The Top 5: Fine dining, wellness culture, and recession
Plus, Ukraine and Biden's tech op-ed
Welcome to your weekly edition of the Top 5 articles we’ve read this week. Each week, we read dozens of articles in the hope we find essays and reporting that speak to big ideas, trends, future looks, and incredible human stories. We hope you enjoy our list, and do always let us know if you have a suggestion or a recommendation! Please also consider becoming a paid subscriber if this is one of those newsletters you open up all the time or look forward to each week.
The Top 5 articles for your week:
“The Fed May Finally Be Winning the War on Inflation. But at What Cost?” (NYT Magazine)
Because this is one of the best plain-English descriptions I’ve seen about what the Federal Reserve does, why it raised interest rates in 2022, and the prospects for a 2023 recession.
“There Is No “Choice” In Wellness Culture” (Substack - evil female)
Because, “An ad for an anti-aging product featuring a girl who looks no older than 16 advertises itself as the feminist alternative to Botox because it is “non-invasive.” We see through our aesthetic Overton window, and this is the exact language and rhetoric that draws the curtains further and further closed. When the idea of aging naturally is fully removed from the conversation, it becomes self-care to prevent wrinkles, so long as you do it with these products marked with the correct trademarks.”
“Time is not on Ukraine’s Side” (Washington Post)
Because former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and former Secretary of Defense Bob Gates write, “Increasingly, members of Congress and others in our public discourse ask, “Why should we care? This is not our fight.” But the United States has learned the hard way — in 1914, 1941 and 2001 — that unprovoked aggression and attacks on the rule of law and the international order cannot be ignored. Eventually, our security was threatened and we were pulled into conflict. This time, the economies of the world — ours included — are already seeing the inflationary impact and the drag on growth caused by Putin’s single-minded aggression. It is better to stop him now, before more is demanded of the United States and NATO as a whole.”
“Republicans and Democrats, Unite Against Big Tech Abuses” (Wall Street Journal)
Because President Biden argues, “I’m concerned about how some in the industry collect, share and exploit our most personal data, deepen extremism and polarization in our country, tilt our economy’s playing field, violate the civil rights of women and minorities, and even put our children at risk.”
“Noma’s closing exposes the contradictions of fine dining” (Vox)
Because Noma, the world’s number one restaurant, is closing. “High-end, experimental cuisine like that found at Noma is unnecessary, in the same way every form of art is unnecessary — unnecessary for everything except what it means to be human. Food was our art of the moment because for a moment, it seemed in sync with everything we demanded: environmental sustainability, the old reclaimed and remade in the fashion of a superior new, and perhaps most of all, the ability through the multiplier of social media that you came, you saw, and you ate. At a time when digital media had made almost every other form of art instantly available and therefore instantly valueless, being at Noma meant you could pay for your ticket.”
ICYMI on Wear We Are
Episode 49: Biden’s 2023 Pivot
The Morning Five: January 9, 2023
The Morning Five: January 10, 2023