No Insider content this week, since I was on vacation in St. Thomas.
We stayed at the Marriott at Frenchman’s Reef, which was fine, not as nice as the Marriott resort on St. Kitts in terms of the hotel itself, the service, or the food. Our main goal was rest and relaxation, and we got plenty of that, along with rum and swimming. We had one meal off campus, at Grande Cru in the Yacht Haven Grande shopping center in eastern Charlotte Amalie, and it was spectacular. The sauteed brussels sprouts with lardons of house-smoked bacon and shaved grana padano was superb, as was the special I ordered, seared duck breast (cooked medium, as promised) with local pumpkin risotto and local collard greens. Even the dessert, a flourless chocolate cake with sea salt, caramel sauce, and espresso ice cream, was better than expected, as the cake itself had a fantastic texture and a deep, dense chocolate flavor. Also, the hostess is a self-proclaimed “Mets girl.”
Also, here’s another reminder that The Best Team Money Can Buy: The Los Angeles Dodgers’ Wild Struggle to Build a Baseball Powerhouse
And now, the links…
- The best longread of the week comes from the New York Times, on two pairs of identical twins in Colombia, separated at birth by mistake and raised as two pairs of fraternal twins.
- The Washington Post’s magazine had this story on people who live in teeny tiny houses. I mostly think they’re insane, although something about the idea of simplifying my life to that extent appeals to me. The IKEA where we shopped in Tempe had a 250 square foot “apartment” set up in the store, and I was riveted by it – but they made the space work. There were even separate areas so that you weren’t always in one “room.” Of course, some folks truly do think tiny house residents are out of their minds, although I might have expressed the same without the emphasis on flatulence.
- Another tremendous longread on one desperate father’s attempts to treat his son’s epilepsy with marijuana.
- I loved Inside Out, so of course I loved this chart from Vox.com showing how the five emotions might combine to form 15 more complex ones.
- This reddit question from a Canadian mom whose daughter got herself vaccinated is amazing – her original question is gone but if you scroll down you can see it. She wanted to know if she might have a right to sue the doctor who did it! Meanwhile, this week in vaccine denial brings us a post that claims that getting the measles is beneficial and that “germ theory itself is dead.” The anonymous (of course) author uses a lot of big words s/he doesn’t understand, an example of the argument by prestigious jargon fallacy. I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t click on that link.
- Oklahoma is dead-set on proving itself to be America’s Backwater, including their unending fight to execute a man despite very shaky evidence of his guilt. The death penalty is a policy disaster (and, in my opinion, morally untenable) anyway, but the case against Richard Glossip is flimsier than the first little pig’s house.
- Finally, a $1.99 Kindle Single from Chimamanda Ngoza Adichie titled We Should All Be Feminists
