Closing my tabs – 2025 03 16 – Dispatches from Dallas

NY Times: The Secret Campaign in China to Save a Woman Chained by the Neck. Interactive piece on a woman in China who was probably trafficked but we’ll never know because China quashed the story. The piece is as much about the quashing as the original woman’s plight.
The Sunday Long Read: What do you do after you accidentally kill a child? A very sad story about a very sad man. I kept thinking, though, that in a world where we didn’t have to drive all the time, maybe the child who died would still be alive.
The Honest Broker: The World Was Flat. Now It’s Flattened. An interesting take on how culture standardizes and stagnates these days.
Bloomberg: What We Lose When Our Memories Exist Entirely in Our Phones. I, too, miss my physical tickets to shows that I could keep in a memento box.
Marie Claire: Meet the Millennial Women Buying Their Own Engagement Rings. This is a very sticky topic, and I say that as a feminist who picked out her own (non-diamond) ring while she was living with her fiancé in the house we bought together.
Defector: They Should Call It The Free Piss. Defector on Bari Weiss’ Free Press. Inside baseball if you’re not terminally online, but since she’s heavily involved in the University of Austin, I’m always down to read about how awful she is.
Liberal Currents: Roadmap to American Reconstruction. Realistic about our short-term prospects with some ideas about what people can do. I think my biggest problem with it is that the going viral/appeal to the center concept relies on people caring or being shamed, and I think that’s less possible than it was in the 60s during civil rights. Some folks have no shame.
AP: Violent and sudden. What a firing squad execution looked like through my eyes. All the warnings in the world. If you have feelings about the death penalty, expect to feel them.
BBC: Operation Atacama: The $1m cactus heist that led to a smuggler’s downfall. I had never heard of the Copiapoa cactus until I read this article, nor did I have any idea that people smuggled exotic plants, though I’m unsurprised to learn they do.
My Goodness! From Jo Elvin: Are you unemployable if you’re not on Instagram? This is about her Gen Alpha kid but it’s kind of a frightening question. I remember when you had to keep a Facebook that was clean for jobs. Now I guess you have to have three social media accounts at a minimum. I’m glad I’m old and past job hunting.