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Hello, Architectural Digest. I am an A-list celebrity who has agreed to show millions of people the inside of my home—an intimate place that few eyes have ever seen… except this isn’t my home, because I don’t actually live here. In this episode of Open Door, I will give you a tour of a giant estate that I own but have never visited until today. Watch me pretend that I had any input on the decor while my interior designer stands behind the camera and tells me what to say.

This foyer was modeled after the French provincial style and reveals zero meaningful details about me. While most entryways have shoes, coats, dust, and other visible signs of life, mine does not. My architect accomplished the incredible feat of making this room feel completely lifeless. If you look closely, you’ll see inspiration from both Claude Perrault and sensory deprivation chambers.

This interview was edited for clarity and length and a shorter version originally appeared in the print edition of The New York War Crimes. The…

Trump has been taunting Biden to debate repeatedly saying, “anytime, anywhere.” Now his minions and mouthpieces are having a little meltdown because Biden accepted: The first debate is set for next month on CNN, while the second is planned for September on ABC. Though the GOP’s presumptive presidential nominee has also pushed for a Fox News debate, the Democratic incumbent hasn’t agreed to that ― and the network’s hosts are in meltdown mode as a result. Sean Hannity criticized CNN’s Jake Tapper, who is set to be one of the debate moderators, by calling him a “radical left-wing partisan.” Hannity demanded that moderators’ mics get cut off after asking Trump questions, and he also launched into some wild conspiracy theories about Biden. He claimed that Biden will take a “heavy dose” of “whatever he took before the State of the Union” address to win the debates. He further suggested that Biden is “secretly” trying to get out of the debates.

It's the "most dangerous place in the world to be an aid worker" - and every day it gets worse

Ya ba dibba dibba dibba dibba dibba dibba dum It’s party over public health now in North Carolina: The North Carolina Senate Judiciary Committee approved an amended version of House Bill 237 on Tuesday morning that would prohibit the wearing of masks in public.  The controversial bill, which would also increase criminal penalties for those who commit crimes while wearing a mask in public, comes in the wake of protests that have erupted on college campuses across the country in response to the Israel-Hamas conflict.   Gotta nip that in the bud, as Deputy Fife would say up the road in Mayberry. Laws dating back to the 1950s that were enacted, at least in part, as responses to groups like the Ku Klux Klan, prohibit wearing a mask in public in North Carolina, with exceptions. Those exceptions were expanded during the COVID-19 pandemic to include people wearing masks for health reasons. Newton’s bill would remove that specific exception.   They’re just rolling back the law to what it was before COVID, dontcha know.

An acquaintance who hails from the same New Jersey town as I do spends his free weekends crawling through the woods on his stomach as part of a firearms training course, green camouflage paint on his face and a revolver in his hand. He considers this both a way to have fun in his free time and to prepare for the supposed threat from immigrants everywhere. (“You never know when something could happen,” he tells me.) He’s never gun-less. He brings his weapon to diners and dinners, to work meetings, and always on walks in his quiet neighborhood, where he grumbles “this is America!” whenever he hears Spanish spoken by neighbors or passersby. The implication, of course, is that the... Read more

Source: Shooting Alone appeared first on TomDispatch.com.

by Dave Rollo

Bayfield County, Wisconsin is situated on the shores of Lake Superior, the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface area. Deep in the heart of the Great Northwoods, the county is unique in its glaciated beauty. It also happens to be a rare example of a county in harmonious balance between its natural and constructed communities.

Bayfield County has been refreshingly free of growth controversies and displays key attributes that approach the characteristics of  a steady-state county.

The post The Steady State of Beautiful Bayfield County appeared first on Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy.

Since Dobbs, state-level Republicans have sought to strip power from DAs elected in Democratic cities who won’t prosecute abortion care.

The post Republicans Can’t Decide: Do They Hate Prosecutors Because of Bail Reform or Abortion? appeared first on The Intercept.

Poisoning the well for profit and cruelty Among would-be Rambos who fancy themselves patriots, artifacts from the American Revolution serve to justify, well, whatever antisocial, anti-American behavior needs justifying. Sacking the U.S. Capitol comes to mind. They’ll wave Gadsden flags and sport tee shirts citing Thomas Jefferson’s “the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” Etc. But when they’re not sacking capitols and bear-spraying police, and when their crooked lawyers are not working to overturn elections that don’t go their way, these miscreants employ a more ancient tradition: poisoning the well. Smithsonian Magazine provides a thumbnail history of “an early form of biological warfare,” the practice of belligerents as ancient as the Sumerians and as recent as the Israeli Army and ISIS iterally poisoning wells to inflict suffering on civilians.

As we encounter Shakespeare’s tragedies it becomes terrifyingly clear that we are not in a moral universe of comeuppances and rewarded virtues.

The post No Comfort appeared first on The New York Review of Books.

Dear Whoever Keeps Making My Wife Laugh on Slack,

Enough. It’s just enough already.

Now, listen to me carefully because I’m only going to say this once: your making-my-wife-laugh days are over, buddy. Do you hear me? Over. That means no more memes, no more GIFs, and especially no more company inside jokes that I “just wouldn’t understand.”

First of all, I understand everything. Got that, Carlin?

And second, don’t you have an actual job you should be doing? After all, the last time I checked, it was called “work from home,” not “make my wife laugh from home.” That is, unless your job is to make my wife laugh—in which case, whatever they’re paying you, it’s not enough.

Hey, I have a good idea: You should ask the last guy who used to make my wife laugh on Slack how much he was making. I’m sure he’d be more than willing to help you renegotiate your salary. If you find out who he is, let me know. I’d like to have a few words with him myself—the punching kind.

In today's BCTV Daily Dispatch: The Rookie, X-Men '97, South Park, Smiling Friends, Squid Game 2, The Last of Us, Doctor Who, and much more!

Growing university protests here mirror US occupations against Israel’s invasion, as institutions are accused of profiting from the Gaza war

Byline Times finds library of 'upskirting' images available at leading photo agencies following Laurence Fox incident involving Narinder Kaur

A number of pro-Western but otherwise fragmented Georgian political opposition groups may put aside bad blood to campaign as one ahead of elections in October

The Labour leader's new six 'first steps' for Government reveal a lot about the kind of administration he plans to lead

‘So was I once myself a swinger of birches’ – Robert Frost reads his celebrated poem on yearning for the freedoms of youth

- by Aeon Video

Watch at Aeon

For 3,000 years, humans have struggled to understand the embryo. Now there is a revolution underway

- by John Wallingford

Read at Aeon