This week’s highlights: Singing Technique, The Fall of Sears, and a 50-year old watch still in production.

Issue 249

Food for Thought:

1. The Atlantic – The Road to Radicalism in Charlottesville.  Violent extremism—whether in jihadist or white supremacist form—is often driven by the same processes.
2. VF – Angelina Jolie Solo.  There’s the Angelina Jolie who’s now a single mother—managing the day-to-day chaos of six kids, and the trauma of her split from Brad Pitt—and there’s the Angelina Jolie whose latest movie, a groundbreaking Netflix original about Cambodia’s genocide, is also a thank-you to the nation that transformed her. At her new L.A. mansion, Jolie reveals the tension between the two Angelinas and the reason her life will never be normal.
3. Guardian – Why do stars like Adele keep losing their voice?  More and more singers are cancelling big shows and turning to surgery to fix their damaged vocal cords. But is the problem actually down to the way they sing?
4. NYT – A Start-Up Suggests a Fix to the Health Care Morass
5. BH – Is It Too Late to Start Something New?

Business/Economics:

1. PS – The Lost Lesson of the Financial Crisis – Credit JC –  Ten years ago this month, the French bank BNP Paribas decided to limit investors’ access to the money they had deposited in three funds. It was the first loud signal of the financial stress that would, a year later, send the global economy into a tailspin.
2. NYT – The Incredible Shrinking Sears – Credit DH – How a financial wizard took over a giant of American retailing, and presided over its epic decline.
3. Barrons – Microsoft: Riding High on the Cloud.  – Credit WES –  Metamorphosis isn’t supposed to look this easy. Microsoft has been shifting its decades-old products to the cloud without having to make a single insurance claim for business interruption
4. BI – Sustainability of hedge-fund reinsurers questioned
5. NYT – One U.S. Factory Goes Global, While Trump Shrinks the World. Never mind the refrain that the American factory is supposedly a dinosaur in the age of globalization.  Here in the heart of horse country, some 700 American workers are designing and building premium ceiling fans.

Culture/Tech/Science:

1. Eater – What Brands Are Actually Behind Trader Joe’s Snacks?
2. Tennessean – Opioid-related hospitalizations more than triple for Tennessee seniors  “It’s not that easy to believe your grandmother has a drug abuse problem,” said Dr. Peter Martin, a psychiatrist and director of the Vanderbilt Addiction Center.
3. NYT – Tom Ford, Where the Rich and Famous Go to Look Rich and Famous
4. Jalopnik – Using A Mercedes-Benz G-Wagen As A Camper Finally Gives It A Real Purpose
5. Hodinkee – Hands-On The Zenith El Primero Chronomaster 38mm. Zenith’s El Primero automatic chronograph was the first ever introduced in 1969.  It remains in production to this day, even having powered such legendary time pieces as the Rolex Daytona.