New commandments: Trump is the first sitting president to speak at the Values Voter Summit, and the group has totally twisted its priorities to embrace him, Will Saletan writes. Trump-loving “values voters” must accept that authenticity trumps virtue, immigrants are evil, and the United States is a sacred entity.
Pick meeee: Cities including Boston, Ottawa, New York, and Tucson have groveled at Jeff Bezos’ feet in their applications to host Amazon’s second headquarters that were due on Thursday. What disturbs Henry Grabar is that even the mayors of the cities that abstained from the competition failed to be critical of Amazon’s business model, which is killing local retail.
Scary: Big advances in synthetic biology could very well lead to a resurgence of smallpox. Gregory D. Koblentz argues that we need to evolve laws, regulation, and scientific norms to prevent this—and soon.
Besotted by a book: Katy Waldman read Philip Pullman’s new novel—La Belle Sauvage, the first in a trilogy called The Book of Dust—and she promises you will love it with all the “helpless vehemence” she did.
For fun: A fan theory about a fake Klingon.
Just like Melania,
Rebecca
