Indholdsfortegnelse for July 14, 2023 i The Week Magazine

It has been a disappointing decade for democracy. The fall of the iron curtain is receding into the past. Instead, in places like the Arab world that were supposed to be turning the corner, we have seen an authoritarian revival. In Russia and China, any tilt toward democracy has been reversed; Hong Kong stands as a searing example of how freedoms can be taken away. Established democracies have taken a turn toward cults of personality. Each of these—Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey, Narendra Modi in India, and, yes, Donald Trump in the United States—comes with its own flavor. But they all share a basic disregard for minority rights and institutional safeguards. Modi in particular has risen with a brand of explicitly xenophobic and violent Hindu nationalism. Yet last week the…

A Florida man will face no criminal charges after firing 30 rounds from his AR-15 at the man who came to clean his pool. Bradley Hocevar, 57, mistook Karl Polek, 33, for an intruder and unloaded his entire 30-round magazine at Polek, who suffered only minor injuries from shattering glass. Under the state’s Stand Your Ground law, said Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, Hocevar’s actions were “lawful but awful.” Three years after Mississippi retired its Confederate-themed state flag, some Republicans are trying to bring it back. “A lot of our people fought and died under that flag,” said state Sen. Kathy Chism. The old flag was designed by a white supremacist in 1894 to honor “the Lost Cause,” but Chism wants to hold a public referendum on restoring it. In…

Samuel L. Jackson’s life nearly went in a much different direction, said Marlow Stern in Rolling Stone. The killing of Martin Luther King Jr. helped turn him into an activist, and he served as an usher at King’s funeral, held at historically Black Morehouse College in Atlanta. “Robert Culp and Bill Cosby rented a plane and took about 100 students from Spelman and Morehouse and Clark to Memphis to march with the garbagemen,” Jackson, 74, says, “and then we came back and the funeral was the next day. I volunteered to do all that.” Months later, he saw on TV the violent clashes between police and protesters outside the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago. “Seeing the police beating those demonstrators—and those were young white kids—I learned there’s a certain…

Kevin Costner and Christine Baumgartner’s divorce is getting messier by the minute. Baumgartner, a handbag designer, claims her movie-star ex told their three teenage kids about the split, without her participation, during a 10-minute Zoom call while he was filming in Las Vegas. Costner, 68, claims Baumgartner, 49, has refused to vacate their $145 million California mansion, in violation of their prenuptial agreement, and has charged $95,000 on his credit card since their May breakup. Baumgartner, who married Costner in 2004, wants $248,000 per month in child support payments, with Costner also covering the kids’ private-school tuition and other expenses. In court filings last week, she detailed Costner’s lavish 2022 spending, including $830,000 on gifts, $449,000 to join two beach clubs, and $46,000 on golf- and hunting-club dues—revelations Costner…

Jennifer Rubin The Washington Post “Donald Trump has it all wrong,” said Jennifer Rubin. The former president seems to think he can avoid federal prison time by winning the 2024 election and then pardoning himself for any federal felony convictions. But “his only hope” for getting a get-out-of-jail-free card is that a different Republican wins the nomination and becomes president. Trump and his supporters are talking about “self-pardons,” but there is no legal basis in the Constitution for something so illogical, and they would not stand up to even this Supreme Court’s review. If self-pardons were possible, then “why would not every president take advantage of the opportunity to engage in a crime spree, secure in the knowledge he could pardon himself on the way out the door?” Not incidentally,…

MALAYSIA Praba Ganesan Malay Mail It sounds absurd, but soup is the “most visceral wedge issue” in Malaysian politics right now, said Praba Ganesan. Last month, lawmaker Jimmy Puah asked that bak kut teh—pork ribs stewed for hours in a broth of herbs and spices—be declared a Malaysian heritage food, alongside staples like laksa noodle soup. The request sounded patriotic enough: Puah wanted to defend this beloved broth from competing claims, recently aired on a TV news show, that bak kut teh originated in neighboring Singapore. But Puah’s proposal triggered a ferocious backlash, because nearly two-thirds of our country’s population is made up of Muslims, who aren’t supposed to eat pork. Many Muslim politicians claimed to be outraged, saying it would be offensive to recognize a dish that not everyone…

