MATTERS OF STATE

TOP OF THE NEWS:

- Rex Tillerson and the Unraveling of the State Department (NYT) "...I asked him if Trump’s tweets on the topic...were in any way helpful to what he was trying to accomplish. Tillerson let out a short sigh. “Look, on the president’s tweets, I take what the president tweets out as his form of communicating, and I build it into my strategies and my tactics. How can I use that? How do I want to use that? Our strategies and the tactics we’re using to advance the policies have to be resilient enough to accommodate unknowns, O.K.?" Accommodating the president, rather than working with him, is not a normal mission for a secretary of state... In nearly 300 embassies, missions and consulates around the world where State Department officials work to promote and defend America’s interests, diplomats complain about not just a dearth of resources but also a lack of guidance. A result...the department’s morale has never been lower. For that, almost all of them blame Tillerson. ...Tillerson’s true legacy may well be to have transformed a venerable American institution into the caricature of its most fevered, irrational critics."

- Rex Tillerson at the Breaking Point (New Yorker) "Before taking office, Tillerson ran a corporation whose reach and success have few rivals in American history. In government, he has been uncomfortably subordinate to an unpredictable man. When the United States emerged from the ruins of the Second World War...its diplomats were determined to avoid another global catastrophe. Dean Acheson, the Secretary of State under President Truman and one of the principal architects of the postwar international order, wrote later, “The enormity of the task . . . was to create a world out of chaos.” Their idea was to devise political and economic arrangements that would bind the world together through free trade and encourage the spread of Western-style liberal democracy. In the past seven decades, this system has grown into a web of relationships, treaties, and institutions that span the globe and touch every aspect of daily life... The system came to have many crucial components—NATO, the European Union, the United Nations—but its indispensable member was the United States. The postwar system, for all its injustices and hypocrisies, has achieved the principal purpose that Acheson and others set out for it: the world has not fallen into a third enveloping war. Tillerson’s own vision...is less clear. For Tillerson, there seems to be a mismatch of means and ends; he has spoken as though the U.S. will remain as engaged in the world as it has been under previous Administrations, while proposing budget cuts that would make it very difficult to do so."

- The most popular parlor game in Washington: Who will replace Tillerson? (WaPo) "As several excruciating profiles have detailed, Tillerson’s main legacy will likely be a State Department depleted of talent, with the lowest morale in decades and playing a reduced role in the crafting and implementation of U.S. foreign policy. His successor’s primary mission will be to reverse that trend. The top two contenders, Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley and CIA Director Mike Pompeo, offer different paths for recovery. Some reports suggest that if Pompeo gets the State Department job, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) is in line for CIA director. "

BUSINESS/INVESTING:

- Black Monday 2: The Next Machine-Driven Meltdown (Barron's) "Quantitative strategies now account for $933 billion in hedge funds...up from $499 billion in 2007. And there’s some $3 trillion in index ETFs, which are, by definition, rules-based. The upshot: Trillions of dollars are now being invested by computers."

- Chinese money dominates bitcoin, now its companies are gunning for blockchain tech (Quartz) "China is home to the world’s largest bitcoin mines, thanks to abundant and cheap electricity, and at one time the country accounted for 95% of the volume traded in global markets. Its central bank is experimenting with a blockchain-backed digital currency, and its biggest companies, from tech giants to industrial conglomerates, are racing to bake blockchain tech into major new projects. How did stateless cryptocurrencies get so big in China, a country where the national currency...remains tightly controlled by the government? It might seem that Chinese bitcoiners are carrying out some kind of libertarian protest against China’s ruling communist party... They aren’t. Wu and his Chinese compatriots are focused not on the currency, but on the technology behind it. Ordinary Chinese bitcoin users...are far more interested in the ability to speculate on bitcoin’s wild price swings—it’s just another way to make money as China continues to adopt characteristics of a market economy."

- Nestlé Makes Billions Bottling Water It Pays Nearly Nothing For (Bloomberg) "...Americans often drink bottled water for what they hope is not in it. Fears about what comes out of the tap aren’t completely unfounded; 77 million Americans are served by water systems that violate testing requirements or rules about contamination in drinking water, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council. That said, bottled water isn’t necessarily more pure than tap. ...municipalities with 2.5 million or more people are required to test their supply dozens of times each day... Bottled water companies aren’t required to monitor their reserve or report contamination..."

