January 16, 2017
“I could do something with it. That comb-over is really really bad. We could do something else, make it look a little more natural. We’ll take care of him.” John Lewis’s barber offers his services to Trump. / The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
What does the State Department have to do with energy policy? Well, the ex-CEO would be able to approve deals previously held up in Russia and Canada, including the Keystone XL pipeline, which would together garner up to $1 trillion for his old company. / fastcoexist.com
“A taco, perfectly preserved and pressed like a flower in the middle of a book. It was so slim you wouldn’t know it was there.” What do librarians find left in books? More often than you’d care to know: bologna. But also paychecks, letters, daily affirmations. / Tin House
Photographs of our many roads named after Dr King / TMN
Perhaps in response to waves of protests across the country, Trump indicated that he’d soon unveil a plan with “insurance for all.” / Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post
“The more I thought about my attention the more I thought about the limits to human scale. How technologies inevitably amplify ourselves—the best and worst parts—in a way that is almost impossible for us to comprehend. How that scale is so easily co-opted to attenuate our attention with the worst possible diet of high-sugar, high-carb nothingness.” Craig Mod wants his attention back. / Backchannel
The “debate” over global warming is filled with red herrings (the “pause,” for example) planted by conservative politicians relaying corporate talking points. / Scientific American
“Trash is the by-product of order, so its existence implies that a certain order may not exist, but is by all accounts possible... Sarah is ‘human waste,’ because there is just no place for her in the so-called real world.” The most highbrow review of BoJack Horseman you’ll read today manages to connect one tragic cartoon character with the right-wing media’s treatment of refugees. / Hong Kong Review of Books
Tis the season? An oldie but goodie interview with designer James Niehues, the master of the ski-area trail map. / Cabinet
Often, when developers come to neighborhoods of color with the intent of buying up property so they can flip it to white people, they aren’t particularly subtle about their intentions. Most developers, though, have the good sense to not name a luxury building they’re bankrolling after the very class of people they’re hoping to replace current residents with. Not so for Chicago’s Villa Capital Properties, which is behind a new office and retail project that was forced to change its name last week because it was literally called “The Gentry.” / dnainfo.com
“We were never able to overcome that price problem from the beginning.” The understatement of the week comes from this schadenfreude-ridden story about the closing of Shaw Bijou, a D.C. bistro that served $500 meals in a historic black neighborhood struggling with displacement / Washingtonian
In Pittsburgh, police were able to identify a young man vandalizing cars in South Side, a historic neighborhood characterized by disputes between European immigrants and the current population of students and yuppies, by his man bun. / daniellelevsky.wordpress.com, jalopnik.com
The latest in the chopped cheese media saga: A Manhattan Whole Foods is now selling an $8 version of the $4 Harlem sandwich, which has now been thoroughly and variously investigated and “discovered” with varying degrees of success by white reporters from First We Feast, Business Insider, and the Times. / The New York Times, firstwefeast.com, YouTube
Residents of color in Seattle’s historic black Central Area attack local businesses with “karmic infraction” notices—though when a kombucha shop and weed dispensary are the symbols of gentrification, it puts the battle in a different context. / The Guardian
There are only a pair of Shakers left. / religiondispatches.org
“There’s a lot of talent that’s been developed in this administration that was untapped before. And because we’ve had Barack Obama running the country, a lot more people have raised their hands to say, ‘I want to be a part of that.’” A look back at the Obama administration through the eyes of the more than 400 black political appointees that served in it. / McClatchy DC
In Wyoming, a bill (whose sponsor concedes is likely to fail) would prohibit utilities from using clean energy, which would effectively kill the industry. / insideclimatenews.org
Related: Chinese and German investors are looking to turn Chernobyl into a solar park. / Bloomberg
On Hard Boiled, John Woo’s magnum opus. / The A.V. Club