Tuesday morning news drop
Americans are terrible at taking vacations. Why are U.S. workers so bad at taking time off? U.S. companies are stingy with vacation time when compared with other countries. But U.S. workers can’t seem to leave work at work anyway. (Grid)
In Seattle, It’s Almost Normal: The pandemic may have left some gaps in the urban fabric, but a neighborhood-by-neighborhood rundown of new restaurants and art events reveals that recovery is well underway. (New York Times)
The Family That Mined the Pentagon’s Data for Profit: The Freedom of Information Act helps Americans learn what the government is up to. The Poseys exploited it—and became unlikely defenders of transparency. (Wired)
No Promises: Does Alcoholics Anonymous work? Maybe the most convincing feature of AA is that it feels awful at the beginning. Sometimes that feeling doesn’t last through the first meeting. You hear something you can (here borrowing from Wallace again) Identify with and you are filled with hope, and it feels the same as the simulacrum, I’m sorry to say, but it’s better. (Plough)
Foreign Candy Puts American Candy to Shame: It’s so much more than the flavors. (The Atlantic)
The Anti-ESG Crusader Who Wants to Pick a Fight With BlackRock: Vivek Ramaswamy, co-founder of Strive Asset Management, is a vocal critic of the hot Wall Street investing trend that Republicans such as Ron DeSantis say promotes a liberal agenda. (Businessweek)
America’s Affordable Housing Problem: How America got to be so unaffordable, and what we can do to make it more affordable; an analysis of good-in-theory v. outcome based policies. (Our Built Environment)
How the decline of local news exposes the public to lies and corruption: What’s important is their consequences. The effects of the spread of “news deserts” on social and political cohesiveness in America, and the vacuum it has left to be filled by fringe ideologues, political mountebanks and corporate PR departments — “misinformation engines,” in the words of Steve Waldman, co-founder of Report for America, an organization that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on local issues. (Los Angeles Times)