Extra, Extra, Read All About It… Please
December 17, 2019
Daily Pnut will not be sending a newsletter between 12/23/19 (Monday) to 1/1/2020 (Wednesday). We wish everyone a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and a Happy New Year!
“Reflect upon your present blessings — of which every man has many — not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.”
“The most important thing in life is to stop saying ‘I wish’ and start saying ‘I will.’ Consider nothing impossible, then treat possibilities as probabilities.”
– Charles Dickens
Drive 2 Miles Then Make A Left At The Military Base. If You Find Our Secrets You’ve Gone Too Far
Last September a highly suspicious incident occurred on a sensitive Virginia military base that neither Washington nor Beijing made public. A vehicle containing Chinese officials and their wives approached a guard station at the installation near Norfolk. Told to turn around and exit, the group instead continued onto the base, stopping only after fire trucks blocked their path. The officials said they hadn’t understood the guard’s English instructions and had gotten lost. Some American officials, however, theorize the group was testing the security at the installation.
It was just the latest, boldest occurrence of Chinese officials with diplomatic passports showing up unannounced at research or government facilities. The episode served to intensify Trump administration concerns that Beijing is expanding its spying efforts in the US. With the two nations increasingly locked in a geopolitical and economic rivalry, American intelligence officials now say the greatest espionage threat to the US is coming from China.
In October the administration secretly expelled two Chinese Embassy diplomats, marking the first time since 1987 the US forced out Chinese Embassy employees with diplomat cover who were suspected of espionage.
The State Department also announced new rules with sharp restrictions on the activities of all Chinese diplomats, requiring them to provide notice before meeting with local or state officials, or visiting educational and research institutions in the US or any of its territories.
The Chinese Embassy declared the rules violated the Vienna Convention. But a State Department spokesperson said the rules merely responded to Chinese regulations imposed years earlier requiring American diplomats to ask permission to travel outside their host cities or to visit certain institutions.
- China lodges stern representations with U.S. over expelling Chinese officials (Reuters)
- Life Along Pakistan’s Mountain Highway Where China Is Investing Billions Of Dollars (NPR)
- Exclusive: documents show Foxconn refuses to renegotiate Wisconsin deal (Verge)
- Chinese Premier says Hong Kong not yet out of protest ‘dilemma’s (Reuters)
- They built a Chinese boomtown. It left them dying of lung disease with nowhere to turn. (WaPo, $)
The World Capital for Inner Beauty
- There’s a small, picturesque, medieval town in central Italy called Piobbico, tucked in a valley between the Apennine Mountains and the Adriatic Sea. Home to a mere 2,000 souls, Piobbico is full of grand stone buildings and surrounded by lush forests. It’s breathtakingly beautiful.
- And every year, on the first Sunday in September, people from all over the world gather in Piobbico to celebrate the town’s annual — wait for it — Festival of the Ugly. Since 1879, this tiny town has been home to the Club dei Brutti: The Ugly Club. Said differently, it’s the world capital of ugly people, which gets a little lost in translation.
- Because the association of over 30,000 members across 25 global chapters aren’t really ugly — they just believe that “a person is what he is and not what he looks like.” For this tiny Italian village, inner beauty — character content — is in the eye of all beholders. (BBC)
- At a Secret Garden in Milan, No Child, No Entry (NYT, $)
People Who Live In Glass Greenhouses Shouldn’t Throw Stones
- The outcome of the UN’s annual climate negotiations, which ended in Madrid on Sunday, was unequivocally ugly. Not only had President Trump pulled the plug on US participation in the Paris Climate Agreement, but America’s delegates opposed a compensation mechanism long sought by developing nations for the economic losses poor countries suffer from droughts, storms, and slow-moving climate effects like sea level rise.
- The US and other large polluting nations also blocked even a non-binding measure encouraging countries to enhance their climate targets next year.
- “Most of the large emitters were missing in action or obstructive,” said a vice president at World Resources Institute. “This reflects how disconnected many national leaders are from the urgency of the science and the demands of their citizens.” (NYT)
Additional World News
- Two standard alcoholic drinks a day no longer safe, health officials say (Guardian)
- Citizenship Amendment Act: Protests erupt across India over citizenship law (BBC)
- Quadriga: Lawyers for users of bankrupt crypto firm seek exhumation of founder (BBC)
- Turkey renews military pledge to Libya as threat of Mediterranean war grows (Guardian)
- He Was One of Mexico’s Deadliest Assassins. Then He Turned on His Cartel. (NYT, $) & Arrest of Top Crime Fighter Stuns Mexico, Where Corruption Is All Too Routine (NYT, $)
- Mystery over ‘female’ remains found on male-only Greek mountain (Guardian)
- The World Wants More Danish TV Than Denmark Can Handle (NYT, $)
Well… At Least They’re Less Overcrowded
- Outgoing Republican governor of Kentucky, Matt Bevin, who narrowly lost reelection last month to Democrat Andy Beshear, signed off on 428 pardons and commutations of some of the worst of the worst criminals before leaving office.
