Author: Michelle Korhonen
Viewed benignly, the encyclopedic art museum is a great public library of things, illuminating the brilliant variety and shared impulses of our species, and promoting intercultural understanding and admiration. Viewed less benignly, it has been cast as the well-spoken child of imperialist shopaholics and kleptomaniacs who appropriated the art of other people to tell flattering tales about themselves.Explore the March 2024 IssueCheck out more from this issue and find your next story to read.View MoreMuseums have long contested this characterization on grounds both pragmatic (their ability to protect and care for the world’s treasures) and high-minded—the belief that convening things…
Scott Napper, a biochemist and vaccinologist at the University of Saskatchewan, can easily envision humanity’s ultimate doomsday disease. The scourge would spread fast, but the progression of illness would be slow and subtle. With no immunity, treatments, or vaccines to halt its progress, the disease would eventually find just about every single one of us, spreading via all manner of body fluids. In time, it would kill everyone it infected. Even our food and drink would not be safe, because the infectious agent would be hardy enough to survive common disinfectants and the heat of cooking; it would be pervasive…
War is a fearsome accelerant of arms races. Before Russia invaded Ukraine two years ago, the ethics of using land mines and cluster munitions were the subject of heated debate, and many states had signed agreements not to use either. But once the desperate need to win takes over, governments can lose their qualms and embrace once-controversial technologies with gusto. For that same reason, the war between Russia and Ukraine has banished any misgivings either country might have had about military use of artificial intelligence. Each side is deploying millions of unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, to conduct surveillance and…
Ernest Cole, Untitled, 1967–72, from Ernest Cole: The True America (Aperture, 2024). © 2024 Ernest Cole Family Trust.A lost trove of photographs from the 1960s and ’70s offers new perspectives on the past—and the present.By Vann R. Newkirk IIPhotographs by Ernest ColeFebruary 1, 2024, 7 AM ETErnest Cole was born in 1940 to a Black family in the Eersterust township, near Pretoria, South Africa. As a child, he witnessed the formalization of the apartheid regime. When he was a teenager, he began working for Drum, a South African magazine geared toward Black readers. He later changed the spelling of his…
Left: A Kool cigarettes advertisement targeting Black communities for a sponsored event, the Kool Jazz Festival; Right: A Kent cigarettes ad targeting Black smokers. Stanford Research into the Impact of Tobacco Advertising hide caption toggle caption Stanford Research into the Impact of Tobacco Advertising Left: A Kool cigarettes advertisement targeting Black communities for a sponsored event, the Kool Jazz Festival; Right: A Kent cigarettes ad targeting Black smokers. Stanford Research into the Impact of Tobacco Advertising Lincoln Mondy grew up in a mixed race family in Texas, where his white mother’s family used regular tobacco, unlike his Black father. “My…
The comeback single for the prankish rapper Lil Nas X has flopped in the best way possible: by debuting, on the Billboard Hot 100, at No. 69. “We did it boys!” he posted on X (formerly Twitter) upon news of the song’s chart placement. “We reached the funny number. be very proud of yourselves. this is our moment!”The response was perfectly Lil Nas X—incorrigible, lovable, and a little sad. He’s been on a winning streak since 2018, when, as a previously unknown teenager, his track “Old Town Road” became the No. 1 song in the United States for a record-setting…
Last week, on the eve of the New Hampshire primary, some of the state’s voters received a robocall purporting to be from President Joe Biden. Unlike the other such prerecorded calls reminding people to vote, this one had a different ask: Don’t bother coming out to the polls, the voice instructed. Better to “save your vote for the November election.”The message was strange, even nonsensical, but the voice on the line sure did sound like the president’s. “What a bunch of malarkey!” it exclaimed at one point. And caller ID showed that the call came from a former chair of…
Matthew Vaughn’s Argylle borrows from a lot of very recent spy-thriller history.Apple TV+January 31, 2024, 2:35 PM ETI have to give some credit to Matthew Vaughn’s new film, Argylle, for one thing: It is not—repeat, not—based on anything. An action movie with a reported near–$200 million budget and no connection to any preexisting intellectual property should be thrilling, a glorious throwback to the days when big films could just be about people punching and shooting each other without referencing some other storytelling universe. But it’s been curious to watch the public perception of Argylle, which is being marketed as a…
“It is painful to watch as our once-proud newspaper has become a shell nearly devoid of meaningful content,” one reader says.Homer Sykes / AlamyJanuary 31, 2024, 6:05 PM ETWelcome to Up for Debate. Each week, Conor Friedersdorf rounds up timely conversations and solicits reader responses to one thought-provoking question. Later, he publishes some thoughtful replies. Sign up for the newsletter here.Last week, I asked readers, “What is the state of local journalism where you live, and how does it affect your community?”Replies have been edited for length and clarity.Ralph, who didn’t say where he lived, shared a concern that I…
Laws on abortion are out of step with public opinion. One Republican legislator in Tennessee is working to establish exceptions to his state’s strict abortion laws, but he faces a tough battle.