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| Canada Goose Victoria Parka |
▪ Canada Goose coats are currently on sale at Tuckernuck, including crowd favorites like the Victoria and the Trillium (reviewed here); the discounts aren’t steep but the brand is rarely on sale so if you are in the market for a CG coat, this is worth checking out. Use code TNUCKNEW for an extra 10% off. Shipping is free on all orders.
▪ Instead of catching up on much-needed sleep last weekend, I binge watched the fourth season of Mozart in the Jungle. I had been worried that the new season would be disappointing, as the first three seasons had been so delightful, but my worry was unwarranted: the fourth season is as refreshing as ever.
▪ “Gap Sinks After CEO of Ailing Flagship Brand Is Sent Packing” (Bloomberg): “Jeff Kirwan, president and chief executive officer of the Gap brand, will leave the company and a search is underway for a replacement … Kirwan took over the Gap brand in 2014 with the chain in turmoil as sales continued to slide. He overhauled its operating model to improve the ability to test products and quickly stock designs that sold well. He also focused on improving the quality and fit of its offerings. Still, comparable sales at the chain — a closely watched measure — fell in 13 of the past 15 quarters as competition increased and shoppers shifted spending away from apparel in favor of experiences and technology.“
▪ “Billionaires Gone Wild” (Columbia Journalism Review): “What’s happening to the press is reflective of the broader transformation of our society. Rule by supposedly benevolent technocratic elites is giving way … to straight plutocracy … Billionaires will pay people to destroy you, using any underhanded tactics they can think of. And there’s nothing you can do about it.“
▪ “‘Strong’ Black Woman? ‘Smart’ Asian Man? The Downside To Positive Stereotypes” (NPR Code Switch): “Positive stereotypes don’t just affect how people are perceived by others. They also distort how people view themselves … But even the people who do live up to positive stereotypes can’t win. Because when you fulfill a positive stereotype, you might not get credit for the effort you put in. And your success might solidify the stereotype in people’s minds, leaving less room for them to think of you as your own person.“
▪ “The Case Against Google” (The New York Times): “The F.T.C.’s decision … was motivated in part by a debate that has also sparked battles within antitrust courts over the last 40 years: Should the law protect consumers or encourage competition? They’re not always synonymous … few users are kvetching about Google; it’s primarily other tech firms. United States judges have increasingly held that the government must show consumer harm to win in court … Google has appealed the European Commission’s decision and has vigorously defended itself online. The company’s arguments are the same ones that it was putting forth on company blogs over the course of the investigation … Google’s data indicates that users appreciate how the search engine has shifted over the years … Those are fair arguments. But they are also, in some ways, beside the point. Antitrust has never been just about costs and benefits or fairness. It’s never been about whether we love the monopolist. People loved Standard Oil a century ago, and Microsoft in the 1990s, just as they love Google today … Rather, antitrust has always been about progress. Antitrust prosecutions are part of how technology grows. Antitrust laws ultimately aren’t about justice, as if success were something to be condemned; instead, they are a tool that society uses to help start-ups build on a monopolist’s breakthroughs without, in the process, being crushed by the monopolist. And then, if those start-ups prosper and make discoveries of their own, they eventually become monopolies themselves, and the cycle starts anew.“
▪ “Trump Is Winning” (Vox): “The secret to Trump’s success, the insight that has separated him from his competitors, is that he has cared less about the nature of the coverage he received than that he received coverage at all … This is the law by which Trump lives his life. Attention creates value, at least for him … His rule, his realization, is that you want as much coverage as possible, full stop … Trump is demanding and receiving our attention, crowding out everything else, accepting that it’s better to be hated than to be ignored … Trump drives his opponents to respond in kind, to adopt just a little more of his tone and language and pitch.“
▪ “How Twitter Lost the Internet War” (Vanity Fair): “… Twitter has never set clear guidelines for what kind of language or behavior will get somebody banned … Twitter never developed a product sophisticated enough to automatically deal with with bots, spam, or abuse … Dysfunction is nothing new for Twitter, which has been plagued by management troubles since its founding … And it’s not clear at this point whether the company can still attract the caliber of talent it would need to start over.“
▪ “The United States of Work” (New Republic): “Even before the global financial crisis of 2008, it had become clear that if waged work is supposed to provide a measure of well-being and social structure, it has failed on its own terms … our lives today are ruled, above all, by work. We can try to convince ourselves that we are free, but as long as we must submit to the increasing authority of our employers and the labor market, we are not. We therefore fancy that we want to work, that work grounds our character, that markets encompass the possible. We are unable to imagine what a full life could be, much less to live one.“
▪ “Homelessness, Step by Step” (The New York Times): “New York City must, by court order, provide temporary shelter to any eligible person, and to comply, the city spends about $1.8 billion a year on shelters, apartments, hotel rooms and programs … Families stayed in shelter for an average 414 days … the city’s surge in homelessness can be traced to 2011, when the state cut funding to a key rental assistance program. By 2012, the overall homeless population had jumped by 11 percent to about 57,000 people, and by 2013, the number was about 64,000 … Since Mayor Bill de Blasio took office in 2014, the number has continued to creep up to a current estimate of 77,000 people.“
▪ I really enjoyed this TAL episode entitled, “Rom-Com,”
and would encourage those of you who don’t subscribe to the show to listen
to this one. Every story featured was charming, and Act Four made me
laugh.
▪ “Do You Believe Her Now?” (New York Magazine): “… the Hill-Thomas conflagration was the first moment in American history when we collectively, truly grappled with sexual harassment … it’s well worth inspecting, in part as a case study, in how women’s voices were silenced at the time by both Republicans and Democrats and as an illustration of what’s changed — and hasn’t — in the past 27 years … Thomas, as a crucial vote on the Supreme Court, holds incredible power over women’s rights, workplace, reproductive, and otherwise. His worldview, with its consistent objectification of women, is the one that’s shaping the contours of what’s possible for women in America today, more than that of just about any man alive, save for his fellow justices.“
▪ “Silicon Valley’s Singularity University Has Some Serious Reality Problems” (Bloomberg): “Previously unreported police files, other documents, and interviews with current and former students and staff paint the picture that almost from the beginning, some Singularity staffers weren’t able to curb their worst impulses. A teacher allegedly sexually assaulted a former student, an executive stole more than $15,000, a former staffer alleges gender and disability discrimination, and Singularity dismissed 14 of about 170 staffers and suspended GSP, now called the Global Solutions Program, after Google withdrew funding last year. Alumni say for-profit Singularity is becoming just another organizer of conferences and executive seminars.“
▪ “Airbnb and the Unintended Consequences of ‘Disruption’” (The Atlantic): “Airbnb’s success also encouraged dubious behavior on the part of ‘commercial’ power users—property owners who listed downtown units (especially second residences) all year long, as if they were hotel rooms … Open apartments occupied for much of the year by Airbnb-using travelers reduce the number of available homes to people who want to move into that building. High demand, plus lower supply, leads to higher prices … Airbnb altogether drives up the price of rent in many neighborhoods.“
▪ Recently purchased: Free People Lost in You Midi Dress, Steve Madden Daisie Pointy-Toe Pump, Banana Republic Double-Button Pencil Skirt, Brotopia: Breaking Up the Boys’ Club of Silicon Valley, and J. Crew Silk Twill Button-Up in Tiger Print.
Have a great week, everyone!