- The freed-from-prison include a man convicted of homicide whose family raised more than $20,000 at a political fundraiser to help Bevin pay off a debt owed from his 2015 gubernatorial campaign.
- According to The Courier-Journal, beneficiaries also included “one offender convicted of raping a child, another who hired a hit man to kill his business partner and a third who killed his parents.” (NPR)
Fresh Outta Fresh
- The US Department of Agriculture defines food deserts as low-income areas where residents don’t live near grocers or other food vendors that carry affordable and nutritious food.
- The USDA estimates that 39 million people, or 12.8 percent of Americans, live in food deserts. Dollar stores, which carry everything from greeting cards to household supplies, sell food but it is often packaged or frozen, like chips, canned soups and frozen meats.
- Politicians and advocacy groups say the stores’ presence in — and saturation of — low-income neighborhoods eats into the profits of full-service grocery stores, causing some to close.
- In the 73111 ZIP Code in northeast Oklahoma City, there isn’t a single grocery store; there are, however, four Dollar stores. The City Council is scheduled to hold a public hearing on a plan requiring new retailers in the area to designate at least 500 square feet of space to fresh food. The measure is expected to pass. It’s one tactic local governments around the country are using to address the lack of access to fresh fruit, vegetables and meat in “food deserts.”
- Cities are also trying to bring in fresh produce by creating zoning allowances or public financing to attract grocery stores. (WSJ)
- Daily Pnut’s November 26, 2019 edition examines other cities that have launched their own grocery stores.
Extra, Extra, Read All About It… Please
- WANTED: A committed journalist who loves small town life and year-round chilly temps; someone who’ll wear many hats, who cares more about dying industries than making money, who’ll happily attend lots of local events, and will take the Skagway (Alaska) News off the current owner’s hands for 0 dollars.
- It’s true. Larry Persily, a longtime journalist who runs the Skagway News in the state’s panhandle, is willing to give away the small-town (we’re talking 1,000 people) paper to a multi-talented professional who can ensure it a bright future.
- With a circulation of 550, just don’t expect to be breaking stories of national importance, he says. The paper’s predicament is all too common. A recent study found that 20 percent of metro and community newspapers have gone out of business or merged since 2004, while 1,300 communities have lost local news coverage entirely.
- The New York Times’ executive editor recently called the death of local news “the greatest crisis in American journalism.” (Guardian)
Additional Reads
- Thoughts on shopping & retail: Shopping Sucks Now: The internet has created a tyranny of perfect information, so there is more to know about which thing is the right thing to buy than any human can comprehend. (VICE)
- In memoriam: The brands we lost in the 2010s – RIP Blockbuster, Borders, and so many more. (Vox)
- Stop Believing in Free Shipping: How retailers hide the costs of delivery—and why we’re such suckers for their ploys (Atlantic, $)
- One-Click Spending and the Money Misery Hangover: Overspending can lead to debt, anxiety, marital crisis, and credit problems. (Psychology Today)
- Ruminations across generations: Having Kids (Paul Graham) and Frail Older Patients Struggle After Even Minor Operations: These patients are not aware of the true risks, and surgeons aren’t telling them, new research suggests. (NYT, $) & Would You Let a Robot Take Care of Your Mother? Robotic companions are being promoted as an antidote to the burden of longer, lonelier human lives. At stake is the future of what it means to be human. (NYT, $) & We Are All We Have: While caring for her mother post-surgery and her grandmother during her final days, Megan Stielstra wonders who’s really taking care of who. (Longreads)
- I’m a professional stretcher and this is the one thing I’d never, ever do to my muscles (Well+Good)
- I’m a 37-Year-Old Mom & I Spent Seven Days Online as an 11-Year-Old Girl. Here’s What I Learned. (Medium) & There’s a conservative civil war raging — over porn: The stakes are lot bigger than they might seem. (Vox)