EDUCATION:

- Michigan Gambled on Charter Schools. Its Children Lost (NYT) "The crisis at Carver Academy was not unfolding in isolation. Michigan’s aggressively free-market approach to schools has resulted in one of the most deregulated educational environments in the country, a laboratory in which consumer choice and a shifting landscape of supply and demand (and profit motive, in the case of many charters) were pitched as ways to improve life in the classroom for the state’s 1.5 million public-school students. But a Brookings Institution analysis done this year of national test scores ranked Michigan last among all states when it came to improvements in student proficiency. And a 2016 analysis by the Education Trust-Midwest, a nonpartisan education policy and research organization, found that 70 percent of Michigan charters were in the bottom half of the state’s rankings. Michigan has the most for-profit charter schools in the country and some of the least state oversight. Even staunch charter advocates have blanched at the Michigan model. ...it’s important to understand that what happened to Michigan’s schools isn’t solely, or even primarily, an education story: It’s a business story.

ENTERTAINMENT:

- The Doors defined California cool in the ’60s. How does their legacy stack up 50 years later? (WaPo) "The Doors induce chimerical feelings of ominous sunshine, primordial serpents and peculiar creatures communing in Laurel Canyon."

THE FUTURE OF WORK:

- Are High-Skilled Workers the Future of the Gig Economy? (Ozy) "It’s not that Uber drivers are now getting paid megabucks, but that high-skilled workers are increasingly opting to go independent."

- Why the Robot Revolution Is a Lot Less Certain Than You Think (Ozy) "We need a reality check on what work currently looks like before we can hypothesize about the future. This lack of clarity about the future of work means there is a lack of inevitability..."

HEALTH:

- The Secrets of Sleep (NYT) "...sleep is utterly essential to life, organically speaking, but the act of living our lives to the fullest, with all the attendant toils, responsibilities, and worries, has probably always been the enemy of sleep."

- Why Are More American Teenagers Than Ever Suffering From Severe Anxiety? (NYT) "While it’s difficult to tease apart how much of the apparent spike in anxiety is related to an increase in awareness and diagnosis of the disorder, many of those who work with young people suspect that what they’re seeing can’t easily be explained away. When I asked Eken about other common sources of worry among highly anxious kids, she didn’t hesitate: social media. Anxious teenagers from all backgrounds are relentlessly comparing themselves with their peers, she said, and the results are almost uniformly distressing."

LIFE:

- The Secret to Marriage Is Never Getting Married (NYT) "I have had four dogs with the man I am not married to. I have dedicated several of my books to him, but really, they all could be. He is my most important reader and creative collaborator. We have traveled the world with one suitcase. We have cooked more than 100 Blue Apron meals without killing each other. We have shared a dozen different addresses. We have built a life. But we are not married. We live in California, which means we are not even common-law married. When I say I don’t believe in marriage, what I mean to say is: I understand the financial and legal benefits, but I don’t believe the government or a church or a department store registry can change the way I already feel and behave. Or maybe it would. Because when the law doesn’t bind you as a couple, you have to choose each other every day. And maybe the act of choosing changes a relationship for the better. But successfully married people must know this already." and Is Marriage Obsolete? What Do You Think? (Ozy) "A formalized lifetime commitment to one person is certainly starting to feel a bit outdated to some. According to a 2011 Pew Research poll, nearly 40 percent of U.S. respondents agreed that marriage was becoming obsolete, up from 28 percent in 1978. But marriage rates are not falling across the board. ...one group that is bucking the marriage and divorce trends is college graduates..."

NEWS:

- The frantic, bloody hours in a Las Vegas hospital as doctors rushed to save lives (LA Times) "He had only seconds to assess each patient. The walking wounded got a green tag. Those seriously injured but who could be stabilized got yellow. Those on the brink of death — pale complexion, thready pulse — got red. Blood pooled on the floor. Debris from bandages piled up. Housekeeping could not clear the floor fast enough."

- John Kelly and the Dangerous Moral Calculus of Working for Trump (New Yorker) "Working for Trump means that one’s credibility is likely to be damaged, so there is a kind of moral calculation that any Trump supporter must make: Does working for him serve some higher purpose that outweighs the price of reputational loss? Kelly is the chief of staff and a political operative. He held a press conference and told a lie that smeared one of Trump’s political opponents. No government official’s military background, no matter how honorable, makes him immune to criticism, especially given the subject at hand. But the bigger lesson of the episode is that no matter how good one’s intentions are, when you go to work for Trump, you will end up paying for it with your reputation. For Kelly, not even his four stars prevented that." and What Trump did to Kelly shows how far we have fallen (WaPo) "This is why all except the most blind Trump partisans had to be heartsick over the performance of White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly on Thursday. The retired Marine Corps general, who devoted his life to service and suffered stoically when he lost a son in combat, stepped out as a hatchet man against Rep. Frederica S. Wilson. Thus is our world turned upside down: A genuine patriot is reduced to the role of propagandist for a boss whose idea of sacrifice, as Trump once explained on ABC News, is running a business from which he profited."

