The Question
Should you merge finances with your significant other?
Talking Points
- Putin claimed he 'liberated' Mariupol as its defence flickered
- The EU discovered its next gas dilemma
- The final week of campaigns in France drew fiery speeches
- The Madeleine McCann case saw a long-awaited breakthrough
- Boris Johnson's 'Partygate' lies triggered a probe
- Israeli police raided the al-Aqsa mosque during Ramadan
- Australia's coal exporters faced an existential threat in China
- The financiers for Elon Musk's Twitter bid were revealed
- Netflix shares took a battering after a lousy earnings report
- And CNN+ shut up shop after blowing through $300m
Deep Dive
The Magic Kingdom is threatened. The happiest place on Earth is under siege. There are no knights or princesses in this story: just tax exemptions and culture wars.
The happiest place on Earth
When Walter Elias Disney died in 1966 his media empire lost a little bit of magic. It wasn't until the arrival of Michael Eisner, nearly a quarter of a century later, that Disney studios stopped making flops. But a year after Walt's death (and cremation; contrary to conspiracy theories he isn't buried in a cryonics chamber) his brother Roy completed the purchase of a 25,000-acre patch of land near Orlando. Like the rest of central Florida, the property was oppressively hot and wet in the middle of the year, flat as a tack, and occupied by verdant subtropical forest. The bulldozers went to work and in 1971, just months before his own demise, Roy opened a resort bearing his brother's name. Walt Disney had never intended for 'Project Florida' to function as just another resort - like Disneyland in Anaheim. It was to be a new model of planned communities based on his vision for America.
Disney certainly wasn't the only corporation to imagine a utopian dream (hello, Fordlândia) but it did have the most unimaginative name: the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow (EPCOT). Still, the town of Tallahassee bought into the Disney magic, and granted the company the Reed Creek Improvement District, comprising the newly incorporated cities of Bay Lake and Reedy Creek. Each enjoyed special tax status, and self-governing rights. Disney was granted permission to run its own municipal government, make its own planning and construction decisions, issue tax-exempt bonds (!!!), and maintain its own utilities.
Today, Walt Disney World is the agglomeration of 6 theme parks, 40 hotels, golf courses, cinemas, shopping centres, and the services required to run them all. The 'House of Mouse' turns over $20m a day via a well-oiled process of separating cash from visitors' wallets, largely unburdened by pesky state taxes or oversight. Disney takes care of Florida's lawmakers , and those lawmakers protect Disney's unusual arrangement. It's been a pretty sweet deal all-in-all. But it's about to end.
The audition
Mickey Mouse is currently persona non grata in Florida. The Walt Disney Company was lashed this week by the Republican state government. A special legislative session was held to redraw district lines and dissolve the Reedy Creek Improvement District . From June 2023, Disney's sprawling complex will exist at the whim of state and county law (something that the neighbouring Orange and Osceola counties are worried about since they could inherit Disney's significant bond debt and tax encumbrances ). The bill has been sent to Ron DeSantis for the gubernatorial signature which it will most certainly receive.
Disney's rift with DeSantis started with his Parental Rights in Education bill. Critics have labelled it the "don't say gay" bill, and said it is an attack on the LGBT+ community under the auspices of family rights. At the behest of Disney's LGBT+ staff, the company's CEO Bob Chapek criticised the bill as it made its way through the legislature. And ever since the restrictions against discussions of gender and sexual identity were signed into law, it's been open warfare. Disney has said it may halt investments in the state — a sizeable threat from the largest private employer in the state. But DeSantis has not rolled over : he has accused Disney of brainwashing Florida's youth with progressive, 'woke', and pro-LGBT+ propaganda.
What's at stake here isn't just the 60-year relationship between a state and a corporation. It's also a job interview for DeSantis . The Florida governor is the only prospective GOP candidate with a chance of beating Trump in the 2024 primaries . He is self-assured, has a knack for infuriating political opponents, and is not afraid to borrow a few tricks from Trump's own playbook. Meanwhile, the former president is enjoying semi-retirement by meddling in mid-term races and hitting holes-in-one (citation needed). But Trump's star is falling in the Republican party — much hinges on his sweeping the midterms. Little wonder then that DeSantis is hard at work fine-tuning his line of attack in America's perpetual culture war.
Worldlywise
Space is the place
While you're daydreaming about the European coastlines of Capri or Samos, NASA is puzzling over water on the other Europa. It's the latest thought-bubble in a grand tradition that began four centuries ago, with Galileo Galilei's observation of Jupiter's moons. Europa was one of four Jovian satellites named by Galileo (though we now know there are as many as 79 in orbit around the gas giant). It is only 3,000 kilometres across, 15% smaller than our own Moon, but is far more interesting for what lies beneath its 10km-thick icy crust. A deep ocean — 100km deep in some places — that scientists think could contain twice as much water as Earth.
This is not just theorising for the fun of it. Colonising space is thirsty work. Given the difficulties of transporting meaningful volumes of the stuff it's evident that extraterrestrial sources of water or ice are invaluable. But when we eventually stick a giant straw through Europa's ice sheet we might suck up more than just water. Researchers conjecture that odd parallel ridges on the surface are similar to those found on Greenland's icesheet: sizeable pockets of subsurface water. Drilling these ridges could be our next best bet for finding life in the universe .
