August 11, 2017
In 2016, 50.2 percent of Americans chose cremation in lieu of burial; the projected rate for 2035 is 78.8 percent. / National Funeral Directors Association
Because there’s nothing quite like waking up to a new tweet from Mr. Trump telling rogue states that we’re locked and loaded and ready for carnage. / Twitter
1. “Why deterring and containing North Korea is our least bad option,” by Jeffrey A. Bader, Order From Chaos (The Brookings Institute). / brookings.edu
The China hand has served multiple administrations. Here he outlines seven approaches that won’t work against the boy king—including those that our own boy king already pursues. Bader then asks what would George Kennan do, Kennan having been, in Friedman’s words, “the architect of America’s successful containment of the Soviet Union.” / The New York Times
See also: Kennan’s 1947 “The Sources of Soviet Conduct.” / foreignaffairs.com
2. “Trump has been making ominous threats his whole life,” by Fareed Zakaria, The Washington Post. Doesn’t need much introduction with a headline like that. / The Washington Post
See also: “The Credibility Trap,” by Max Fisher. / Vox
3. “Three of the World’s Coolest Hut Systems,” by Abbie Barronian, Adventure Journal / Adventure Journal
The EPA calls the cops on reporters trying to cover an event on public university grounds. / Grand Forks Herald
An engraved motif on very old human bones suggests a ritualistic component of cannibalistic practices. / PLOS One
Your Friday listening: The 35 best female composers in classical music, from Meredith Monk to Missy Mazolli. / Washington Post
Politically unviable medication-assisted treatment for opiate users could cut overdoses in half. / Governing
Basement Bhangra, a 20-year recurring club night, helped catalyze New York’s South Asian creative class. / WNYC
“I’m the one being held at gunpoint. I’m the one thinking my life could end if he panics. Yet, I’m the one expected to remain calm.” A woman changing the license plates on her car is accused at gunpoint of grand theft auto. It’s yet another case where a civilian needs to remain calm to stay alive—facing a loaded gun—while a trained officer gets to panic and overreact. / The Charlotte Observer
A sublime microdose of ’80s/’90s schtick before the second season arrives of Stranger Things. / Twitter
“Sontag’s intimate and emotional journals of love affairs, self-doubt, vanity, tenderness, intellectual curiosity and insatiable zest for living, constitute the ‘great autobiographical novel she never cared to write.’” The “politics, psychology and philosophy of toughness” are reviewed in a new book about six modern women: Simone Weil, Hannah Arendt, Mary McCarthy, Susan Sontag, Diane Arbus, and Joan Didion. / The Times Literary Supplement
A bus full of pods is schlepping commuters overnight from LA to San Francisco, going slower to ensure better sleep. / NPR
An appeals court junks the deportation order of an immigrant who dropped his daughter off at school. / The Los Angeles Times
“The smoothest place to sit is over the wings, nearest to the plane’s centers of lift and gravity. The roughest spot is usually the far aft.” A pilot explains how turbulence works, the many reasons it’s nothing to fear, and why the skies actually are getting bumpier. / Business Insider
Eager to vote, some Kenyans rent babies in order to skip long election lines. / Reuters
You probably missed this one, but here, John Oliver makes the succinct, convincing case—in a rare moment of Oliver aligning himself with Vladimir Putin—that geese are nothing more than “asshole ducks who got really into CrossFit.” / YouTube
“Under the Cowboy.” “I Hate the Marine.” What happens when you ask a neural net to invent romance titles. / Elle O’Brien / Medium
California reminds visitors not to remove polished garbage from any of its three “glass beaches.” / FortBragg.com
“If Trump or his advisers aren’t considering Korea’s long view, he’s going to join the long list of leaders who have gotten the nation dangerously wrong.” Battered by Mongol, Chinese, Japanese and Russian incursions, Korea has learned to survive through isolation and by “playing great powers off one another.” / Politico
“The economic consequences of confinement lingered among internees even 50 years later, and varied greatly on where they were placed.” Which internment camp Japanese-Americans were assigned during WWII markedly affected their economic futures. / PHYS.org
Beautifully toned pictures from British photographer Vicki King. / It’s Nice That