It’s come to this: Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg said they want to fight each other in a cage match, said Whizy Kim and Nicole Narea in Vox. We seriously doubt this will actually happen, “despite the back-and-forth social media banter” last week between two of the world’s richest men. Musk first floated the idea of a cage match—yes, an actual Ultimate Fighting Championship–style slugfest—in a tweet after Zuckerberg’s company, Meta, announced it was launching an app to rival Twitter. Zuckerberg, who has been training in jiujitsu with a top coach, responded tersely with “Send me location.” There is a history of animosity between the two men, but the absurd idea of a fight “just seems to be a reflection of their sheer vanity.” It’s “a shared plea for…

Humans have pumped so much water out of the ground that we have managed to shift the planet slightly off-kilter. That’s the conclusion of a new study into what’s known as “polar drift,” reports New Scientist. Between 1993 and 2010, researchers found, more than 2 million tons of water was taken out of underground reservoirs. That has caused the geographic North Pole to move at an average rate of 4.36 centimeters per year, an impact on polar drift second only to the changes caused by melting glaciers and ice caps. Thankfully, this tiny tilting of the axis doesn’t make the planet less stable—Earth isn’t perfectly spherical, so it already wobbles several meters each year. The only area in which the drift might have practical consequences is the calibration of…

Critic Aisha Harris is the co-host of the hit NPR podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour. In her new book, Wannabe, she examines how all of us, including herself, are shaped and reshaped by the music, movies, and television of our time. Reel to Real: Race, Sex, and Class at the Movies by Bell Hooks (1996). Hooks approached film criticism as astutely as she did feminism and race, and of course these subjects often overlapped. Her ruminations on Spike Lee, Quentin Tarantino, Waiting to Exhale, and other popular culture of the ’90s were an invaluable resource as I crafted Wannabe. Kristy’s Great Idea (The Baby-Sitters Club No. 1) by Ann M. Martin (1986). The book that launched an indelible franchise. Kristy Thomas—budding teenage entrepreneur and founder of the Baby-Sitters Club—became…

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, through Aug. 27 “Vincent van Gogh is so famous, his work so frequently reproduced, that it can be difficult to concentrate on what we are seeing when we encounter the real thing,” said Karen Wilkin in The Wall Street Journal. But by focusing tightly on a single motif in his work, the most popular show at the Met this summer “makes this overexposed artist engaging again.” During his prolific final years, van Gogh frequently drew or painted cypress trees, and the exhibition gathers 40 such works. “There are illuminating moments throughout,” and though the crowds may come for the swirling energy of the 24 paintings, some of van Gogh’s rhythmic, manic late drawings might be the best reason to join the queues.…

New animated adventures… Nimona A rebellious shape-shifting teen teams with a disgraced knight to tear down the society that has labeled her a monster in this well-made new subversive fairy tale based on a graphic novel. Chloë Grace Moretz and Riz Ahmed lead the voice cast. Netflix Kizazi Moto: Generation Fire This excellent new anthology presents visions of future Africa in 10 animated adventures from a new generation of African directors. Highlights include “Enkai,” a Kenyan fable about the daughter of a cosmic deity, and “Surf Sangoma,” a tale of two teenagers who surf 2050’s raging seas. Arrives July 5. Disney+ Unicorn: Warriors Eternal If you’ve seen Samurai Jack or Primal on Cartoon Network, you know Genndy Tartakovsky is one of today’s best animators. His recently released passion project…

A $100 piece of a $55 million painting A 1963 portrait by British artist Francis Bacon is about to make its stock market debut, said Carol Ryan in The Wall Street Journal. Next month, “a company named Artex is launching a roughly $55 million initial public offering of Bacon’s Three Studies for a Portrait of George Dyer,” with shares of the artwork going for about $100 apiece. The “stock” will list on a specially created “art stock exchange” available to regular investors. Though “artworks valued below $1 million are risky, returns on ‘blue-chip’ art” from the post-1945 era gained 12.6 percent yearly between 1995 and 2022, compared with a 9 percent annual return for the S&P 500, according to Masterworks, an investment platform that began offering fractional art shares…

Jeffrey Kluger Time A $10.3 billion “forever chemicals” settlement from 3M will open the floodgates for more giant payments, said Jeffrey Kluger. DuPont and 3M have “historically been the leading manufacturers of PFAS,” manufacturing substances known as “forever chemicals” because of how long they linger in the environment. PFAS have been “linked to a range of health ills, including decreased fertility, high blood pressure in pregnant people, and increased risk of certain cancers.” Those two companies currently face about 4,000 lawsuits by states and municipalities seeking compensation for the cost of cleaning up land and water. The cases mostly center around PFAS in older forms of firefighting foam, used on military bases, at airports, and by local firefighters. But other contamination has come from the manufacturing plants, which produce PFAS…

