The Question
What is the least-advisable outfit to wear to a football game in a Gulf Arab state? (Double points if you can guess which country the fans in question hail from)
Talking Points
- Russian missile strikes plunged most of Ukraine into darkness
- The EU prepared a Russian oil price cap, many questioned it
- No legal pathway to Scottish indy ref; Sturgeon unfazed
- Bob Iger ousted his own hand-picked successor at Disney
- A Delaware bankruptcy court heard FTX's sorry tale
- The $2.2bn Penguin/Simon & Schuster deal was scrapped
- NASA's Orion capsule lapped the Moon
- There were upsets and more upsets in Qatar
- Ronaldo quit Manchester United and scored for Portugal
- And Brazil's Richarlison did something superb
Deep Dive
A spate of mass shootings absorbed America this week. You've been here before. Too many guns. Too much homophobia and transphobia. Too much polarisation. Too little tolerance. Too sparse opportunities for social mobility.
Keeping score
The United States government has the expertise and capacity to effectively track firearms. Just not the legal authority. This is an intentional deficiency; pro-gun lobbyists have poured decades of money and imagination into ensuring this is so. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearems and Explosives staffs the National Tracing Centre (NTC) in Virginia. It is the only one in the country. The gun lobby ushered in the 'Tiahrt amendments' in 2009 which preclude the NTC from creating an electronic database of firearms and their owners. The details of America's 400 million legally-owned firearms are kept in filing cabinets.
In lieu of being able to track the weapons, we are left tallying the lives they extinguish. The Gun Violence Archive does just this — simultaneously both tribute and testimony. Any shooting that involves four or more individuals being shot or killed, not including the shooter, qualifies as a mass shooting. On Sunday Anderson Lee Aldrich walked into Club Q in Colorado Springs and opened fire on the crowd. There is much to delve into: a troubled childhood , social isolation, a rising gauge of threats and violence, a homophobic family circle . That's for others to worry over. What we know is that this was mass shooting number 602 in 2022.
603 — Washington Park, Illinois. 1 dead, 3 injured.
604 — Hennessy, Oklahoma. 4 dead, 1 injured.
605 — Dallas, Texas. 0 dead, 4 injured
606 — Chesapeake, Virginia. 7 dead, 6 injured.
607 — West Palm Beach, Florida. 2 dead, 2 injured.
608 — Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 0 dead, 4 injured.
609 — Temple Hills, Maryland. 0 dead, 4 injured.
That gets us to Wednesday. This does not include the murders (singles, doubles, or triples), instances of manslaughter, murder-suicides, suicides, deaths from accidental discharges, and injuries. There have been around 150 instances of these lesser events since Colorado Springs. In this late hour of the American project it seems the only viable task is keeping score.
Ida-whodunnit
Mass shootings are followed by intense spikes of attention. The lives of victims are given the honour they deserve. Survivors are cherished, lionised. Shooters forensically dissected. But then coverage slips over time. Sooner than you'd expect. This is not just a matter of the media moving on to the next mass shooting; it is an acknowledgement that nothing can change in the short-term. President Joe Biden called for stronger controls after the Chesapeake mass shooting. A good idea, but clearly one that the most powerful person in the country is unable to enact. The type of regulation required to stop these shootings is not political suicide; it's an impossibility under the current formulation of the American project. The media, and the entertainment industry more broadly, are, at the end of the day, the embodiment of and vehicles for an ideology. Hopelessness is a hard sell.
Which is why there won't be a film about a broken Walmart night manager lighting up the staffroom . But there will be a film (we'd venture) about the Moscow, Idaho murder mystery . Grisly scenes from a college share-house next to the University of Idaho: four kids, each 20 or 21, butchered in their beds in the middle of the night. The local police department have wrapped the details of the case in secrecy. The community is frantic. There are no witnesses, no murder weapons, and no leads. This is the kind of violent story that has legs in the news media, film, and television. A horrific attack — just one that doesn't lead back to the Constitution.
Worldlywise
The survivor
Anwar Ibrahim possesses that rare quality in politics: staying power. Perhaps it's to be expected in someone whose political career entwines with that of the seemingly-immovable Mahathir Mohamad. This week, the 97-year-old Mahathir suffered his first electoral loss — a shock by most accounts — in more than half a century. There must be something in the teh tarik. But this is Anwar's week, not Mahathir's, and the former can rejoice in elevating himself above his one-time boss, decades-long nemesis , and (of late) electoral frenemy. It was a long way back to the top after losing the deputy prime ministership during the 1997 Asian financial crisis.
His popularity marked him out as a target for the monolithic establishment of the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO). Anwar was charged with corruption and sodomy in 1999 and would spend the next 16 years of his life in and out of prison, mostly in, simultaneously serving and fighting a string of dubious charges. To be clear, the machinery of the Malaysian judiciary was used to destroy the career of a promising figure. It failed.
This week, Anwar's multi-ethnic Pakatan Harapan bloc formed government with a handful of regional players and what's left of UMNO. He bested Muhyiddin Yassin's conservative Malay-Muslim Perikatan Nasional. Decorum demands that a new prime minister must be showered in congratulations. Anwar is impatient to dispense with niceties; he's calling for a confidence vote in himself in December to reiterate the strength of his parliamentary majority. It's also the political equivalent of a flamboyant goal celebration. Good for him.
