyorker.com/news/amy-davidson ), in which she covers war, sports, and everything in between. newyorker.com.

"Tu doives entendre je t'aime."
(and you know who I am...)


Cowboy Curtis (Laurence Fishburne)
and Pee-wee in the 1990 episode
"Camping Out"

Offline serious crayons

  • BetterMost Moderator
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 22,697
Re: In the New Yorker...
« Reply #1686 on: June 02, 2017, 09:48:51 am »
Apparently, I missed the review of "Anne With an E" which was in the May 11 issue.

There is quite a big controversy about this Netflix series. I haven't seen the review, the series, or even read the book Anne of Green Gables, but I love a good literary controversy!! Is there anyone out there who knows more about this?

I've read two reviews, one negative and one mostly negative. I've never read the book and don't plan to, so I think this is one literary controversy I can skip.



Offline serious crayons

  • BetterMost Moderator
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 22,697
Re: In the New Yorker...
« Reply #1687 on: June 02, 2017, 10:02:29 am »
In a similar review, Jill Lepore says the new Wonder Woman movie neutralizes a stronger, more politically controversial figure. I guess it's actually the opposite of the other -- this one's saying they toned it down too much, the other that they went over the top.

http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/wonder-womans-unwinnable-war





Offline Jeff Wrangler

  • BetterMost Supporter!
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 31,154
  • "He somebody you cowboy'd with?"
Re: In the New Yorker...
« Reply #1688 on: June 02, 2017, 11:16:21 am »
I've read two reviews, one negative and one mostly negative. I've never read the book and don't plan to, so I think this is one literary controversy I can skip.

Me neither. I thought maybe just because I'm a boy it's never been on my reading list, but maybe not.
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline Jeff Wrangler

  • BetterMost Supporter!
  • The BetterMost 10,000 Post Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 31,154
  • "He somebody you cowboy'd with?"
Re: In the New Yorker...
« Reply #1689 on: June 02, 2017, 11:17:19 am »
In a similar review, Jill Lepore says the new Wonder Woman movie neutralizes a stronger, more politically controversial figure. I guess it's actually the opposite of the other -- this one's saying they toned it down too much, the other that they went over the top.

http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/wonder-womans-unwinnable-war

I'll have to read this. It's Jill Lepore!
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.