And, after long being treated as a distant joke, Uranus may finally be on the receiving end of closer scrutiny. A once-in-a-decade report has implored NASA to send a probe to this "most intriguing" planet.
Not that button
No major professional sport event in the United States is complete without a muscular tribute to the armed forces. Fighter jets (presumably not the F-35s) come screaming overhead. Platoons march in formation. There are staged reunions of military families with returning soldiers. You get the drift. On Wednesday, Washington was hosting the Diamondbacks at Nationals Park. The mandatory salute came in the form of a US Army demonstration team flying in low and parachuting into Nationals Park . A breathtaking display of offensive prowess, to be sure. The only issue was that the FAA failed to inform the Capitol Police that a twin-prop was going to be zooming about the restricted airspace above Washington DC. The guardians of America's administrative core leapt to action evacuating the Capitol complex .
And that wasn't the only bungled alert of the week. On the same day Taiwanese viewers were stunned by the apparent onset of a Chinese invasion. A state-owned television network ran the following chyron during a news broadcast: "New Taipei City has been hit by a Chinese Communist guided missile. Ships in Taipei Port have exploded, damaging facilities. Banqiao Station is reported to have been set on fire by explosives placed by special forces. " Given the overwhelming force lying across the Taiwan Strait — not to mention the specificity of the message — you would have been well within your rights to lose it at this point. But those who didn't head for the exits immediately would have seen, some hours later, an on-air apology from the network. It was rather sheepishly explained that the message was part of a drill for the New Taipei City Fire Department.
Of course, neither of these moments holds a candle to the 2018 fiasco in Hawaii. The lazy reverie of a Saturday morning was shattered when every radio, television, and phone simultaneously blurted out BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. For one crowded half-hour the entire island state went into melt-down before the Emergency Management Agency fessed up. The most distressing (then) and funniest (now) detail was that the test plainly stated "this is not a test".
The Best Of Times
"Who wants mango and rice that is sticky?"
Yes please! Thai teen rapper Milli asked the easiest of all questions while taking bites of Khao Niaow Ma Muang during her set at Coachella. The moment of joy sparked an accompanying hashtag introducing Americans to the Southeast Asian dessert. It got enough attention that even Thailand's general-turned-PM Prayut Chan-o-cha joined the hype.
Deus ex Machina
The town of Miti in the Democratic Republic of Congo used to suffer from appalling blackouts before Sister Alphonsine Ciza's intervention. She and her fellow nuns didn't just pray for change: they built their own hydroelectric plant .
The Worst Of Times
Don't you know there's a war going on?
Three days of violent clashes between police and demonstrators have left dozens injured in Sweden. The trail of destruction followed Rasmus Paludan of the Stram Kurs ('Hard Line') party. Paludan, a racist and failed politician, set off riots by holding events to burn Qurans in cities with large muslim minorities. Police believe that the worst of the violence was spurred by "foreign actors", which is usually a lame excuse, but given there is a ground war in Europe it should be entertained.
An unjust ending
Nagaenthran K. Dharmalingam has been on death row in Singapore for 12 years. Next week he'll be hanged for the crime of smuggling heroin into the city-state. Singapore's draconian laws are known to many, but this case has drawn international advocacy because Nagaenthran has an IQ of 69 — a level that is internationally recognised as a mental disability. Sadly, the outpouring of support and pleas for clemency were not enough,
Highlights
The Image
The ageing tigress Krishna looms over her younger mate in India's Ranthanbore National Park. Rangers believe the smaller, darker Ganesh passed up an amorous advance in order to go hunting. Evidently the wrong decision. Image supplied by The Telegraph .
The Quote
"Do we want to have peace or do we want to have the air conditioning on?"
– Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi has preempted any grumbling over new thermostat rules. From next month, public buildings will be prohibited from setting their air conditioners lower than 25°C , and having their heaters set higher than 19°C. The effort to wean off Russian gas, and thereby increase leverage over Moscow, is taking a few interesting turns...
The Numbers
A 63% decline in insect numbers
- A comprehensive survey of insects has discovered a worldwide extinction event. Over 750,000 samples were collected from 6,000 sites. The damage is worst around high-intensity agriculture in the tropics. This study blames the "twin horsemen" of climate change and habitat loss for this vertiginous drop.
A $5,000,000 football jersey
- Bids have opened at $5m in the two-week online auction for a piece of football history: the jersey Maradona wore in the second half of the 1986 World Cup final . In 45 minutes he broke English hearts with a brace, one a foul, the other the best strike of the century. Priceless, really.
The Headlines
"Cats are (indirectly) causing psychosis" — Salon . Not sure the parenthetical qualifier is needed.
"House of Commons manager wins payout after colleagues sat in her 'special chair'"
— The Telegraph . It's heartwarming to see the notion of a 'special chair' finally recognised under the law.
The Special Mention
The Ignatius J. Reilly Award for Ludicrous Characters goes to Slovakia's Bohus Garbar. Odd, unemployable, down on his luck, and brimming with secret machinations .
The Best Long Reads
- Bloomberg is on the trail of art thieves
- Foreign Policy has got Marine Le Pen's number
- The Atlantic is dazzled by Robert Eggers' new film.
The Answer...
Money shines a light on the internal tension between togetherness and independence that is present in all relationships. Societal trends show a drift away from shared finances, though there are some fairly snazzy tools to share money without sharing an account. "Guilt-free" clauses are a must.
