The Atlantic: The Infantilization of the Presiden

This is apparent in  Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s description of the president, following this meeting, as a “moron”—suggesting that Trump is simply not cognitively or emotionally up to the job. And this week has seen several other examples. There is of course Senator Bob Corker’s remark that the White House functions as “an adult day care” and his follow-up to The New York Times: “He doesn’t realize that, you know, that we could be heading towards World War III with the kinds of comments that he’s making.” Corker also complained, like a weary parent, “I don’t know why the president tweets out things that are not true. You know he does it, everyone knows he does it, but he does.” Corker, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, indicated he does not trust Trump to keep America safe, saying that Tillerson, Defense Secretary James Mattis, and Chief of Staff John Kelly “are those people that help separate our country from chaos.” [...]

Bargaining is another technique, as recent news about Iran shows. While many of Trump’s aides had their gripes about the 2015 deal with Tehran to prevent nuclear proliferation, most of them seem to agree that keeping the deal in place is far preferable to eliminating it. But now the administration seems likely to punt the issue, decertifying the deal but leaving it to Congress to either let it stand or fall. (So much for Harry S. Truman’s “the buck stops here.”) Why take this halfway step? Part of it is that, just as on DACA, Trump wants to keep a campaign promise to end the deal without suffering the consequences, but another part is childish petulance: Olivier Knox reports Trump simply hates being confronted with the need to recertify the deal every 90 days.

And then, as every parent knows, sometimes you just have to give in—let the kid have a victory on something less significant. Aides can try to prevent war with North Korea, and they can seek compromise on the Iran deal, and they can quietly kill the demand for more nukes, but they’ve got to let the president have his way on occasion. When Trump demands “goddamned steam” to power catapults on aircraft carriers, aides shrug and let it go.

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The New York Review of Books: Catalonia on the Brink

Catalonia’s relationship with the rest of Spain was not idyllic but it took the shape of a healthy contest, epitomized by the eternal rivalry between Spain’s two world-famous soccer teams: Real Madrid and Barcelona. If other Spaniards sometimes perceived Catalans as arrogant, they also thought them more efficient, more modern, more “European.” The Catalans, for their part, would sometimes grumble about Spain’s too easygoing approach to life, but then they would mock their own sense of superiority, and they, too, celebrated southern Spain’s vibrant culture. After more than a century of receiving a constant stream of migrants from other parts of Spain, Catalonia had become “a little Spain,” where Andalusian flamenco, Gypsy rumba, and Galician bagpipe music were almost as significant a presence as Catalan culture itself. This was particularly true of Barcelona. Barcelona, says Spain’s seventeenth-century literary hero Don Quixote, is a “fountain of courtesy, shelter of strangers, …reciprocator of firm friendship.” [...]

And then 2010 changed all that. In that fateful year, two things happened. The economic crisis that had struck the whole world at the time was felt hard across Spain, but in Catalonia the cutbacks to social services and the austerity measures of the Catalan government were harsher than those Madrid imposed on the rest of Spain. This caused a wave of anger at the establishment and created an atmosphere in which any radical idea could succeed. At the same time, after four years of agonizing deliberations, the Spanish Constitutional Court issued a controversial ruling. The Catalans had approved in a referendum a new, reformed statute of autonomy. Now the court was annulling parts of it. Catalonia was not to be called a nation, the Catalan language would not have absolute primacy over the Spanish language, Catalonia was not to have its own justice and tax system. [...]

By 2015, it had become clear that the “Scottish option” was not available. Artur Mas tried something else. He called a snap regional election and turned it into a plebiscite. Votes for nationalist parties would be counted as votes for independence. It was a narrow miss. The secessionists won a tantalizing 47.8 percent, almost a majority, but short of it. Yet the whims of the electoral law handed them a parliamentary majority nonetheless. Faced with the temptation, they succumbed. The relatively moderate Mas was replaced by the much more radical Puigdemont, who was willing to call a referendum even if it meant stepping outside the law. He wouldn’t care if the Constitutional Court did not approve or if the turnout didn’t pass the 50 percent threshold. What had hitherto been an irreproachably democratic movement morphed into a popular and institutional insurrection. Ithaca could wait no longer.

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The Huffington Post: The Power And Privilege Of 'Passing' As Straight

The truth is: I envy gay and bi men who can pass as straight. It’s not that I want to be straight. I’m comfortable in my skin as a proud gay man. I came out at sixteen in a conservative city at a time when homosexuality was still classified as a mental illness. Over the years I’ve marched on Washington when Reagan refused to say the word AIDS, walked in more pride parades than I can count, and helped train volunteers to call voters on behalf of marriage equality.

The unavoidable fact is that I’m not able to hide whatever traits may be considered unmacho if I tried. It’s simply who I am, and I wouldn’t even know how to be some other me. That’s perhaps why I envy men who would never be thought of as anything but straight. Their identity isn’t defined for them almost before they speak. Assumptions aren’t instantly made about what they are like that may have nothing to do with the truth of their lives. They are a tabula rasa, a blank slate; their very being doesn’t immediately conjure a spate of word associations, whether positive (“sensitive,” “artistic”) or pejorative (everything from “flamboyant” to “fag”). [...]

