It’s that time of year, when everybody, including your Angle writer, is away on vacation. A series of subs will be filling in this week, starting with me, copy editor Heather Schwedel.
July 11. That is the precise day that marked the beginning of the downfall of the project of government by the people. For this week’s cover story, Yascha Mounk pinpointed one week in July that saw a terror attack in France, a coup in Turkey, Brexit becoming a certainty, and Donald Trump marching toward the Republican nomination. It may be remembered as the week democracy died.
Democracy may be dead, but we’ve still got Olympic gymnastics, for at least another couple days anyway. Ah, but things aren’t what they used to be there, either. Jessica Winter looked back on the era of daring balance-beam mounts, when gymnasts would actually roundoff-back-handspring onto the apparatus whose 3.9 inches of width leave precious few millimeters for errors. Back then, watching Svetlana Khorkina was “like seeing a giraffe perfectly execute the 32 fouettés in Swan Lake.” Today’s hoists and hops just can’t compare.
That’s hardly the only thing to be grumpy about today, though. You may have heard that the Seth Rogen–produced animated movie Sausage Party is actually quite funny. Its premise, like that of many a Pixar movie, is: What if an inanimate object like food had feelings? As L.V. Anderson points out, this conveniently ignores the fact that “some of our food actually has feelings, because it was once alive.” This may make the movie a tough sell—and leave a “gaping plot hole where the hot dogs’ backstory should be”—for vegetarians, vegans, and other animal lovers.
Speaking of animal feelings: As pet-friendly offices grow ever more popular, has anyone thought to ask the dogs how they feel about them? Matt Miller looked into how actual pets are affected by bring-your-dog-to-work policies, and the results may make you think twice before bringing Spot with you next time. “Employers should take care to craft a policy that works for dogs’ well-being as well as humans’.”
For fun: Stationery queen June Thomas reckons with Postable, the Uber of greeting card services, a website that will approximate human handwriting and mail out physical cards at your request.
Sticking the landing,
Heather Schwedel