This week’s question: Florida has been invaded by the giant African land snail, a banana-size gastropod that devours foliage, gnaws on buildings, and transmits diseases and parasites in its trail of slime. Come up with the title of a creature-feature horror film about this slow-moving menace. Last week’s contest: Artificial intelligence is being used to extract John Lennon’s vocals from an unreleased demo tape to help create what Sir Paul McCartney is calling “the final Beatles song.” What would be an appropriate title for the Fab Four’s AI-enabled single? THE WINNER: “I Wanna Clone Your Band” Jess Urriola, Morris Plains, N.J. SECOND PLACE: “The Long and Winding Code” Joe Ayella, Wayne, Pa. THIRD PLACE: “Silicon Soul” Andy Marshall, Santa Barbara, Calif. For runners-up and complete contest rules, please go…

Joanna Lumley has always despised sex scenes, said Emine Saner in The Guardian (U.K.). The British actress, who landed her first TV and film roles in the late 1960s, knew the price of admission was taking off her clothes for the camera. “Oh, everybody stripped,” says Lumley, 77. “From Diana Rigg to Julie Christie, we all had to take at least our tops off in something. It was standard: ‘You’re not a real actress unless you take your top off.’ Nobody liked it.” Filming intense kissing scenes was nearly as “revolting” as the “soft porn” of pretending to have sex, she says. “We wouldn’t have films of people sitting on the loo. There are some things which are private.” Back then, Lumley was sharing an apartment with three women…

Jonathan Chait New York magazine Now we know why former special counsel John Durham thought the FBI’s Russia investigation was “a witch hunt,” said Jonathan Chait. In testimony before the House Judiciary Committee last week, Durham revealed he knows almost nothing about the mountain of evidence that Donald Trump gladly welcomed Russia’s election interference. Durham was appointed four years ago by then–Attorney General William Barr to exonerate Trump, but his now-closed probe “utterly failed to prove that the Russia investigation was a vast anti-Trump conspiracy.” When asked last week by committee Democrats if the Russians hacked Democratic emails and released them to help a delighted Trump, Durham shrugged and said he did not know. He also didn’t know that the Russians tried to hack Hillary Clinton’s server the same day…

POLAND Miroslaw Zukowski Rzeczpospolita How can a major international tournament draw so little enthusiasm? said Miroslaw Zukowski. Poland is currently hosting the European Games—a relatively new, pre-Olympics competition like the Pan-American or Asian Games, but without the panache—but even we don’t seem excited. Part of that’s because of the “political stigma” clinging to the European Games from its first two iterations, in 2015 and 2019, which were held “by the grace of the dictators of Azerbaijan and Belarus.” If Russia’s bid to host this year had succeeded, the whole endeavor would likely have died “a natural death.” Holding the 2023 games instead in Krakow, a “historic city known to every educated European,” was supposed to “save them.” But how can it, when the European Union views the Polish government almost…

“Democrats shouldn’t ignore” Robert F. Kennedy Jr., said Ed Kilgore in New York magazine. The 69-year-old anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist is a “nuisance candidate” in the Democratic presidential primary, but he’s still managing to poll from 15 to 20 percent. The son of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and nephew of President John F. Kennedy, RFK Jr. comes from a legendary family in Democratic politics. That’s why voters need to be told that this Kennedy is “not a real Democrat.” RFK Jr. believes that childhood vaccines cause autism, that the Covid vaccine is dangerous, that 5G phone networks damage people’s brains, and that antidepressants cause mass shootings. This is far-right fringe stuff, but with Fox News and people like Elon Musk, Tucker Carlson, and Steve Bannon promoting Kennedy as a spoiler…

Young and Restless by Mattie Kahn (Viking, $29) It’s time to write girls back into the historical record, said Garance Franke-Ruta in The New York Times. First-time author Mattie Kahn does just that in her inspiring survey of the girls and young women who have fought for political and social change in America. Harriet Hanson was 11 when she led an 1836 factory walkout. Abolitionist Anna Elizabeth Dickenson was a teenager when she was nicknamed America’s Joan of Arc. Clearly, girls have not been passive citizens. “Sometimes they even changed history.” Mott Street by Ava Chin (Penguin, $29) “We are all interconnected,” said Megan Vered in the Los Angeles Review of Books. That’s the lesson that emerges from Ava Chin’s history of four generations of her Chinese-American family, all…