In David M. Halperin’s enlightening essay, “Sex Before Sexuality,” published in Hidden from History: Reclaiming the Gay and Lesbian Past, he writes that it never occurred to premodern cultures to define people on the basis of their “intrinsic” sexuality, any more than we would make dietary preference a fundamental aspect of personality. “Despite an awareness of the range of possible variations in human sexual behavior,” these cultures “refuse[d] to individuate human beings at the level of sexual preference and assume[d], instead, that we all share the same fundamental set of sexual appetites, the same ‘sexuality.’ For most of the world’s inhabitants, in other words, ‘sexuality’ [was] no more a fact of life than ‘dieticity.’” He concludes that “’sexuality’ seems to be a uniquely modern, Western, even bourgeois production.” Once the notion took root, it not only differentiated us; it began to divide us.

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Slate: The Czech Trump

Appearances, however, have a pesky tendency to deceive. Despite the immense progress their country has made, the mood among most Czechs is increasingly bitter. Though the country is affluent, they are convinced that the political establishment has failed them. Though most of the foreigners you see in the streets of Prague are here to spend money on beer, souvenirs, and museum tickets, Czechs are intensely preoccupied with the supposed threat posed by migrants and terrorists. And though the country’s political class has, on the whole, served it reasonably well, voters are now lending their support to a larger-than-life billionaire who promises to smash the system.  [...]

YES is not the only noxious movement that is doing well. There is also the right-wing extremist SPD, the left-wing extremist KSCM, and the populist Pirate Party. If you add up the vote of all these anti-establishment parties, forces that are deeply critical of representative democracy are likely to win an overall majority in the Czech Republic. This means that Babiš can choose from a wide variety of possible coalition partners that might not be too fussy if he tried to dismantle parts of the democratic system—as he almost certainly would, if only to escape the corruption charges that are hanging over his head.

If Babiš does become prime minister, he could change the country in fundamental ways. Unlike proto-populists like Vaclav Klaus, a euroskeptic conservative who once held the country’s presidency, a largely ceremonial post, Babiš is highly hostile to independent institutions in Prague as well as Brussels. And unlike populists who came to power with a plurality of the vote in other countries, his ability to influence the political slant of the main state broadcaster will, in conjunction with his private holdings, give him a near-monopoly over the country’s mass media. Though Babiš would undoubtedly face determined opposition from large segments of the population, it may prove rather more difficult to check his thirst for power than observers enthralled by Prague’s chic cafes believe.

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Al Jazeera: Erdogan in the Balkans: A neo-Ottoman quest?

The visit has a much more pragmatic purpose. Twelve new agreements were signed with the Serbian government, including an update to the free-trade deal (pdf) the two countries concluded back in 2009. Together with President Aleksandar Vucic, Erdogan pledged to push the annual trade turnover between the two countries from $800 million to $1bn. By virtue of its size, Serbia is Turkey's most important market in ex-Yugoslavia, well ahead of kin countries, such as Bosnia or Kosovo.

This is not to negate the role played by Islam and the Ottoman past. Erdogan's trip to the Muslim-majority area of Sandzak on October 11 is asserting his role as leader of a community transcending the Turkish republic's borders. Novi Pazar, the capital of the Sandzak region split between Serbia and Montenegro, was covered in billboards with the Turkish president's face and "hosgeldiniz" ("welcome" in Turkish) in big letters. [...]

It is remarkable that Erdogan has found a partner in Aleksandar Vucic. Serbia's president cut his teeth in the ultranationalist Radical Party in the 1990s and served as Slobodan Milosevic's minister of information. But now he is the voice of pragmatism: "This is not 1389. Serbia and Turkey are friendly countries," he said, referring to the year of the Battle of Kosovo between Serbian forces and the invading Ottoman army. [...]

The cost of engaging Turkey is minimal. Nationalists in Serbia cheer at Erdogan's disputes with the US and EU and the blooming friendship with Putin. Those who point at the unsettling parallels between Vucic's strongman tactics and Erdogan's authoritarian ways are simply ignored.

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CityLab: Preserving the Meaning of Lesbian Bars

Somehow, neither Angola nor I had visited Henrietta’s before. This venerable “bar and girl” in Manhattan’s West Village is one of only four lesbian bars still open for business in all of New York City. That sounds shocking until you learn that San Francisco has none at all. This fact is part of the reason we finally stopped by: It was a celebration following the opening of “No Man’s Land,” an artwork exhibition by Gwen Shockey on display at New York’s Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art. Her multimedia piece, installed for just one weekend in late September, responds to the reality of the dwindling number of spaces dedicated to lesbian nightlife.

