Friday, August 7, 2020

Links 7 August 2020

Coudersport, Pennsylvania, taken from a passing train by a friend

Long, sad, moving and fascinating article by Basharat Peer telling the story behind a photograph of a young man holding his friend's dying body by the side of a road in rural India. (NY Times)

A Polish mayor is offering locals a reward if they have a baby boy after it emerged that in the last nine years only girls have been born in their village.

Evidence for the medical benefits of orthodontic treatment is very slim.

People are complicated: Juan Carlos, former King of Spain, once saved Spanish democracy by standing up to a fascist coup, but is now under indictment for money laundering and other financial crimes and has fled the country. (NY Times)

Washington Post story on efforts to keep invasive insects called adelgids from wiping out hemlock trees in the eastern US.

Nigerian artist Patrick Onyekwere makes amazing hyper-realistic portraits using ballpoint pens.

The closing of a paper mill in Wisconsin represents both long-term trends and the immediate impact of the pandemic (Washington Post)


Wall Street Journal: With No Federal Agents on Streets, Portland Protests Turn Largely Peaceful. (Gated, but important to note that not just liberal reporters saw this.)



Tokyo's "Throw-Away Temple," resting place of generations of prostitutes.

There are no grown-ups: yet another self-proclaimed victim of persecution turns out to have engineered the whole thing, but this time the perpetrator is a neurology professor and it unfolded on academic Twitter. (NY Times)

This NY Times piece about the street art adorning boarded-up storefronts in NYC is pretentious, but the images are fascinating.

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