Booooks 11
At war with Trotskyism, jumbo news update and the Gilead in the building
In the meantime
Not much happened last week. N. is here! So at least I am not alone in my micro-wars against my trotskyist flatmate. Recent skirmishes: Our communal stock of onion was not refilled, after he used the last one of the onions I provided, he had a birthday party during which HIS guests drank both my regular and cooking wine finally his advance forces (two female friends) held a lively discussion at 5 am without him there. He also claimed to be friends with people of ‘ustashi traditions‘, and recently published a piece on the War in Ukraine in a way that is not nearly close to common sense.
In other news, I am unable to finish any of the five books I started and whenever I seat myself to read I come across a new title that I MUST read. Most of them are part of my internal hunting campaign. The Closeted Lib has been spotted defending the banking system against a famous leftie: J., with a surname famous in Krakow. With that, I should continue to say that I am not going to write anything about SVB except for the fact that I hopefully believe the European banking system to be safe, as the ECB hiked by 50 bps last week. We are expecting the FED to make a decision tomorrow evening.
Forward guidance: I will be looking at what will happen during Warsaw's miner’s strikes and will update you promptly if anything new comes from it. The mining companies are advocating using their labour organisations against the methane legislation. The messaging of the said corporations is mixed and confusing as the data they claim to be sound (more on this here).
On the news
Get yourself a bank
N, the most beautiful human being I know, found the following meme:
my favorite method for getting super low prices is to go on resale sites and misspell what i’m looking for
But Jan - you might say - the meme should be in the previous section. Sure. But this time that tweet is related to the only story I am following today - The Credit Suisse downfall. On Sunday afternoon the FT and Bloomberg reported that UBS will be buying Credit Suisse by stock. The discount they are getting is insane - they will pay around half the price. Additionally, as Robin Wigglesworth noted:
Going: One 167 year old giant of global banking — with a market cap of $10bn, $14bn of annual revenues, a $575bn balance sheet and $1.4 trillion of assets under management — for the price of a half Shake Shack, one Nikola or a middling EPL football club.
Insane right? But it is remarkably difficult to spell Credit Swis right?
Trump's arrest
This is a guest section in a way. I have the best experts and commentators lined up for you. An avid politico J. made comments:
#terryfying "Nothing is more important than avoiding nuclear Armageddon" "Proxy battle in Ukrainie" "We need total cessasion of hostilities, all shooting has to stop" "This is a central issue, we need peace without delay." "Fundamentaly revaluating the NATO purpose."Only Trump can prevent World War III and you know it. It also seems like he may be the only one that actually wants to prevent it. https://t.co/h6UHFbsQas
Donald Trump Jr. @DonaldJTrumpJrThis comes as Trump tries to consolidate his base before feared arrest on Tuesday. His tragic posts on Truth Social were separated by half an hour. Which is around as much time as it takes me to write the entire newsletter lol. (not true)
Here is another Twitter user trying to make sense of what the NY indictment might mean for Donald Trump:
I have no idea what today will bring to the east coast. Will it strengthen Trump's bid? Maybe. But also it might be the case that the GOP will need to get the perfect replacement: Ron DeSantis. John Oliver has an ideal episode on who the current governor of Florida is but if you think you know him to go and try your luck in the quiz: https://www.politico.com/quiz
Finally, if anyone of my readers has access to Mitt Romney hit me up! I think he might be the independent presidential candidate America needs right now. If not maybe Aaron Sorokin will be interested in filming a series about the republican who stood out to Donald Trump... oh wait:
Miners’ soft power
Trump was not the only Donald T. who made it into my weekend media mix. The chairman of the civic platform made two new electoral commitments during his Silesian tournee. First, he promised to move a non-existent ministry of industry to Katowice. The opponents of the "Emperor" tried to mock him for trying to move something that did not exist. To be fair it is true that Polish law specifies the 'relevant ministry for industry', so whichever that would be can in fact be moved. Second, he claimed that his party wants to mine the coal in Silesia and that mining is not at odds with the energy transition. "Sure" replied the IPCC report, currently embargoed, but due to be published next week. The set of commitments sounds great as Tusk tries to woe Silesians he might at some point reiterate the regional language promise of the Spring party from 2018. What a fun victory that would be for me over the Silesian-eater K. Polish speaking readers can learn more about why you should not trust mining companies from this book: Ballada o śpiącym lwie.
