Disney and the Decline of America’s Middle Class

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/28/opinion/disney-world-economy-middle-class-rich.html

For most of the park’s history, Disney was priced to welcome people across the income spectrum, embracing the motto “Everyone is a V.I.P.” In doing so, it created a shared American culture by providing the same experience to every guest. The family that pulled up in a new Cadillac stood in the same lines, ate the same food and rode the same rides as the family that arrived in a used Chevy. Back then, America’s large and thriving middle class was the focus of most companies’ efforts and firmly in the driver’s seat.

That middle class has so eroded in size and in purchasing power — and the wealth of our top earners has so exploded — that America’s most important market today is its affluent. As more companies tailor their offerings to the top, the experiences we once shared are increasingly differentiated by how much we have.

Data is part of what’s driving this shift. The rise of the internet, the algorithm, the smartphone and now artificial intelligence are giving corporations the tools to target the fast-growing masses of high-net-worth Americans with increasing ease. As a management consultant, I’ve worked with dozens of companies making this very transition. Many of our biggest private institutions are now focused on selling the privileged a markedly better experience, leaving everyone else to either give up — or fight to keep up.

Why Good Ideas Die Quietly and Bad Ideas Go Viral

https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/why-good-ideas-die-quietly-and-bad-ideas-go-viral

The internet—it seemed like such a good idea at the time. Under conditions of informational poverty, our ancestors had no choice but to operate on a need-to-know basis. The absence of pertinent, reliable, and commonly held facts was at first a matter of mere logistics—the stable storage and orderly transfer of knowledge was costly and troublesome, and entropy was free—but, over time, the techniques of civilization afforded us better control over the collection and transmission of data. Vast triage structures evolved to determine who got to learn what, when: medieval guilds, say, or network news reports. These systems were supposed to function in everybody’s best interests. We were finite brutes of fragile competence, and none of us could confront the abyss of unmitigated complexity alone. Beyond a certain point, however, we couldn’t help but perceive these increasingly centralized arrangements as insulting, and even conspiratorial. We were grownups, and, as such, we could be trusted to handle an unadulterated marketplace of ideas. The logic of the internet was simple: first, fire all of the managers; then, sort things out for ourselves. In the time since, one of the few unambiguously good things to have emerged from this experiment is an entire genre of attempts to explain why it mostly hasn’t worked out.

Your Review: Dating Men In The Bay Area

https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/your-review-dating-men-in-the-bay

There’s a strange creed within much of polite society that insists men don’t need to be reminded of their worth, because they are privileged. In fact, some insist that reminding men of their worth might even make the privilege disparity worse.

This mentality is madness. There’s a raging epidemic of men who question their worth, and it’s leading to them spiraling into lostness and taking their own lives. It’s also causing an alarming uptick in men who despise women and polite society, believing that these people don’t believe they’re worth anything at all.

Men need to know that we care. They need to know that they’re worthy of respect, love, and kindness. The only way this can happen is if we loudly discuss the benefits and beauty that men bring to society.

No one should ever feel ashamed or unworthy because of an inherent trait. Boys should be just as proud of their gender as girls are, and we can accomplish this by celebrating the beauties of both identities.

Officer, suspect dead after shooting near Emory, CDC campus

https://www.decaturish.com/public_safety/active-shooter-reported-at-emory-campus-updates-details/article_1e631ec0-b30b-44f7-bc49-35901c2ef8ae.html

A DeKalb County Police officer died in the incident and the suspect also died. DeKalb officials have identified the officer as David Rose. CEO Lorraine Cochran-Johnson said Rose, 33, had wife and two children. They were expecting a third child, she said.

“Today is a very dark day in DeKalb County,” Cochran-Johnson said.

Rose started with DeKalb County Police in September 2024 and worked at the North Central Precinct in Tucker.

“He was committed to serving the community,” Interim Police Chief Greg Padrick said. “At this time we’re asking for the community’s prayers for his family, his friends, his loved ones and the entire DeKalb County Police Department family.”

In the Future All Food Will Be Cooked in a Microwave, and if You Can’t Deal With That Then You Need to Get Out of the Kitchen

https://www.colincornaby.me/2025/08/in-the-future-all-food-will-be-cooked-in-a-microwave-and-if-you-cant-deal-with-that-then-you-need-to-get-out-of-the-kitchen/

As a restaurant owner – I’m astounded at the rate of progress since microwaves were released a few short years ago. Today’s microwave can cook a frozen burrito. Tomorrow’s microwave will be able to cook an entire Thanksgiving Dinner. Ten years from now a microwave may even be able to run the country.

Recently I was watching a livestream of a local microwave salesman. He suggested that restaurants should cook all their food in a microwave.

We all need to transition to this way of cooking, because clearly this is where the future is going. I expect in a few short years kitchens will be much smaller. Gone will be stoves and ovens and flat tops. Restaurant kitchens will only be a small closet with a microwave. I predict this will happen by 1955 at the latest.

Many chefs I know get upset at me when I tell them this. But this is the truth: If you can’t cook everything you make in a microwave thats a skill issue. You need to learn now because when everything is cooked in a microwave you’ll be out of a job. When microwaves are everywhere you’ll be so far behind you’ll never learn how to use a microwave. Chefs who use tools besides microwaves are luddites. They live in fear of the future.

Obituary for Elsie Pfluger Doerpinghaus

https://www.newspapers.com/article/austin-american-statesman-obituary-for-e/126453922/

Why American Jews No Longer Understand One Another

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/20/opinion/antisemitism-american-jews-israel-mamdani.html

“What we are doing in Gaza now is a war of devastation: indiscriminate, limitless, cruel and criminal killing of civilians,” Ehud Olmert, a former Israeli prime minister, wrote in Haaretz. “We’re not doing this due to loss of control in any specific sector, not due to some disproportionate outburst by some soldiers in some unit. Rather, it’s the result of government policy — knowingly, evilly, maliciously, irresponsibly dictated. Yes, Israel is committing war crimes.”

What many young Jews see is what Olmert sees, and they want no part of it. Are they to defend war crimes? Are they to defend or even accept the use of mass starvation as a tool of war? Are they to believe in equality everywhere but in the state that is meant to be their spiritual home? There are many who bristled at the term “genocide” a year ago but have come to accept it now.

What other Jews see is a world that cares little for Jewish life and has always sought Israel’s destruction. “We’re talking about a country that exists,” Lipstadt said. “So when you say, ‘I’m an anti-Zionist,’ what is Zionism? It’s the right of Jews to have a national homeland. And if you’re saying, ‘I don’t believe in that,’ then on a very practical level, what happens to the six-plus million Jews who live in that country?”

After our conversation, Lipstadt emailed me to underscore a point. “Here’s what I would say to those young people or whomever who question the right of Israel to exist. They may not be — they probably are not — antisemitic in intent, but placing the lives of half of the world Jewish population in danger is absolutely antisemitic in impact.”

Enough Is Enough. Israel Is Committing War Crimes by Ehud Olmert

https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2025-05-27/ty-article-opinion/.premium/enough-is-enough-israel-is-committing-war-crimes/00000197-0dd6-df85-a197-0ff64a5c0000

The government of Israel is currently waging a war without purpose, without goals or clear planning and with no chances of success. Never since its establishment has the State of Israel waged such a war. The criminal gang headed by Benjamin Netanyahu has set a precedent without equal in Israel's history