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Can’t stand the heat of starting another edition with the latest hellish news? Let’s change things up and begin with a story about a ritual that is the very definition of a heated competition. It’s an age-old practice that has become a remarkably hot industry. Strip down, grab a towel, and enter the hot air swirling through the Aufguss World Masters, “where spa enthusiasts twirl towels in saunas to distribute heat, scent, and showmanship.” Liz Plosser in GQ: Inside the Sauna Olympics (alt link). “For the next 15 minutes, Talmadge, 39, will whip a towel through thick, sticky air to push waves of heat and scent toward 200 naked strangers, including a six-person international jury. Aufguss is a sauna ritual; a performance is called a set, and the most elite of them combine choreography, scent, storytelling, steam, and stamina. A competitor—known as a sauna master—enters the sauna to music and places a scented snowball on the hot rocks, then disperses its aroma with their towel. For every one of three or four song changes, another snowball goes on the stove. Contestants are forbidden from drinking water while competing, and judges dock points if they appear fatigued. Within the span of his set, Talmage’s heart rate will hit about 195 beats per minute, according to the Whoop he wears on his left wrist.” (I never disrobe in public, and the vigorous thwacking of towels doesn’t make the idea sound any better. If I want a good sweat, I’ll open a few more tabs.)
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On a Gender Bender
The numbers — both economic and polling — are not looking great for the GOP. So it’s not that big of a surprise that we’re seeing a concerted effort to reframe the midterms as a culture war. If that sounds familiar, it’s because it is. Elaine Godfrey in The Atlantic (Gift Article): The GOP’s Culture-War Hail Mary. “Last week, as the war with Iran dragged into its seventh month, gas prices shot up to an average of $4.50 a gallon, and polling showed President Trump about twice as far underwater with American voters as he was at this point in 2018, Republican senators determined that the time had come to discuss something else entirely: youth sports. ‘Girls’ sports are for girls. Boys’ sports are for boys,’ Senator Marsha Blackburn said in a news conference. With 32 days to go until the midterm elections, Republicans’ closing strategy is obvious: They’re going all-in on trans. (It seems to have worked for them before, after all. More on that in a minute.) In Texas, Republicans are running an unsettling AI-generated ad that shows the Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico dressed as Maria von Trapp and singing about girls with mustaches. A spot in Iowa accuses the Senate candidate Josh Turek of supporting ‘sex changes for kids.’ On X, former Representative Matt Gaetz offered a tidy summary of his party’s agenda: ‘I hate the war too,’ he told a concerned voter. ‘But the Democrats want to trans your kids.’” The messaging is stupid and cruel, and of course, none of this is really about changing gender, it’s about changing the subject.
+ The bad poll numbers won’t just make messaging more desperate and extreme. All the stops will be pulled out. And when you control all three branches of government, that’s a lot of stops. Is There Anything Kash Patel Won’t Do for Trump Before the Midterms? “In recent months, Patel has been briefed on the FBI’s ‘election integrity’ investigations in Arizona, Florida, New Jersey, Ohio, and beyond. Officials told me their understanding is that many of the election-related investigation requests came directly from the White House, many times with the instruction that ‘this is a big deal for the president’ or ‘this is a push from 47.’ But all of that attention hasn’t yielded results. In meetings, Patel has expressed frustration that there have been no new findings, and instructed staff to ‘look harder’ or ‘look again,’ according to three people familiar with the conversations.”
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Compromised Principals
“We used our names and news organization email addresses, following each state’s rules for starting private or microschools, a type of private school intended for just a few students. Experience running a school wasn’t needed. No one from any of the states asked us about our backgrounds or qualifications, though West Virginia did ask for proof of a high school diploma. No one questioned what we plan to teach or how we would measure whether students are learning. And yet we could enroll students in two states right now, if we wanted to. Arkansas even suggested ways our school could accept public money through the state’s voucher-style program.” ProPublica wanted to find out just how easy it is to start a private school. It was A) Easy B) Simple C) Effortless and D) All of the above. We’re Reporters, Not Teachers. We Were Able to Start Private Schools Anyway.
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Weekend Whats
What to Doc: In appointing a special prosecutor in the Cornell rape case, New York Governor Kathy Hochul said, “I want the truth. How is this woman denied justice?” The sad truth is that women are not only often denied justice in many of these cases, they are also turned from victims of a crime into suspects in an investigation. If you haven’t seen it, this is the right time to watch the Center for Investigative Reporting’s excellent documentary Victim/Suspect on Netflix.
+ What to Wear: This probably means I’m a man of a certain age, but I love a good shacket. And my latest fave comes from Criquet.
+ What to Read (and watch, if you haven’t): “Twenty years after the beloved football and family drama premiered, Peter Berg, Kyle Chandler, Connie Britton, Taylor Kitsch and others look back on its legacy.” Friday Night Lights Oral History. Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose!
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Extra, Extra
Surf’s Up: “Sea surface temperatures just hit a record high in a 2.4-million square mile region of the deep Pacific Ocean known as Niño 3.4, the key area scientists are tracking to measure the rapidly strengthening El Niño.” ‘Perfect storm’: El Niño goes off the charts. We’re already seeing flooding from high tides in my neck of the woods. And it’s even worse in SoCal. “In the coming days, sea levels off Southern California are expected to begin rising by half a foot or more and then stay elevated for months, as an enormous pulse of wave energy generated by El Niño travels up the coast, lifting the water as it goes.” A Kelvin Wave Is Heading Toward the California Coast, Bringing Trouble.
+ Telling Tales Out of School: “Outside a high school in Seine-St.-Denis, a working-class suburb north of Paris, a crowd of about 100 students milled in the street on Thursday afternoon, their shouts echoing through the towering apartment buildings. They were protesting overcrowded classrooms, crumbling facilities, and absent teachers.” Blockades, Fireworks and Tear Gas: Young Protesters Are Rattling France. And, fires, fury and hundreds of arrests as France gripped by student protests.
+ Traffick Jam: “Criminal gangs lure immigrants to Russia and Belarus on commercial flights and then send them to the border, Latvian officials said, with the backing of those countries. Officials said that the Russian and Belarusian governments sometimes even offered chartered flights to Moscow or Minsk for migrants and then provided transport to the forested frontiers bordering Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and elsewhere.” NYT (Gift Article) on how Putin uses immigration as a weapon. A Front Line at the Border: How Russia Uses Migrants as Weapons Against Europe.
+ The Upside: Steven Rattner in the NYT (Gift Article): Six Charts That Show Just How Much We Need A.I.
+ Help Unwanted: U.S. added 29,000 jobs in September, missing forecasts by a wide margin