Good week for: Job openings, with news that an anonymous U.S. billionaire couple living in Britain is looking to hire a full-time, live-in “dog nanny” at a starting salary of $127,227. The job listing says the successful applicant will combine superlative dog-pampering skills with the ability to “handle sensitive information with the utmost discretion and confidentiality.” Face mask companies, after more smoke from 488 still-active Canadian wildfires caused air quality alerts in 20 states from Minnesota down to Georgia. Diagnoses, after former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney said the problem with current U.S. politics is that “we’re electing idiots.” Cheney suggested that voters should try electing “serious people.” Bad week for: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who called fellow right-winger Rep. Lauren Boebert “a little bitch” on the House floor. Days later,…

Serhii Lipko is juggling two jobs—one as a Ukrainian soldier, the other as a stand-up comedian—said Yaroslav Druziuk in New York magazine. Lipko, 29, remains one of Ukraine’s most popular comedians despite serving near the front lines in Bakhmut, where he operates military drones. “Why do we do comedy?” he asks. “I believe it’s the way to turn a problem into a joke. That’s even more relevant when you’re at war. Your brain wants to turn your painful experience into a joke. It will keep hurting you, so the instinct is to devalue it. So I do stand-up now, basically, for self-preservation.” In his act, he mocks Vladimir Putin and Russian soldiers, jokes he’s learning English to work with NATO instructors, and does gags about life as a newlywed.…

Noah Smith Noahpinion.blog The U.S. and India are on the verge of forming “a true alliance,” said Noah Smith. A very friendly meeting between President Biden and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi last week yielded a “startlingly broad,” multibillion-dollar bundle of cooperative military and economic agreements. A small group of progressive House Democrats boycotted Modi’s speech, citing the Hindu nationalist’s persecution of Muslims and suppression of free speech. Modi has indeed taken India in a troubling direction, but that does not justify shunning an alliance with the world’s most populous country. We’ve partnered with worse leaders, including Joseph Stalin, to defeat greater global evils. India can serve as a powerful U.S. regional ally in our “great power competition” with Xi Jinping’s China, which is a “techno-totalitarian surveillance state” and aggressive…

“Revolutions, attempted rebellions, assassinations, and coups dot the Russian historical landscape. This isn’t unusual in old nations. What makes Russia different is that it is dealing with them to this day. A couple millennia after Athens and a couple hundred years after the modern democratic revolution, Russia still has a de facto czar. Whereas we read about poisonings in history books telling the story of medieval Europe, they still happen in Russia. If he’s going to maintain his sense of dominance, Vladimir Putin isn’t ultimately going to defeat Yevgeny Prigozhin in an election or simply fire or reprimand him; he’s going to have to kill him.” Rich Lowry in National Review…

PORTUGAL Carlos Rodrigues CM Jornal What kind of scum would use a boy’s “dream of becoming a soccer star” to lure him into slavery? asked Carlos Rodrigues. That’s what’s been going on right here in Portugal. Last week, at least 80 boys from South America, Africa, and Asia were rescued from a soccer training academy in Famalicão, where they were “kept under lock and key, without enough food, crammed into shabby dormitories, without documents.” Authorities suspect the aspiring athletes were lured to Portugal by scammers posing as agents or scouts who promised them contracts or a trial run with a club—for a pretty penny, of course. The boys were forced to work without pay and live in conditions “devoid of all human dignity.” This is what happens when the “criminal…

HONDURAS José Adán Castelar El Heraldo Ferocious gangs have taken their bloody war to a women’s prison, said José Adán Castelar. Last week, 48 women inmates were slaughtered in a battle between the two most feared Central American gangs, MS-13 and Barrio 18. Women gang members who had managed to arm themselves with pistols and machetes set a fire as a diversion, then leaped on their rivals, hacking and shooting. Those who survived were hurled back into cells and doused with flammable liquid. Hondurans are used to riots in men’s prisons, but this “grisly massacre shattered expectations,” not least because of the “despicable and bloodthirsty behavior of the women.” Clearly, the gang members had also corrupted some of the prison’s guards and wardens, since they were able to organize the…