No party won government outright — a first since the country's independence in 1957. Even when there are protocols to manage such possibilities, it was a novel and nervous moment for Malaysia. Sultan Abdullah Sultan Ahmad Shah, still learning the ropes as king, found himself in the role of kingmaker. Abdullah of Pahang is perhaps a better horse-trader than most monarchs. Diplomacy is a prerequisite in a system of constitutional monarchy which rotates the big chair between the seven sultanates quinquennially. The palace placed a high value on caution in its statement, "His Majesty reminds all quarters that whoever wins, doesn't win all, and those who lose do not lose all."
Foxconn in the henhouse
Are you reading this on an iPhone, iPad, Google Pixel or Xiaomi device? Do you game on an Xbox, PlayStation, or Nintendo? Is there a Kindle charging behind your bed? Well friend, you are in posession of a device partly- or wholly-manufactured by Hon Hai Technology Group. Back in 2012, Hon Hai's vast factories on either side of the Taiwan Strait produced something like 40% of the world's consumer electronics. But you know them by their trade name: Foxconn. In Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan Province, Foxconn operates a campus of factories called iPhone City. It employs 200,000 who largely live and work onsite.
For months, it has been a site of disaffection and occasional violence over Covid protocols. On-and-off lockdowns and 'closed-loop' orders have drained every ounce of goodwill among those assembling your phone. A month ago, the growing outbreaking in Henan and insufficient health protections prompted thousands of workers to just pack up and leave. They've been replaced, but by a curious source: the government. Petty officials and bureaucrats have been encouraged to pick up tools and "aid in the resumption of production". (Please keep any poetic observations about Western consumer technology and third-world Maoism until after class).
The most recent arrival of recruits has only exacerbated the tensions onsite. Covid is spreading swiftly. Older workers have protested all week over hazard pay which has not been forthcoming. Rare clashes with security personnel have landed dozens in hospital. And yet, many are asking: what does this mean for Apple? But we wouldn't ask that because the answer is both predictable and boring. Several hundred thousand people are living at the sharp edge of a globalised supply chain. Many are making hitherto unthinkable demands — great acts of agency — at a time of tumult in China's Covid policies. The dice are in the air. And all the while, swathes of the media are droning on about a shortfall of six million units and its corresponding impact on quarterly forecasts. Basta!
The Worst Of Times
Shallow quakes
The toll from Monday's earthquake in West Java rose over the week to 271. At least 40 are still missing. There are no good places for an earthquake, but West Java is a particularly bad one. The region south and east of Jakarta is by far the most populous. The 5.6 magnitude earthquake was a shallow one — a violent shuddering prised open foundations and toppled walls. The town of Cianjur suffered the worst. Now heavy rains have turned the rolling terrain into mud-slicks, hampering rescue and retrieval efforts.
2100 years, gone in 540 seconds
Nine minutes was all it took for very sharp thieves to steal a fortune in Bavaria this week. The raid was so professional that it did not even trigger alarms in the target building. But it wasn't legal tender that was purloined, it was a priceless trove of 438 gold coins crafted by Celtic minters in 100 BCE. This crew obviously subscribes to the view that all history is theft.
The Best Of Times
Giant otters return to Argentina
Just get a look at this thing ! Thanks to the Saudis, it's a hard time to be Argentine. This isn't a bad consolation though.
Please don't steal these coins
For 150 years it was believed that the long-lost Roman emperor Sponsian was a fake: the invention of a greedy 18th century Viennese antiquities dealer who wanted to hawk some more artefacts. The rather crude design pointed to a home job. But a recent appraisal, using electron microscopes, says otherwise. The team at University College London has a high degree of confidence in their authenticity. Sponsian ran a far-flung gold-mining outpost in Dacia that was cut off from Rome — it turns out he awarded himself a title that only emperors conferred upon themselves.
Highlights
The Image
20 years ago a carp-koi was released into a lake in Champagne, France. The fish nicknamed Carrot has proven extremely adept at evading fishers. Carrot's luck ran out this week when Andy Hackett dropped a line. We could keep describing it but we know you are not reading — you are transfixed by her size and majesty. Photo supplied by The Guardian .
The Quote
"After 14 years, it is still a solution in search of a problem. It's not building a new financial system. It's not building a new internet. It's not an asset uncorrelated with the market. It's not a hedge against inflation. It is a vehicle for pure, naked speculation detached from anything in the economy. It's a casino that's wrapped up in all of these lies. When you tear back those lies, what's left looks like a net negative for the world."
– Tell us how you really feel about crypto, Stephen Diehl !
The Numbers
550,000,000,000-year-old dinner
- We've discovered the world's oldest meal. It's a feast of bacteria and algae from the ocean floor that was preserved inside the stomach of its enjoyer: a sluggy thing called a Kimberella.
300,000 recalled EVs
- Tesla has recalled another 300,000 cars over rear light faults. For anyone counting, that means the EV company has recalled a full quarter of every car it's ever sold. If you'd like some more interesting numbers, go check out Tesla's share price this year.
The Headline
"Sonic the Hedgehog co-creator arrested over insider trading" — AFP . We have got to be living in a simulation.
The Special Mention
No one got close to Balenciaga this week. The world's least impressive luxury clothing brand managed to release a campaign which contained a legal document about virtual child porn and a bondage teddy bear. Normal!
The Best Long Reads
- The Atlantic on Alabama's botched executions
- Financial Times on the green transition
- The Economist on Europe freezing over
The Answer...
Dressing in the regalia of a Christian crusader knight , resplendent with chainmail and fake sword, is a generally considered a socio-historical fashion faux-pas in the region. These English fans (ding ding ding!) didn't get the memo.
