29 Jul 24 Monday Briefing

The gnome will have his vodka

News Roundup

Friends, I was sadly disabused of the notion that Kamala Harris had a thing for bratwursts, and I was duly burdened with the knowledge of Charlie XCX, an album called Brat (?) and how it all relates to Gen Z getting excited about a female POC presidential candidate. Let’s see if brats translate into a voting bloc.

The French be Frenching with their Paris Olympics opening ceremony, and not surprisingly, that has offended many religious groups, but the more interesting thing was seeing the reaction from non-Christians around the world, ranging from consternation to quasi-crit-theory. I still contend that the best meme so far features actual real-life couple and gold medallists Chang and Chen.

In other news, Maduro wins yet another term in Venezuela, MPs set up consultancies in the face of impending defeat (great hustle), a very stupid priest outs himself on Grindr, and this is why we can’t have nice things (because humans).

Watch/Scroll

Read this redditor’s wild goose chase for a specific brand of Russian vodka… to appease a garden gnome. Any self-respecting Asian will know that you do not touch or move household objects without due process! He is also very likely a troll, but I found this too hilarious not to share.

This is what the intersection of Sinitic language chauvinism and nationalistic cancellation looks like. Poor child.

Another crazy-if-true from Seymour Hersh.

Read

Tanner Greer delivers another long-form essay par excellence about US party politics and why one party’s leaders matter more than the other’s – tl;dr it’s about patronage vs constituent parties, and maybe that’s why The New Republic thinks that the Democratic Party is still broken despite their eleventh-hour pivot.

Ponder

The intersection of social media, video shorts apps, a developing country and fanatical elements of a religion is not for the faint-hearted, but here we are, friends. Rest of World delivers again with a thought-provoking article about the state of play in Indonesia, one of the most ungovernable places on earth thanks to geography, history and culture.