Member’s despatch, Week XXI: Why’s a new book about former U.S. President Joe Biden’s cognitive decline getting so much attention? Germany’s first foreign military presence since WWII. & Looks like we’ve been evolving for longer than we thought. + Music from A.B. Quintanilla III. What is cumbia? &c.
Has it ever felt strange to you, hearing journalists refer to things happening in the world as “stories”? It’s so normal, you mightn’t have noticed it—the oddness of the convention, referring to events as though they were somehow themselves narratives. We might think of it as a quirk of journalese—like a sailor calling rope a “sheet.” But media language becomes public language, and public language shapes public thought—and events are not stories. Speaking as if they are just dulls the natural human intuition to question storytellers. … The member’s despatch will return on June 6. Next week:We’re in Olso—and publishing a new series, in partnership with our friends at the Human Rights Foundation: Out of Control: Understanding the global battle over money and assets between dictators and dissidents. Stay tuned.
—John Jamesen Gould
The Signal—your loyal guide to a changing world. … In this week’s despatch:
Developments
Why is a new book about former U.S. President Joe Biden’s cognitive decline getting so much attention? Can new EU sanctions against Russia do any good without America on board? & Is the populist right stalling or gaining in Europe?
+ Germany establishes its first foreign military presence since WWII. A new naval destroyer falls apart in North Korea. A historic prisoner exchange between Ukraine and Russia. The U.S. administration threatens to intensify its trade war again, targeting Europe—and Apple. & It seems humans have been evolving for longer than we thought.
Connections
Is China gearing up to invade Taiwan?
Features
Why are there so many toxic chemicals in food? Rashmi Joglekar on where they come from and what they’re doing to people and the planet.
+ Why do boys keep falling further behind girls in school? Ioakim Boutakidis on a half-century, still-elusive global achievement gap.
Books
From Dan Davies, on why when things go wrong, it never seems to be anyone’s fault; James Chappel on just how tough it is, getting old in America; and Richard Beck, on whether Donald Trump is really so unprecedented.
Music
From Djrum, Stereolab, and A.B. Quintanilla III.
+ What is cumbia?
Weather report
37.7183° N, 88.8647° W …
Sam McGhee
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