Jan 18, 2017Executives of other oil companies describe Exxon Mobil as “ruthless, self-isolating and inscrutable … priggish Presbyterian deacons” who maintain “kind of a 1950s Southern religious culture. They’re all engineers, mostly white males, mostly from the South. … They shared a belief in the One Right Answer.”
↩︎ In These Times
Habits of the incoming weirdos at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
A brief overview of Trump's personal oddities
After eight years of relatively normalcy from the Executive Branch under President Obama—whose oddest trait might be his anal nighttime nut habit, or the vast and unscrupulous expansion of the surveillance state and drone warfare, take your pick—we are now about to enter at least a few years of President Trump, who exhibits, shall we say, questionable tendencies for a commander-in-chief. Even outside of his Nuremburg-style rallies and tiny hands.
For example: "I would rarely leave the White House," Trump told The Hill in June 2015. At the time it seemed like a negligible line, because, obviously, the thought of him entering the White House to begin with was…well.
Anyway, it bears a look back on now, particularly in light of his recent and historic agoraphobic behavior. The president-elect rarely leaves Trump Tower or Mar-a-Lago, and during times of crisis he holes himself up in his office and surrounds himself with yes men.
See also: Trump's germophobia—he once described shaking hands as "barbaric"—which he tried to use as a reason why he would not have had two Russian prostitutes pee on a bed. Also his rumored dependency on "cheap speed," which, given the man that he parades around as his doctor, seems all but guaranteed? And then there's his weird burger order ($36 and well-done), and, of course, his Nazi fetishism.
Peter Thiel wants to use the government to develop vampirism, maybe
One of Trump's top advisors is the unfortunate Silicon Valley cyborg concept of a human being Peter Thiel, who—in addition to advocating for going Galt in the middle of the ocean, allegedly taking advice on the Presidential transition from alleged floor-shitting troll Chuck Johnson, being anti-women's suffrage, and, of course, running a yearslong covert legal operation to shut down Gawker—is interested in injecting young blood in his body to stay alive forever.
As J.K. Trotter noted, Thiel's support of Trump becomes "much more legible if you begin with the premise that he is endorsing Trump not because he believes in the candidate’s particular policy prescriptions—such as the systemic victimization of an entire religion—but because he wants to instrumentalize Trump in an effort to propagate his vision of a political future in which elites are liberated to radically remake the system of governance to better serve their interests."
See also: When asked, Anne Rice voiced support for Thiel's proposed slow transformation into vampire.
Jan 18, 2017The eighties were Trump’s era, where he still seemed to live. But he was also reminiscent of the older comics who once roamed the Catskills, those dark and angry men who provided a cathartic outlet for harsh ideas that both broke and reinforced taboos, about the war between men and women, especially. Trump was that hostile-jaunty guy in the big flappy suit, with the vaudeville hair, the pursed lips, and the glare. There’s always been an audience for that guy.
↩︎ The New Yorker
The Editors' Longreads Picks
- An excellent essay on poverty and writing by Starr Davis. Updated May 31, 2022
- Novelist Héctor Tobar tries to understand the 1992 Los Angeles riots through the experiences of a single high school.
- Steven Johnson with a long assessment of the current state of A.I. and language. (The illusion has gotten very good.)
Welcome to The Morning News Tournament of Books, 2017 edition.
- Our championship match is decided in the Tournament of Books, with news of a Rooster surprise debuting this summer. Updated Mar 31, 2017
- In Thursday's action, Reyhan Harmanci sets up a colossal final.
- The Zombie round opens with Buzzfeed's Isaac Fitzgerald reading The Nix and The Underground Railroad.
Все ваши Белый дом принадлежит нам.
- "Will Putin expose the failings of American democracy or will he inadvertently expose the strength of American democracy?" Updated Mar 3, 2017
- Wilbur Ross just wanted to make some money in ethically gray areas (that should've prevented him from taking office).
- Jeff Sessions's spokeswoman can't help but continue to lie.
The oceans are under assault, and not just from the White House and friends.
- Trump's assault on the environment begins with American headwaters. Updated Mar 1, 2017
- Don't just blame the oil companies for destroying the oceans—blame sushi restaurants.
- Nothing escapes the deepest trenches of the ocean floor. Not light, not nutrients, not pollutants.