Convenience Big Store: The presidential battle I want to see

3 May, 2023

In the headlines

Russian naval ships were in the vicinity of Nord Stream 2 shortly before the gas pipelines were blown up in September. The discovery, made by a former British naval intelligence officer, offers "one possible lead" about who sabotaged the pipelines, says the BBC. Loneliness is as unhealthy as smoking 15 cigarettes a day, according to America's surgeon general, Vivek Murthy. He wants social isolation – which is linked to greater risk of heart disease, dementia and premature death – to be treated as a public health threat on a par with obesity. Uber has released its latest list of the weirdest items left behind in its cars. The 2023 Lost and Found Index includes a slab of bluefin tuna, six cheesecakes, 16 oz of fake blood, and a Danny DeVito Christmas ornament. See the full list here.

Comment

Kennedy (left) and Carlson: "Appealing, in a way Trump and Biden could never be." Phillip Chin/WireImage/Getty; Chip Somodevilla/Getty

The presidential battle I want to see

If there's one thing Americans can agree on, says Andrew Sullivan on Substack, it's that they don't want a Trump-Biden rematch in 2024. Some 70% of voters say the President shouldn't run for re-election, and 60% think the same about his predecessor; almost two-fifths tell pollsters the prospect of these two old duffers fighting it out again leaves them "exhausted". So there's a real opening, surely, for someone younger, fresher, "and more attuned to our actual moment". Ron DeSantis isn't up to it on the right; on the left, there's a Bernie Sanders-shaped void. Who else? "I hope you're sitting down", but two men stand out: former Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson, and JFK's controversial nephew Bobby Kennedy Jr.

The two men are "very different, but weirdly simpatico". Both are "anti-corporate populists, lone rangers in their own partisan coalitions", and believe America's involvement in Ukraine is misguided. Kennedy, who announced he was running for president last month, is clear-minded about how the Democrats have become "the party of big corporations, HR authoritarians, and the mega-wealthy". Carlson sees the "totalitarian essence of wokeness" and all the damage it's causing. Sure, I find parts of his message "repellent" – the "racist tinge" to his comments on immigration, for example – and disagree with Kennedy's anti-vaccine campaigns. But I confess I find the pair of them "appealing, in a way Trump and Biden could never be". I hope they both run – if only to "force a rethink on both the complacent right and loopy left".

Books

Fake books are becoming a common fixture in American homes, says The New York Times. The trend took off during Covid: people wanted literary classics lined up in the background of their Zoom calls, to make them look smarter and more worldly. One company, Books by the Foot, sells hefty stacks of tomes either to match a room's colour palette – options include "luscious creams" and "rainbow ombre" – or to suggest an interest in specific subjects, such as modern art or gardening. Because the "books" are hollow, they can double up as storage containers.

Noted

France is gripped by a "vibecession", says Lionel Laurent in Bloomberg – that is, people think things are going very badly. Emmanuel Macron's unpopular pension reforms have the French "bemoaning what's been called the worst political crisis since the Algerian War". But the hard data is much more optimistic: France's economy is outperforming Germany's, the jobless rate is at its lowest in 15 years, and inflation is below the European average. "Conversations in restaurants often involve a lengthy analysis of la crise nationale over main courses, before complaining over dessert that travel spots are sold out."

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Zeitgeist

There is a new online obsession, says Celia Walden in The Daily Telegraph: diagnosing literary and TV characters with mental health conditions they don't have. Lisa Simpson? Clever, rigid sense of right and wrong, social difficulties, focused on her hobbies – must be autistic. Jane Eyre doesn't like small talk – autistic. The standoffish Mr Darcy? You guessed it. Same, apparently, for Ebenezer Scrooge ("much maligned, given he's patently 'neurodivergent'") and Sherlock Holmes (Asperger's, Savant Syndrome and bipolar disorder). Even Hermione Granger is supposedly "on the spectrum" – because she got "good grades".

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Just another day in the "digital cretin factory". TikTok/@imandrewvalentine

China is using TikTok to destroy our minds

As the French senate launches an inquiry into TikTok, says Julien Auriach in Le Monde, it's important to be clear about the app's dangers. While it's certainly a possible channel for "disinformation and even large-scale espionage", more alarming is the way it distorts the mind. Actual propaganda is just a fraction of the content, but the modern propagandist isn't trying to make you favour any one thought over another. The goal is to "empty truth of its very appeal", through a barrage of "shiny, punchy, captivating" images that make everything else look bland. One example: nearly 20% of 18 to 24-year-olds believe aliens made the pyramids. This is no longer geopolitical influence. "It's mass lobotomy."

Beijing understands this – on the Chinese internet, there is only Douyin, TikTok's "big sister", which offers a "restricted version" for young people promoting "content of scientific interest" rather than sparkly pap. Chinese youth cannot log on before 6am or after 10pm, or spend more than 40 minutes a day on the app. The government says these limits are to address China's epidemic of short-sightedness – but it is really because TikTok is shattering Western children's attention spans and Beijing wants to spare its own kids from the "digital cretin factory". Of course, without China's authoritarian control of the internet, any similar regulations here would end up being symbolic at best. But we've got to do something. "TikTok represents the cutting edge of what makes us stupid. Let's not give it free rein."

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On the money

Punakha Valley in Bhutan – a perfect spot for a Bitcoin mine. Getty

The secretive mountain kingdom of Bhutan has been quietly mining Bitcoin for years, says Forbes. Gushing rivers fed by ancient glaciers supply the secluded Shangri-La with "immense stores of hydroelectricity", providing energy reserves that power the homes of all 800,000 residents and account for more than a quarter of the government's revenues. Last week it emerged that officials have also been using these reserves for a state-owned Bitcoin mine – vast racks of energy-hungry computers that generate the cryptocurrency by solving complex mathematical problems.

Quirk of history

The choirboys at Westminster Abbey on Saturday will be hoping to be treated rather better than their predecessors at Queen Elizabeth's crowning in 1953, says Patrick Kidd in The Times. "Their packed lunches included bottles of milk, which they were told to keep when empty in case they needed to spend a penny during the long service."

Snapshot

Snapshot answer

They're some of China's ugliest buildings, as selected by architectural website Archcy.com. The rogues' gallery includes a Shanghai mall mimicking the Hanging Gardens of Babylon; a museum in Anhui province with a giant seated figure built into the side; and an opera house in Guangxi shaped like a metallic osmanthus flower. The country's seismic economic growth has led to a proliferation of designs that "pursued oddity for the sake of novelty", says the contest's organiser – so much so that Xi Jinping has personally called for an end to "weird buildings".

Quoted

"Noble deeds and hot baths are the best cures for depression."

English novelist Dodie Smith

That's it. You're done.

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