The Atlantic: Trump the Bulldozer

But over the past year and change, there’s been a shift: Trump, having shed himself of the aides most likely to try to divert him or change his mind, has followed through on several of the biggest unfulfilled threats I highlighted back then. The catch is that while Trump is getting his way, many of these policies are not turning out as well as the president hoped—as illustrated by severe market jitters on Monday over the escalating trade war between the U.S. and China. [...]

This is the template for what has happened in several of the cases where Trump had appeared to fold but has since followed through. Aides who felt he was acting either against the national interest or against his own interest have been shipped out: Cohn, Defense Secretary James Mattis, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, Chief of Staff John Kelly. They’ve been replaced by advisers who either encourage Trump, like Navarro, or are determined to enable rather than encumber him, such as acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and the television pundit Larry Kudlow, who succeeded Cohn.

In retrospect, the May 2018 announcement that Trump would withdraw from the nuclear-nonproliferation deal with Iran looks like a turning point. Trump had lambasted the deal as a candidate, but once entering office, he repeatedly recertified Iranian compliance with the agreement, bowing to the will of his aides. He seemed more ready to fire aides than to keep but overrule them. But starting with his withdrawal from the deal, Trump has begun following his instincts more fully.[...]

Negotiations with North Korea have gotten nowhere after two summits—though to his credit Trump did walk away from the second meeting, in Vietnam, when he felt no progress was being made. And Trump is now pursuing diplomatic negotiations with Iran on what appears to be, as with NAFTA and USMCA, just a rewrite of the deal that was previously in place, though whether anything will come of the push is unclear.

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The Conversation: Mass shootings aren’t growing more common – and evidence contradicts common stereotypes about the killers

Long-term studies of youth consistently find that violent games are not a risk factor for youth violence anywhere from one to eight years later. And no less than the U.S. Supreme Court declared in 2011 that scientific studies had failed to link violent games to serious aggression in kids.

A 2017 public policy statement by the American Psychological Association’s media psychology and technology division specifically recommended politicians should stop linking violent games to mass shootings. It’s time to lay this myth to rest. [...]

Most mass homicide perpetrators don’t proclaim any allegiance to a particular ideology at all. [...]

It’s also important to point out that the vast majority of people with mental illness do not commit violent crimes. For instance, in one study, about 15% of people with schizophrenia had committed violent crimes, as compared to 4% of a group of people without schizophrenia. Although this clearly identifies the increase in risk, it also highlights that the majority of people with schizophrenia had not committed violent crimes. It’s important not to stigmatize the mentally ill, which may reduce their incentive to seek treatment. [...]

To be sure, the U.S. has experienced many mass homicides. Even stability might be depressing given that rates of other violent crimes have declined precipitously in the U.S. over the past 25 years. Why mass homicides have stayed stagnant while other homicides have plummeted in frequency is a question worth asking.

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statista: The Hong Kong Protest by the Numbers

On Sunday, violent protest broke out in Hong Kong again, with an estimated 150,000 people hitting the streets of the Chinese special administrative region to voice their opposition to a proposed bill that would make extradiction of individuals from Hong Kong to China possible.

The mass protest have been going on since June and while crowd estimates vary widely, probably reached their peak on July 1. 265,000 people alledegly came out to protest on that day, a number calculated with the help of crown-counting AI.

Hong Kong police has said that they have arrested more than 500 people so far since June and that 1,800 canisters of tear gas, 300 rubber bullets and 170 sponge grenades have been used on the protesters, according to Bloomberg.

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Politico: Pass the Duchy: Luxembourg’s grand plan to legalize cannabis

Luxembourg, however, wants to go further and become the first country in the European Union to make cannabis completely legal. Its health ministry is slated to unveil a proposal to start the legislative process this fall, and the goal is for it to become law within two years. [...]

One of the main advocates is Health Minister Etienne Schneider, who cites health reasons as the most important driver. He said young people are already getting weed on the black market, coming into contact with drug dealers who provide cannabis of unknown quality, and getting access to more potentially dangerous drugs. [...]

A possible playbook for Luxembourg is the U.S. state of Colorado, the first in the country to legalize recreational cannabis. Legalization advocates say that they chose to frame the issue so that voters view pot the same the way they view alcohol — a substance that is widely available and socially acceptable. [...]

"In Germany, there is a consensus that there is a reason why medical cannabis is allowed and that there are patients who benefit from it," Goetz said. "So there's no reason for prohibiting that. But there is definitely not a consensus yet on legalizing it for recreational use."

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Curbed: The ‘free love’ utopia behind your forks and knives

In the 1940s, it wasn’t sex that sold—it was love. When Oneida, a silverware manufacturer, took out ads, instead of focusing on forks and knives and serving spoons, they showed a passionate embrace between a woman and man returning from war.

“Dare to dream...dare to cut yourself a slice of heaven. Some day you’ll have it...the storybook house, the crackling fire...and on your table your treasured Community,” stated one ad for Oneida’s Community Plate flatware. The “Back Home for Keeps” ads were so popular that they became the subject of a 1945 LIFE magazine article that called them “a new kind of pin-up craze.”

The irony is these ads were selling monogamous, possessive love—the exact opposite of what the founders of Oneida stood for. Long before making flatware, Oneida was a religious commune founded on polyamory.

Oneida was founded in 1848 by John Humphrey Noyes, a former theological student who believed that paradise could be found on Earth through nontraditional sexual and familial structures. This included communal child raising; “complex marriage,” a term Noyes invented to describe how all Oneidans were married to one another; and sexual rituals, like male continence. Noyes built an enormous mansion in upstate New York for his “family” and amassed hundreds of followers. For years, the community succeeded. But after Noyes died, the community pivoted—into a thriving business.

In this episode, host Avery Trufelman speaks with Paul Gebhardt, creative director and senior vice president of design at the Oneida Group; Ellen Wayland-Smith, author of Oneida: From Free Love Utopia to the Well-Set Table and descendent of the Oneida Community; and Kate Wayland-Smith, resident of the Oneida Community Mansion House.

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