Smoke and Mirrors
Smoke and Mirrors
Timeless stories from our 174-year archive handpicked to add context to the news of the day.
U.N. Climate Report: Zero Progress This Year
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On climate change denialism.
Read “The Heat Is On” by Ross Gelbspan
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Gary Greenberg on climate change comeuppance.
Read “Apocalypse, Now What?” by Gary Greenberg
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“The forest seems to ask for stoicism, for us to accept that the hemlocks have left us before and they may leave us again. But fossil fuel emissions have accelerated this transformation, forcing us to bear witness to changes that once were too slow for humans to see, and prompting others that might never have occurred. Perhaps the grief I feel is the sensation of time passing too quickly, the feeling that we are losing things that should have lasted longer.”
Read “Ground Control” by Drew Pendergrass
I’m Not Lovin’ It: E. Coli at McDonald’s
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“I am not quite sure whether the fast-food industry gets its name from the speed with which the food is prepared, served, and eaten or, on the other hand, from the fact that it is consumed by feeders of all ages on the run and, quite literally, on the wing.”
Read “Fast Food and Footloose Americans” by Russell Lynes
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On the golden arches’ arrival in Mexico.
Read “Grand Opening” by Jake Silverstein
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“It was a day of revolt against the batter-fried god Efficiency and his eleven esoteric herbs and spices.”
Read “Home of the Whopper” by Thomas Frank
Up In Smoke: Juul Pays Out
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“The use of tobacco upon our own people is exhibiting its effects by increasing the mental activity at the expense of the physical frame.”
Read “The History and Mystery of Tobacco”
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Ralph Nader on tort law, class action, and why lawsuits are good for America.
Read “Suing for Justice” by Ralph Nader
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From 1990s memos on marketing cigarettes: “We want more eighteen-to-thirty-four-year-old blokes smoking B&H than ever before. We want to see these dudes ripping up packets of Marlboro and Camel and treating them with the disdain that second-rate American filth deserves.”
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On the rebranding of the cigar.
Read “They Made the Cigar Respectable” by Keith Monroe
Remembrances
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Gary Indiana died this week at the age of 74. In 2020, Indiana wrote about Andy Warhol: “A lot that happened in Warhol’s life just sort of happened, the way lots of things happen in every life.”
Read “Always Leave Them Wanting Less” by Gary Indiana
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Arthur Coleman Danto, who died on this day in 2013, also on Warhol: “Warhol’s primary legacy as an artist lies…in his ability to hold these images up like a mirror to our mind–which is, after all, an ancient and profound office of art.”
Read “Warhol’s Mortal Legacy,” from remarks by Arthur Coleman Danto
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Ursula K. Le Guin, who would have turned 95 this week, on reading: “A book won’t move your eyes for you the way images on a screen do. It won’t move your mind unless you give it your mind, or your heart unless you put your heart in it.”
Read “Staying Awake” by Ursula K. Le Guin
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Matthew Power, who would have turned 50 this week, on the coverage of Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath: “Television, lurid and amnesiac, may drive public discourse, but this is rarely to the public’s benefit. In New Orleans’ loss, the local newspaper’s value to the people it serves has never been more manifest.”
Read “Immersion Journalism” by Matthew Power