“It’s you versus you in everything that you do.” WNBA star Sabrina Ionescu, quoted in The Strickland “The difference between reading a book and listening to a book is like the difference between running a marathon and watching a marathon on TV.” Colm Tóibín, quoted in The Atlantic “The problem with making art to wake people up is that your ideal reader/viewer is asleep.” Biographer Ian Penman, quoted in the London Review of Books “There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children.” Nelson Mandela, quoted in the Park City, Utah, Record “Places move into people just as much as people move into places.” Novelist Nicola Dinan, quoted in The Guardian “It’s not the notes you play. It’s the notes…

Our marketing VP? TikTok Corporate America is increasingly in thrall to viral trends on TikTok, said Chavie Lieber and Suzanne Vranica in The Wall Street Journal. Chipotle recently added “The Keithadilla”—a steak-enhanced spin on the quesadilla—as a permanent menu item after the viral success of an off-menu “hack” by a popular TikTok “food influencer.” One fast-fashion company even “has technology that monitors popular TikTok videos” to search for trends and “releases 150 monthly styles based on viral clips.” Executives say that following TikTok has become “necessary if they want to win over younger shoppers and keep up with the competition.” The risk is that companies must “scramble to mass-produce products, or fix existing ones, based on feedback that often has a very short shelf life.” Meta takes on Canada…

Good news for frequent fliers, reports CNTraveler.com: The Australian airline Qantas may have worked out the best way to reduce jet lag. Ahead of launching its ultra–long haul, 22-hour nonstop services from New York and London to Sydney, the company conducted a test in which volunteers wore biometric monitors during a special flight, on which cabin lighting levels and in-flight meals were timed to align with the internal body clock. They found that those passengers slept better and reported less severe jet lag afterward compared with a regular flight, and even showed better cognitive performance two days after the flight. And it wasn’t only the timing of the meals that helped, but the ingredients, too. To help people stay awake, the researchers gave them meals including chili, chocolate, and…

My Murder by Katie Williams (Riverhead, $27) “My Murder is one of those rare emotionally intelligent books that are also fun reads,” said Dan Chaon in The New York Times. Katie Williams’ “whip-smart” thriller builds from an arresting premise: The protagonist, Lou, is one of five female victims of a since-arrested serial killer who have been cloned and returned to their families. But new Lou soon discovers that original Lou had already packed to walk away from her suburban life with a husband and newborn, and as she pieces together the final weeks and hours leading up to her murder, My Murder keeps us off balance by a few “masterly” plot turns. Familiar mysteries of the human experience generate the suspense, said Erika Dirk in the Chicago Review of…

As the principal host of Jeopardy!, Ken Jennings is used to having all the answers, and on a big lit board, said Sarah Larson in The New Yorker. But in his new book, Jennings tackles a question that has always stumped humans: Is there an afterlife, and if so, what is it like? Jennings’ 100 Places to See After You Die is presented as a droll travel guide, but his study of the many afterlives presented in mythology, religion, and pop culture revealed some telling commonalities. “I don’t want to have some reductionist view of religion, but hell is often a means of control over people,” he says. “You know—you better straighten up or here’s exactly how hot the tongs are, and exactly which body parts they’ll be on.”…

Goodman Theatre, Chicago 4 “Broadway has nothing like this going on,” said Chris Jones in the Chicago Tribune. The musical based on Tommy, the Who’s 1969 “masterpiece of a rock opera,” has just been rebooted in an “extraordinary” production that marshals expressionistic set design, Tony-worthy choreography, and actors who “sing their faces off” to make the show what it needs to be: an “existential howl of Boomer anger.” Projected imagery takes viewers inside the mind of the show’s deaf, dumb, and blind title character, creating an “overwhelming” sonic and visual experience that a Broadway venue will surely want to book for a future run. Credit the cast, including Ali Louis Bourzgui, in a “star-making” lead performance, said Misha Davenport in Broadway World. “No offense to the Who’s lead singer, Roger…

“The hot and sweaty days ahead call for sparkling rosés,” said Kristin Tice Studeman in Food & Wine. They offer “the effervescence of a spritz” without requiring a recipe, and like still rosés go well with many foods. Besides, “sparkling rosé doesn’t have to come with a $100-plus price tag to be excellent.” 2021 Meinklang Prosa ($16). This “crowd-pleasing” Austrian pinot noir blend is a “dry, crisp fizz full of juicy strawberry and tart cherry flavors.” NV Bohigas Rosat Cava Brut ($18). This medium-bodied Spanish sparkler features “notes of strawberry jam, a hint of creaminess, and a little pepper and sandalwood on the finish.” 2021 Mosse Moussamoussettes Rosé Pet-Nat ($27). This “watermelon-pink” Loire Valley offering “has a real cult following in the natural wine world.” It offers “notes of…

