December 20, 2016

A fun dispatch from Shanghai’s IKEA, where the cafeteria twice a week turns into a senior citizens singles mixer that management isn’t quite sure what to do about. / Quartz

“I guess I’m a fair-weather cartoonist. Or the opposite?” How Trump’s campaign and impending presidency got Pete Fallon to start cartooning again. / Pete Fallon

Russia’s ambassador to Turkey was shot dead Monday at an Ankara art gallery. Things to know: / cbsnews.com

1. The photographs are startling. / cbsnews.com

2. Parallels to the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand are asinine Twitter chatter. “Turkey needs Russia to advance its war interests. Russia needs Turkey to win, as it defines winning, in Syria. Everyone has an incentive to handle this like adults.” / The New York Times

3. Indeed, the killing may bring Russia and Turkey closer, as they find third parties to blame. This is emerging as the dominant analysis. See also: “The two strongmen appear to be doing the their best to contain tensions. Their relationship may emerge from the ambassador’s death stronger than ever.” / The Guardian, The Economist

4. Expect further democratic repression in both countries. Will the Aleppo ceasefire collapse? / Foreign Policy

5. Yesterday saw a number of deadly attacks. The tragedy of Aleppo continues. It all sucks; count your blessings. / Marginal Revolution

Says composer Missy Mazzoli (pictured above): “Women have not been encouraged to be part of this field in a million subtle ways and also in some very obvious ways. When people ask me about being a woman writing opera, the thing that I always try to say is that there is no history, really. The history of women writing opera started, like, five years ago.” / missymazzoli.com

Thanks to increased funds from Obama’s Justice Department (that he later regretted), there are increasing amounts of police officers in public schools—often disguised behind the benign term “school resource officers”—resulting in an even easier access point for the school-to-prison pipeline. / msnbc.com, U.S. News & World Report

The English-speaking secessionist movement in largely francophone Cameroon—known as the “Anglophone Problem”—is reaching a boiling point. / irinnews.org

“I probably wouldn’t have had kids had I known that there would be an impact on them.” The children of Vietnam vets exposed to Agent Orange are nearly three times more likely to be born with some kind of birth defect. / ProPublica/The Virginian-Pilot

“I will, of course, use the argument that this will make America great again: if he includes women and makes sure he works for gender equality. Without it, he will not be able to make America great again. It is smart policy. It is not just the right thing to do.” Margot Wallstrom, Sweden’s foreign minister and a staunch practitioner of feminist foreign policy, has some advice for Trump. / New York Times

“If Adolf Hitler is the Michael Jordan of Nazis—a comparison the racial exclusionist would admittedly not have enjoyed—Duncan is the Kristaps Porzingis, a hot rookie sensation with angular Latvian features who favors a skinny tie.” He’s well dressed, but he’s also a literal Nazi! Joe Berkowitz crushes on Nazi Gary Duncan. / The Awl

Radio Garden is an incredible tool for exploring the sonic topography of the Earth. / radio.garden

Must-read for basketball fans: Kawhi Leonard is probably the best on-ball defender in the NBA, so it sounds impossible that the Spurs are much worse on defense with him on the floor. The answer is that teams don’t challenge Leonard at all: his opponent drifts out of the picture and lets the rest of the team play four-on-four. / cbssports.com

“Doing things for the lulz—spreading joke-memes, reinforcing ideas and symbols within a community, promulgating them more widely—is, by Geertz’s definition, a supremely religious act.” On the surface, shitposters are like Kierkegaard’s ironists: jaded and absorbed in verbalizing their own alternate realities. But their discourse is really kin to religion, reinforcing ideas and symbols within a community, and no less the racist for it. / Real Life

Despite all the brazen robot road tests, the million dollars spent on lobbying, and the court decisions that undercut labor costs, that’s a 50% increase in losses since last year. / TechCrunch, BuzzFeed, 9news.com

In an effort to celebrate artists while they’re still alive, Slate is saluting Stevie Wonder with “Wonder Week.” Including “A Beginner’s Guide to Stevie Wonder,” “Stevie Wonder Is My Favorite Drummer,” and “Stevie Wonder Wrote the Black Happy Birthday Song… for Martin Luther King!” / Slate

From the Nation: / The Nation

One of the deadliest killers in Colorado’s prisons is an easily curable virus: Hep C. Arbitrary state guidelines on when prisoners can begin treatment wind up killing potentially dozens a year. / westword.com

“In my short three months on the job, I developed a strength I hated: staying silent.” Monday was the busiest mailing day of the year for the United States Postal Service. Ever wonder what it’s really like to deliver the mail? Jess Stoner got hired to find out. / TMN