READ THIS:

- Gomorrah: A Personal Journey into the Violent International Empire of Naples' Organized Crime System (Roberto Saviano) "...nonfiction account of the decline of Naples under the rule of the Camorra, an organized crime network with a large international reach and stakes in construction, high fashion, illicit drugs, and toxic-waste disposal."

- The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams) "Seconds before Earth is demolished to make way for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is plucked off the planet by his friend Ford Prefect, a researcher for the revised edition of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy who, for the last fifteen years, has been posing as an out-of-work actor."

- James Madison: The Founding Father (Robert Allen Rutland) "...a lively portrait of the man who essentially fathered our constitutional guarantees of civil and religious liberty. Focusing on the role Madison played at the Continental Congress and in each stage of the formation of the American Republic, Robert Allen Rutland also covers Madison's relationship with his beloved wife, Dolley, his fifty-year friendship with Thomas Jefferson, and his years as a respected elder statesman after serving as secretary of state and fourth president of the United States."

- The Last Founding Father (Harlow Giles Unger) "In this lively and compelling biography Harlow Giles Unger reveals the dominant political figure of a generation. A fierce fighter in four critical Revolutionary War battles and a courageous survivor of Valley Forge and a near-fatal wound at the Battle of Trenton, James Monroe (1751–1831) went on to become America's first full-time politician, dedicating his life to securing America's national and international durability."

- Goodbye, Darkness: A Memoir of the Pacific War (William Manchester) "In this intensely powerful memoir [Manchester]...offers an unrivaled firsthand account of World War II in the Pacific: of what it looked like, sounded like, smelled like, and most of all, what it felt like to one who underwent all but the ultimate of its experiences. It belongs with the best war memoirs ever written."

- A Country of Vast Designs: James K. Polk, the Mexican War and the Conquest of the American Continent (Robert W. Merry) "In a one-term presidency, James K. Polk completed the story of America's Manifest Destiny--extending its territory across the continent by threatening England with war and manufacturing a controversial and unpopular two-year war with Mexico."

- Richard Nixon: The Life (John A. Farrell) "...an enthralling tour de force biography of our darkest president, one that reviewers will hail as a defining portrait, and the full life of Nixon readers have awaited."

- Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama (David Garrow) "David J. Garrow has created a vivid portrait that reveals not only the people and forces that shaped the future president but also the ways in which he used those influences to serve his larger aspirations."

- American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White (Jon Meacham) "Andrew Jackson, his intimate circle of friends, and his tumultuous times are at the heart of this remarkable book about the man who rose from nothing to create the modern presidency."

- Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption (Laura Hillenbrand) "...the inspiring true story of a man who lived through a series of catastrophes almost too incredible to be believed. In evocative, immediate descriptions, Hillenbrand unfurls the story of Louie Zamperini--a juvenile delinquent-turned-Olympic runner-turned-Army hero."

- John Quincy Adams: A Public Life, a Private Life (Paul C. Nagel) "John Quincy Adams was raised, educated, and groomed to be President, following in the footsteps of his father, John. At fourteen he was secretary to the Minister to Russia and, later, was himself Minister to the Netherlands and Prussia. He was U.S. Senator, Secretary of State, and then President for one ill-fated term."

SPORTS:

- Ready, Set, Gone! The N.F.L.’s Disappearing Huddle (NYT) "This season, some offenses have spent nearly half a game — 25 plays — without stopping to huddle. Many teams’ defensive units huddle even less often. As a trend, it is viewed as inevitable innovation, and most in the N.F.L. expect the pace to quicken unabated in coming seasons, a transformational jolt to an old-style league."

- Can Baseball Turn a 27-Year-Old Into the Perfect Manager? (NYT) "Maybe baseball intelligence can be put on a path of accelerated development just like the game’s young bodies. Maybe managers don’t have to look like guys who hang around dog tracks. Or maybe managers are who they are for a reason, and in them we see an increasingly rare instance of baseball’s ancient practices standing up to modern scrutiny.

TECHNOLOGY:

- How Malware Keeps Sneaking Past Google Play’s Defenses (Wired) "Sneaking bad apps through typically doesn't require exploiting elaborate vulnerabilities in the architecture of Google Play. Hackers instead use fairly straightforward tricks and techniques to dupe Play Protect's scanning... ...no matter how much Android closes the gap, the perception that Apple's iOS presents a more secure mobile operating system still dogs it. Malware does make its way into Apple's App Store from time to time, but attackers and researchers alike seem more focused on Android."

BOTTOM OF THE NEWS:

- A Condom-Maker’s Discovery: Size Matters (NYT) "Condoms get a bad rap for being a bad wrap. Now, changes by the Food and Drug Administration and industry-standards groups have opened the door to the condom equivalent of bespoke suits."

TODAYS SONG:

- Light My Fire (The Doors)

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