On the Shelf
Building of Gilead
The Spectre is haunting Princeton, the spectre of Woodward Wilson
I did some research and I talked to sources. Princeton University has weird fame as a sexist and racist institution. It is a New England Ivy League College though... So that sounded pretty obvious. One of the reasons for these stories and gossip is because Princeton Graduate School of Foreign Policy decided only recently (2015) and under a lot of pressure that it will remove the former president of the United States from the name of its School of International Affairs. Well, maybe arranging for a screening of the Birth of a Nation in the White House was not the best idea after all. Recently however it was brought to my salience structure that there is a neo-conservative revolution in… out of all the disciplines the classic.
Institutional racism was brought up by signatories of an open letter (300 academics and alumni). The measures they advocated were too progressive for some. Including Joshua Katz. He expressed his outrage in the internet magazine Quill. Fun! Including calling these students Small Local Terrorist Group:
His comments were dismissed by the school, as was he. Interstingly, his firing wasn’t over racism, but a forbidden relationship with an undergraduate a few years back. Professor’s Katz affinity towards undergraduate students continues. He is now married to his previous ug student Solveig Gold. The couple argues that they began seeing each other after Ms Gold’s graduation. Now, they hang out between New Jersey and England and host other conservative thinkers at their beautiful house.
Intermission: The foundation of Gilead
Gilead is a fictional North American republic, a key background to Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and The Testaments. After a coup, power in the United States was seized by a group of fundamental Christians who subjugate women to three categories: Wifes, Marthas and Handmaids. Their female co-conspirators become Aunts who train others to become more submissive in the new system. The republic is guided by a numerous set of rules, full of ornamentation and religious imagery.
The puff piece
How did I even come across Solveig Gold? How? Mary Peterson retweeted this article with the caption: Cautionary tales. Indeed it has everything: The Intellectual Dark Web, metaphorical articles, Lady Macbeth references and a lot of photos of Ms Gold in a stunning dress. I am puzzled why the New York Times decided to publish this piece (reach out to me for a copy!). What is the purpose of it?
Here is the best bit:
He’s young at heart, and I’m an old soul, and it works,” Ms. Gold said later.
When Ms. Gold was named a winner of the Pyne prize, one of Princeton’s highest undergraduate honors for which Dr. Katz (they were not in a relationship at the time) was one of her nominators, the official announcement said she aspired to become a public intellectual.
“Solveig” — it’s pronounced SOL-vay — “has always received a lot of favorable male attention,” said her best friend from Princeton.
Ms Gold feels like exactly the type. She will not be dragged by the revolutionary conservatives. She will not be put in the kitchen and a 1950s garment. On the contrary. She will put her husband into a position where he will argue that it is the best way for the whole country.
Or maybe I am wrong. Maybe she is just as good of a republican as Ainsley Hayes and she just really fell in love with her Undergraduate class lecturer.
Conclusion: Everything in this book already happened. Somewhere. Somewhen.
The brute force of the Handmaid’s Tale comes from the author’s assertion that she did not make up any part of the book. She just synthesised things that women had to put through around the globe. The abortion bans, forced motherhood, house labour and objectification were just themes. The rule of religion-obsessed men, who applied double moral standards to themselves and other members of the society was how Iran seemed to western observers in the 1980s. The book is a call for action: do not let it happen in the future in full force in your own society. It is probably Atwood’s speculative fiction at its finest. Later anti-capitalist and environmental attempts were never as captivating and finally felt almost repetitive.
The Solveig Gold story is cautionary because any subjugation needs compliers and insiders, just like Gilead.
So now go and read Atwood!
Up Next
That’s all for this week’s episode of Booooks! Thanks for hanging out I hope you guys are fine and I will talk to you all soon! Bye!