The Top 5: Mitt Romney biography, lab-grown chicken, The Time Pyramid
Plus, catch up on the Wear We Are podcast
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!
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The Top 5 articles for your week
“What Mitt Romney Saw in the Senate” (The Atlantic)
Because this might be my (Melissa’s) favorite essay this year so far. It is an excerpt from McKay Coppins’ new biography of Sen. Mitt Romney and it reveals so many personal tidbits and the inner machinations of Washington that I couldn’t stop reading.
“Lab to table: The promise and the perils of cell-cultured chicken” (WaPo)
Because “to date, the two companies approved in the United States to sell cultivated meat can grow only hundreds of thousands of pounds per year, a microscopic fraction of the hundreds of millions of metric tons of meat produced annually around the world. In the near future, dozens of other tech companies hope to join Good Meat and Upside, but even if they do, critics and industry executives say it’s no sure bet that cell-cultured meat can ever scale up and compete, in quantity or price, with traditional animal agriculture.”
“Why It Takes Forever to Get a Doctor's Appointment” (TIME)
Because Ilana Yurkiewicz details the problems behind going digital in medicine.
This is the paradox that defines modern American medicine: Doctors are working harder and longer, all while patients can access us less. As a practicing internal medicine physician and oncologist, I believe we reached this unsustainable state due to fundamentally misaligned division of labor – between human and machine, between doctors and support staff, and between what is paid for and what good medical care requires.
“Until 3183 A.D., This Public Sculpture Is a Work in Progress” (NYT)
Because honestly, isn’t it fascinating to think about an art installation that won’t get finished for another 1,160 years? Richard Fisher gives us the details of this Time Pyramid in Germany.
In the audience were several generations of Wemding residents: children, parents, grandparents. Before the ceremony, a group of children had climbed on top of the 1993, 2003 and 2013 blocks, jumping between them. One of them, David Dinkelmayer, 9, left his teddy-bear on top and it remained in place throughout — even as the crane lowered the latest addition. Afterward, his mother, Claudia Dinkelmayer, said she recalled attending the first ceremony, when she was around 5 or 6. For people who live in the town, recalling the pyramid’s progress helps mark periods of their life.
“The illusion of being busy” (Substack - Poorna Bell)
Because Poorna Bell writes about her history of putting busyness on a pedestal and how she got herself out of those patterns.
ICYMI on Wear We Are
Episode 80: Listener questions - Child poverty, Project 2025, Gentle parenting + more
The Morning Five: September 11, 2023
The Morning Five: September 12, 2023
“You’re lucky,” McConnell continued. “You can say the things that we all think. You’re in a position to say things about him that we all agree with but can’t say.”
...
“They nailed him,” the Senate majority leader said.
Romney, taken aback by McConnell’s candor, responded carefully: “Well, the defense will say that Trump was just investigating corruption by the Bidens.”
“If you believe that,” McConnell replied, “I’ve got a bridge I can sell you.”
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Of course it's Romney who finally becomes the one to name "Senior Republican Officials" with their off the record quotes about how awful they all know Trump is. It's ridiculous the way these people are allowed to say these things one minute then turn around and totally contradict them the next while having only the face-saving lie attributed to them. And McConnell and his office still feel need to deny this, smh.