The Swedes know the secret to happiness: You are not your stuff by Michael J. Coren

Using the bestselling book The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning and its spinoff reality show as a prompt, Michael J. Coren writes about the cultural tendency, driven by capitalistic urgings, to accumulate too many belongings, most of which have no utility or meaning. There are different techniques for culling shared in the article, but the most compelling facet of it is simply identifying the thin line between maintaining and hoarding. This piece is published by The Washington Post.

The Summer The Pop Charts Went Country by Chris DeVille

I mostly ignore the wild, mixed up world of the modern Billboard Hot 100. The chart’s current structure is so far removed from the steady-rise-followed-by-steady-decline that typified it in my youth and most of its history that it’s rendered almost meaningless to me. (“Calm Down,” a single by Rema and Selena Gomez, has been on the chart for almost a year and has now spent twenty-two weeks just hanging around in the Top 10, ranging from #8 to #3. It recently moved up to #4, the fourth separate time it moved to that position from another position below or above it.) In this article for Stereogum, Chris Deville writes about the unlikely surge of country music to the upper reaches of the singles chart, some of it fueled by the proud reactionary bigotry of right-wingers eagerly championing talent-deprived white dudes who controversially express retrograde sentiments one way or another.

August 18, 2023 by Heather Cox Richardson

I’ve taken to starting my morning news consumption with the daily newsletter penned by Heather Cox Richardson, who brings her acumen as a historian to summarizations of the big stories of the day. I mainly appreciate that she shears off all the politicized framing that happens elsewhere and sticks to the facts. This is especially illuminating when considering the varied accomplishments of the Biden administration. Case in point: The newsletter linked above addresses the historic agreement forged recently at Camp David with the leaders of South Korea and Japan. On the front page of The New York Times, this story is presented under the News Analysis banner and emphasizes how the agreement doesn’t comport with the views of the lifelong criminal who was U.S. President before Biden. On the venerable newspaper’s app, the historic accord mainly appears as a different News Analysis piece that implies it’s borderline dangerous because China won’t like it. The news media’s compulsion to make every last governmental move into a action of furious controversy is far more damaging that the supposed political divisions they love to report on. Richardson’s writing is welcome corrective.