At a time when gay people and places are more accepted than ever, the number of gay bars is declining. The decrease is far starker for women’s bars, because there were never as many of those in the first place. The causes include the “mainstreaming” that allows LGBTQ people to mingle elsewhere, the prevalence of hook-up apps, and the high cost of urban real estate. The circumstances vary in each place; some surmise, for example, that San Diego still sustains two lesbian bars because it’s a military town and a port town. [...]

With this project, Shockey joins other gay artists whose work includes documenting the gay physical world, past and present—artists as concerned with spaces as with the body. Edie Fake makes intricate architectural drawings of real and imagined queer spaces from his native Chicago. Kaucyila Brooke has recorded and mapped past and present lesbian bars in three California cities, as well as Cologne, Germany. A faculty member at the California Institute of the Arts, Brooke says she began her ongoing project, “The Boy Mechanic,” in 1996 because, “It just felt pressing.” She wanted to capture the memories of places before they were lost—even though many of the places themselves weren’t much to look at.

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Quartz: Radioactive wild boars in Sweden are eating nuclear mushrooms

In 1986, a nuclear power plant in Chernobyl, Ukraine exploded, irradiating the surrounding region, including Belarus, Russia and the rest of the Ukraine, and sending a cloud of radioactive material over northern and central Sweden. At the time, Swedes were warned against eating potentially nuclear berries and mushrooms. But no one told the wild boars about irradiated fruits and fungus, and three decades later these Swedish animals show exceptionally high levels of radioactivity because of mushrooms rooted deep in ground that remains radioactive. [...]

Boars in the north of Sweden were hunted to extinction two centuries ago because they were destructive to agricultural land. But their population has exploded since then: “After being reintroduced and extinct a few times, the present wild boar population in Sweden descends from animals escaped from enclosures in the 1970s and probably from illegal releases,” posits a 2010 report by the Swedish University of Agricultural Studies (pdf). Now, about a quarter million wild boars are estimated to live in the wilderness throughout the country, where they are hunted for food and sport.

Frykman expects to see more boar with extreme radiation levels as populations continue to increase and more such animals make their way north over the years. “There are more and more of them, and when they come, they come in large numbers,” Mia Brodin, a northern farming association representative told the Telegraph. “They dig deep holes in the fields, [which] destroy your tractor. The crops are destroyed and they eat food you put out for your livestock.”

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Quartz: Actually, Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock’s massacre was highly predictable

Today, big data and predictive analytics are hard at work stringing together billions of data points and pinpointing future outcomes with unprecedented accuracy. And while you might accept the fact this is occurring on Wall Street and in the US Defense Department you may be surprised to learn how accurately we can predict human behavior. For example, we can now say —with 86% accuracy—whether a person is going to trip and fall within the next three weeks. It turns out a 5 centimeter per second decline in their normal walking gait is the precursor to a fall. Who knew? [...]

Every day, computer algorithms are at work gathering data in real time and spitting out inevitable conclusions about what lies ahead. And as experts comb through Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock’s computer, social media accounts, cell phone records, credit card transactions, medical history, childhood, and other data, we will uncover a pattern of behavior headed for a dangerous criticality. In truth, we have the scientific ability to forecast when a violent attack is likely.

It may not be 100%, but it is accurate enough to identify individuals who are prone to carrying out mass attacks, as well as when they may be preparing to act. [...]

Computer analytics are one thing, but what about free will? Just because a person makes detailed plans and intends to act on a crime doesn’t mean they won’t come to their senses at the last second. Even if a computer model achieves 100% certainty, are we prepared to take preventative measures based on intent?

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Quartz: The incredible story of how the last known da Vinci was almost lost forever

This week, the New York auction house Christie’s, announced that Salvator Mundi (Latin for “Savior of the World”) will be offered for an estimated $100 million next month. The painting is owned by Russian investor Dmitry Rybolovlev, whose estimated net worth is $7.4 billion and has been mired in many controversies—in the art world and beyond.

While art historians knew Salvator Mundi existed, rediscovering the work had become an elusive dream. In 1958, the painting—not known to be Leonardo da Vinci’s work—changed hands for a meager $60 at an auction at Christie’s. Then, in 2005, the painting was acquired by a group of art dealers, including Robert Simon, a specialist in Old Masters. The painting had clearly been mishandled, painted over, and shoddily restored with an artificial resin that congealed and turned gray. [...]

In 2011, the Da Vinci showed at the National Gallery in London. Two years later, it sold for $80 million at a Sotheby’s auction to a well-known Swiss dealer, Yves Bouvier, The New York Times reported. Soon after, the painting changed hands, with Rybolovlev saying he paid $127.5 million. (The traders who originally sold the painting to Bouvier threatened to sue Sotheby’s, believing they were unintentionally misled to favor a prized client and give up close to $50 million in value. Rybolovlev, meanwhile, accused Bouvier of fraudulently overcharging him in the purchase of 38 paintings, for as much as $1 billion in profits, the Times reported.)

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