For a different kind of Maine getaway, consider Belgrade Lakes, said Lisa Wells in The Wall Street Journal. The cluster of seven lakes just north of Augusta attracts fewer summertime visitors than the state’s celebrated coast, but the area has been drawing vacationers for a century, and the Seven Lakes Inn, in Belgrade Village, was once owned by L.L. Bean’s brother. When guests visit our converted fishing cabin, we start the weekend by driving to Belgrade Lakes Golf Course, because the panoramic view from the restaurant “makes a great introduction to the area, particularly if you have a Lobster BLT in hand.” A whole string of lakes and hiking destinations stretch out before you. Warm days will often be spent on the water or swimming, while rainy days can be…

A new law took effect this week that aims to curb organized retail theft, said Gabrielle Fonrouge in CNBC.com. The Inform Consumers Act, which passed in December as part of an omnibus spending bill, “requires online marketplaces like Amazon and eBay to verify and share information on third-party sellers that handle a high volume of transactions.” The law is intended to deter a rise in organized crime groups that “steal merchandise from stores” or distribution centers “and resell it online.” Marketplaces that don’t verify large sellers’ tax ID and bank account information could pay $50,000 per violation. Ford: Giant U.S.-backed loan for battery factories Ford received a $9.2 billion federal loan last week to make more batteries in the United States, said Jack Ewing and Clifford Krauss in The New…

Last year saw a record 35 million refugees and 108 million forcibly displaced people worldwide. Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) is an international humanitarian aid organization that has been helping the displaced find new homes and forge new lives for more than 100 years. Founded in the 19th century to help Jewish immigrants in the diaspora from eastern Europe, HIAS may be the world’s oldest refugee agency. It now serves refugees without regard to origin, with operations stretching from the U.S. to Ukraine, Kenya to Colombia; its most recent initiative, Welcome Circles, focuses on Afghan and Ukrainian refugees. In 2021, HIAS reached 272,000 people with free legal services, 137,000 with mental-health care, and hundreds of thousands more with resettlement assistance and economic empowerment programs. Each charity we feature has…

Kirsten Grind and Katherine Bindley The Wall Street Journal In the tech world, psychedelic drugs have become a common social lubricant and part of the corporate culture, said Kirsten Grind and Katherine Bindley. Silicon Valley has long been tolerant of drug use; Steve Jobs openly “talked about using LSD.” Today, though, the use of psychedelics has become widespread, with many calling them “gateways to business breakthroughs.” Tesla and SpaceX chief Elon Musk is a ketamine user who says microdosing “is a better way to deal with depression.” Sergey Brin, a co-founder of Google, “sometimes enjoys magic mushrooms.” The drugs are illegal, but “clinical work by doctors and researchers seeking new solutions to mental-health problems” have made them socially acceptable. Still, medical experts and corporate boards worry that self-dosing can easily…

Larry Myers Jr. embraced the nickname “Mr. Buttermilk Biscuits”—even though it alluded to his battle with an insatiable appetite. An aspiring gospel singer, Myers appeared last year on TLC’s My 600-Lb. Life, a reality series about the morbidly obese. Bedridden at 940 pounds, he described his struggles with overeating. “Even when I’m full, I could always have more,” he said. “I’m trapped in this body and just want to be free.” While he was only in one episode, he became the show’s best-known character after a clip of him singing about buttermilk biscuits while downing a colossal order of Popeye’s chicken went viral. Myers lost more than 600 pounds after gastric-bypass surgery, but still had drastic weight fluctuations. “I eat to comfort myself,” said Myers, who died from a…

America has long treated obesity as a failure of will rather than a public health problem, said Ruth Marcus in The Washington Post. New weight-loss drugs might finally change that. Thinnest was not a word I was accustomed to hearing in a sentence about me. I wasn’t fat, exactly, but I was awfully close—at 5 feet and 152 pounds, my body mass index was 29.7, just shy of the 30 that is considered obese. More to the point, when I emailed my doctor on that day in October 2021, I was miserable. My clothes didn’t fit. Looking at myself in photos—on the unfortunate occasions when I was caught on camera—was painful. I had been a skinny child. But puberty wasn’t kind to me, pregnancy was bad, and menopause even worse. Weight was a chronic issue…