IT’S A DAY of rest, and you may be in the mood for a quiet corner and a comfy chair.
We’ve hand-picked the week’s best reads for you to savour.
1. Inside Russia’s vast surveillance state
A cache of nearly 160,000 files from Russia’s powerful internet regulator provides a rare glimpse inside Vladimir Putin’s digital crackdown.
(New York Times, approx 15 mins reading time)
The internet regulator is part of a larger tech apparatus that Mr. Putin has built over the years, which also includes a domestic spying system that intercepts phone calls and internet traffic, online disinformation campaigns and the hacking of other nations’ government systems. The agency’s role in this digital dragnet is more extensive than previously known, according to the records. It has morphed over the years from a sleepy telecom regulator into a full-blown intelligence agency, closely monitoring websites, social media and news outlets, and labeling them as “pro-government,” “anti-government” or “apolitical.”
21-year-old Isabella Thallas was shot dead by a man with an AK47 while walking her dog with her boyfriend. Peter Sagal writes about her death, and what it says about gun violence in America.
(The Atlantic, approx 22 mins reading time)
Darian looked up. The voice had come from a dark first-floor window, perhaps someone’s apartment or the building office. A lot of thoughts ran through his head—Who is this guy? Why is he so hostile? He considered a bunch of responses, some angrier than others, but decided instead to defuse. He said aloud, to whomever was in the window, “My dog is trained fine. I’ve had him for four years,” and stood up to walk to Bella, intending to get them both away from there. Then he looked back to the window and saw the barrel of a rifle. Darian said to the man he had never seen before, and could hardly see now, “Are you aiming something at me?”
3. Why Gen Zers are growing up sober curious
Megan Carnegie explores the reasons behind why the younger generation are snubbing alcohol far more than generations before them.
(BBC, approx 11 mins reading time)
The UK’s largest recent study of drinking behaviours showed in 2019, 16-to-25-year-olds were the most likely to be teetotal, with 26% not drinking, compared to the least likely generation (55-to-74-year-olds), 15% of whom didn’t drink. Among US adults, Gallup showed those aged 35 to 54 are most likely to drink alcohol (70%), compared to Gen Zers (60%) and Boomers (52%), while a study from 2020 found that the portion of college-age Americans who are teetotal has risen from 20% to 28% in a decade. Of those who do drink, the largest portion of young Europeans (defined as over the legal drinking age up to 39) drinks once a month (27%), while in the US, the biggest group drink once a week (25%).
A rural physician in the US details how she was diagnosed with a stress-related heart condition during the Covid-19 pandemic, and how rare self-care is when you care for so many others.
(New York Times, approx 21 mins reading time)
Dr. Becher has spent eight years as a family physician in Clay, working for Community Care of West Virginia, a federally qualified health center. West Virginia tops most national lists of poverty and poor health outcomes: the highest prevalence of obesity, coronary disease and diabetes; the fourth-highest poverty rate; the second-highest prevalence of depression; the shortest life expectancy. In Clay County, there is no public transportation, no stoplight, no hospital. Most residents live in a food desert. And as one of only two family doctors in the county, Dr. Becher has an all-encompassing job. She visits children in their living rooms to vaccinate them, organizes food drives and administers Suboxone to treat opioid addiction.
Actress Ana de Armas speaks about becoming one of the most famous women in the world in the new Netflix film, Blonde.
(Variety, approx 22 mins reading time)
“Blonde” is the kind of showcase an actor dreams of, one that looks very different from the conventional biopic. Following the emotional cartography of Oates’ book, “Blonde” traces a path through the life of Norma Jeane Baker, from her unloving childhood to her emergence as a star perpetually seeking solace and affection. The gently nostalgic “My Week With Marilyn,” this isn’t: “Blonde” bears a stronger resemblance to “Jackie” and “Spencer,” the image-subverting Pablo Larraín-directed films about Jacqueline Kennedy and Princess Diana that earned Oscar nominations for Natalie Portman and Kristen Stewart. But it thrums with a quicker pulse, using surreal visual metaphors to push de Armas into raw, broken anguish.
6. The case for a ‘marriage sabbatical’
Zoe Williams writes about the concept of couples being able to take a break from one another without it meaning a split is on the cards.
(The Guardian, approx 10 mins reading time)
What if you don’t have a dream or a project – what if you don’t care about hiking, and your only goal is getting away from your spouse? Is that what they call a red flag? Is the sabbatical just a waiting room for divorce? Silva Neves, a relationship psychotherapist, is cautious of the whole “red-flag” concept, which is very generation X. “They [he means those of us who are generation X] are clinging on to these traditional myths: if people sleep in different beds, that means there’s something wrong. You have to always be together, attend all events together, or there’s something wrong. If somebody is enjoying someone else’s attractiveness, that means there’s something wrong. They really battle with these traditional ideas, trying to make them true when they are not.”
…AND A CLASSIC FROM THE ARCHIVES…
Roger Federer is set to retire after playing in the Laver Cup. This ode to who some consider to be the greatest tennis player of all time from 2006 focuses on the experience of watching him play live at Wimbledon.
(New York Times, approx 34 mins reading time)
This present article is more about a spectator’s experience of Federer, and its context. The specific thesis here is that if you’ve never seen the young man play live, and then do, in person, on the sacred grass of Wimbledon, through the literally withering heat and then wind and rain of the ’06 fortnight, then you are apt to have what one of the tournament’s press bus drivers describes as a “bloody near-religious experience.” It may be tempting, at first, to hear a phrase like this as just one more of the overheated tropes that people resort to to describe the feeling of Federer Moments. But the driver’s phrase turns out to be true — literally, for an instant ecstatically — though it takes some time and serious watching to see this truth emerge.
Note: The Journal generally selects stories that are not paywalled, but some might not be accessible if you have exceeded your free article limit on the site in question.
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