In 2005, Paul A. Kramer reports, our response to Hurricane Katrina was inextricably tied up with our ongoing military commitment to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The decision to prioritize terrorism, Kramer finds, left us without sufficient equipment or personnel to help Gulf residents in their time of need. (“If the 1st Cav. and 82nd Airborne had gotten there on time, I think we would have saved some lives,” said Gen. Julius Becton Jr., a former FEMA director.)
Apple announced its new iPhone today. No more headphone jack, because, as Apple VP Phil Schiller put it, the company has “the courage to move on, and to try something new that betters all of us.” So brave! Will Oremus sums up the iPhone 7’s other features, concluding: “It adds up to what inevitably feels like another underwhelming iPhone launch. It’s worth remembering, though, that it’s already a remarkable device, and totally reinventing it every 365 days would be crazy.”
Reading Jessica Bennett’s workplace empowerment book Feminist Fight Club: An Office Survival Manual for a Sexist Workplace, Laura Kipnis can’t handle the cutesiness. Kipnis wonders why Bennett doesn’t even address sexual harassment, pay equity, or child care, choosing instead to coin a raft of unwelcome neologisms: “bropriator,” “menstruhater,” “himitator.” “A lot of this book is taken up with small bore issues,” Kipnis writes. “Bennett’s lack of attention to scale becomes the default politics of her book.”
The World Health Organization needs to assess traditional medicines more carefully before recommending their use, Geoffrey Kabat argues, listing several instances in which use of herbal medicines has proved toxic. “When it comes to traditional medicine, WHO seems to ignore its insistence on evidence-based science in favor of traditional and local support for these remedies based on considerations quite apart from the science,” Kabat writes.
For fun: Korean first pitches are really great.
We need to step up our game, apparently,
Rebecca
