Donald Trump’s line about “Second Amendment people” having a remedy for Hillary’s election wasn’t just a dangerous thing to say, referencing (as Mark Joseph Stern writes) an incorrect view of the Second Amendment that reserves the right to resist tyrannical governments by force. It was also, Leon Neyfakh argues, a telling indication of the derision Trump feels toward some of his supporters.
“Peeking out from behind these words is an unintentional truth,” Neyfakh writes. “For all the noises Trump has made throughout this campaign about the sanctity of the Second Amendment, he actually believes that gun enthusiasts are crazy.”
Hillary Clinton has long harbored affection for Henry Kissinger, who is one of the GOP foreign policy experts she is currently trying to court. For Isaac Chotiner, this is a bridge too far. “Kissinger’s record as secretary of state makes any association with him morally suspect,” Chotiner writes. “Donald Trump may pose a unique threat to American democracy, but he hardly has a monopoly on contempt for democratic norms. And few American officeholders have been as cavalier about violating those principles as Kissinger.”
The classic Richard Adams novel Watership Down is strong meat for many of the young readers who end up opening it, but Nicole Clifffe thinks that’s great. “Our world is confusing to children, and so they are richly prepared to fumble their way through imaginary ones,” Cliffe writes. “A new language, be it Adams’ Lapine or High Elvish or Klingon, is no more baffling than the whys and hows of adult interaction.”
What are those weird circles dotting Michael Phelps’ bizarrely long torso? Those are marks from cupping, a therapy the swimmer thinks helps him recover quicker from physical exertion. There’s no evidence this is true, writes Jeremy Samuel Faust. “There are many treatments that work despite our poor underlying understandings and others that don’t work as well as we think they should in theory,” Faust reports. “But when it comes to cupping, the data seem to indicate that we’re dealing with a very exaggerated case of the placebo effect. People think it works so strongly that, in effect, it does.”
For fun: Aly Raisman, are you OK?
Get some fresh air,
Rebecca
