Place

Goldman is moved by Reacher:

Radical Protestantism leads the pilgrim from the “howling wilderness” and the “enchanted ground” of the Old World and leads him to the Canaan of the spirit. The question is addressed to, and answered by, the individual pilgrim. The Jew is born into the people of Israel; the Christian seeks adoption into the Israel of the Spirit. American Christianity retains the radical individualism of its Protestant forebears, who chose as individuals to become Americans. We have become Americans by adoption, and we have adopted the history of Israel as our national common memory. A profound parallelism is involved. The biblical Election of Israel was not a prize that God awarded to an unlikely nation of shepherds, but rather the outcome of Israel’s free choice to accept the Torah and the responsibility of election. It is our free choice to become Americans that is the cornerstone of our culture.

Christian Whiton likes Singapore and I very much like Christian Whiton:

As the Year of the Tiger begins, no one talks about Asian tiger economies anymore. But the potential is there. Despite some obligatory nonsense about climate change, this is after all a region still dependent upon making things. Much of the oil consumed in the Pacific Rim passes Singapore through the Malacca Strait ⁠— more than 16 million barrels per day by the middle of the last decade. Mining, energy development, forestry, and shipping are big business in Indonesia. Joining finance and telecom, the tech industry is accreting in Singapore, aided by the need to move servers and software development out of China for security and legal reasons. That raises the risk of importing California culture, but hopefully the government will cane any executives who deliver annual reports or product launches wearing black t-shirts.

Writing in TidBITS, Glenn Fleishman gives us 13 AirTag tracking scenarios.

This Dutch fellow tracked the mailing of an AirTag to his own home. It travelled 120km just go to 500m. Next he’s going to send one to Norway.

MacStories does an AirTag review roundup.

With this panegyric to airport culture, Eva Wiseman riffs on a Vice story about young Britons going to the airport to get (earthly) high and hang out. As a Briton I find this awesome, even while as an Israeli I find it a bit pitiful (ie, just go to the beach!).

Dore Gold primes us on why Israel must retain the Jordan Valley. Like the Golan, it’s not only about strategic depth but also strategic height. When driving down the magnificent road along the Dead Sea from Jerusalem to Ein Bokek, I would often loftily complain that one wouldn’t know one has exited Israel proper as there are no signs, just a little roadblock upon entering Ein Bokek (and a much more significant one upon reentering Jerusalem near the city limits). Whenever there’s no sign, it’s a sign that the State has deemed this land integral yet history has not yet ripened sufficiently for declaring it so.

Latitudinal psychology? “Like happiness, [individualism and creativity] trend higher as one moves away from the equator.”

This Gates Foundation presentation on global inequality is clear, straightforward, well-written, nicely illustrated with animated graphs, and surely worth the time of anyone who can access it.

Goodbye, Judith Kerr, goodbye!

Cool graphic article in Bloomberg on US land use.

“The Moment” is an occasional column/blog by novelist Amit Chaudhuri in The Paris Review.

A review of the new disenchantment with our overly-enchanting digital lives by one Arianna Huffington of all people.

On the EconTalk podcast recorded recently on stage in New York, Simeon Djankov speaks to the global Doing Business Report that he produces annually at the World Bank. This is world-improving stuff by dint of managed competition. It would be cool to see a a canonical BPMN version of each process.

Now that it’s over, time to tell the neo-medievalists: hurricanes are not new to Florida. Nicely researched and written piece by a chagrined resident.

From Dore Gold’s JCPA: The Jews are among the oldest of indigenous peoples.

What Cuba is like now, after the thawing with the United States. J. S. Tennant in The White Review.

Good point, yes. If under Trump it’s between the symbol of a U.S. Embassy move to Jerusalem or the reality of continued building throughout the city ⁠— as it may well come down to ⁠— then the choice is clear, writes Nadav Shragai.

Ian Buruma on Brussels. I found it a pretty exciting city so when I saw this article I jumped on it (plus I vaguely remember being impressed by something else this fellow wrote) and it’s pretty sweeping and fun.

An inviting tour of the Hebrew writer’s oeuvre as Shai Agnon is translated into English. [via aldaily.com]

From this BBC article: “It’s surprising how often the UK seems to be more like the Scandinavian countries than anywhere else.”

If you were troubled by the song persuading Ariel to remain under the sea, here’s why.

0n the 70s forty years later: “The depression can seem not like confinement but a kind of freedom; the aimlessness can seem like spaciousness, a shambling kind of grace.”

Considering how central it is for Londoners, Why is the Tube so underrepresented in stories? The writer suggests that, like sex and prayer, and unlike on the street, any human significance down there is internal.

On Google Glass:
What happens in Vegas stays… at Google.

“Cheese-surrendering eating-monkeys” ⁠— apologies for giving away the most brilliant line, but Mark Steyn is back on form. I’d stopped reading because his doom and gloom about Europe just didn’t jibe with the reality I see living here. But here he expresses my misgivings just brilliantly: Americans are in many important ways less free than Europeans.

Mercer’s Worldwide Cost of Living Survey 2012. Most expensive: Tokyo. London is #25, Tel Aviv #31, New York #33, and Rome #42.

Exhaustive and wonderful list of what Alli Magidsohn expects to miss upon leaving Israel after 7 years, published by the impressive David Horowitz’s new The Times of Israel. (Not so sure about “the ferocity of celebration here” though, at least among the non-religious.)

“Nation on the Move” is the magnificent second episode of the America Revealed PBS series. Interestingly, the show is British-made.

Hayarkon Park will spread into Bnei Brak. Good news.

Video tribute to Brighton shot as a series of stills.

More vital than ever is the city, argues Edward Glaeser.

Julian Barnes visits Sibelius’s house.

On hotels and the delectable feeling of dépaysé.

Where exactly is Hogwarts?

Designs to replace Britain’s electricity pylons.

Vivid, loving portrait of the beach at Brighton that gets in some of my own favorites, like Jack and Linda’s Smokehouse.

All good things come to those who wait (and spend $250m). The iconic Hiriya garbage dump is set to become Ariel Sharon Park.

Michael Totten reposts his masterly visit to Tripoli in light of Libya’s pending liberation.

The great Kobi Oz on his development as an artist.

My goodness: a long juicy New Yorker piece on David Grossman.

A graduate moves to India for work. That ain’t America.