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In today’s edition:
WpGet the full experience.Choose your planArrowRight- Remember the places that made Gaza shine, and save what’s left
- You need not marry to be happy. You might need to divorce.
- Commander doesn’t bear as much blame as the Bidens do
Elegy for Gaza
The characterization of Gaza as the “world’s largest open-air prison” is a powerful one; its roughly 2 million inhabitants have indeed been blockaded for years by land, sea and air — and have suffered as a result.
But the descriptor belies all the vibrant life that exists within the strip’s borders, Post Opinions editor at large Negar Azimi writes. Or, at least, existed.
Since October, Israel’s bombing campaign has reduced much of Gaza to rubble. In Negar’s oral history, Palestinians remember their places that made Gaza, for all its injustices, home.
There’s the bakery that dished out sesame-covered ka’ak, and the seaside stalls for icy treats. An old Christian church and an old Muslim mosque. The orange farm belonging to the AbuShahla family that has been around (according to the AbuShahla family) “since Jesus was a Jew.”
Each spot has been “blasted, bombarded [or] bulldozed,” Negar writes. That alone makes for a haunting elegy, especially when paired with Palestinian artist Asma Ghanem’s illustrations.
But as you read further, the tumbled buildings begin to pale: Zookeepers return to find 9 out of every 10 animals dead of starvation. Then, a journalist talks about her bombed university — whose president was killed by an Israeli strike two months later. The journalist’s mentor killed five days after that. Twenty killed in that old Christian church.
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Yet things can still get worse. Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu has threatened strikes against Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city and the last refuge for Palestinians. Without changes to how Israel has operated so far, the Editorial Board writes, it would be yet another humanitarian disaster.
That doesn’t have to happen. The board urges President Biden to keep pressuring — publicly, privately, whatever works — for a hostage deal that could set up a pause in fighting that could set up a longer peace that could set up even a Palestinian state.
And perhaps, one day, more ka’ak and more oranges, and much less grief.
Chaser: Max Boot illuminates a spot where humanitarian aid is actually succeeding: He traveled with U.N. relief workers as they tended to Ukrainian refugees.
Not-so-holy matrimony
Despite everything that culture told her, and despite everything that her country told her, marriage was not the answer for Lyz Lenz.
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Lenz, a Substack writer and author of “This American Ex-Wife: How I Ended My Marriage and Started My Life,” explains in an essay adapted from the book how marriage made her — and makes so many women like her — miserable.
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See, the United States lavishes benefits on the betrothed and makes ending a union much harder than beginning one. It touts marriage as a panacea for all social problems. But that’s all wrong.
“Maybe instead of discouraging divorce and pressuring people to marry for financial security,” Lenz writes, “we should make a more equitable society.”
That, she imagines, would lead to far fewer unhappy alliances of men and women, which in study after study are marked by exhaustion, abuse, unfair divisions of labor and wives who are far unhappier than their husbands. (I cannot help but conclude that heterosexual marriage is simply not for me, and I’ll be encouraging my boyfriend to avoid it, too.)
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So many hold marriage as sacrosanct, Lenz writes, but it only works when it really works. She wants a rethink, and that starts with women raising the bar for their men.
And “if they raise the bar and it breaks, that’s okay,” Lenz advises. “There is power in giving up.”
Chaser: Questions or comments about modern relationships? Lenz and Shadi Hamid (who wrote a recent piece on polyamory) will discuss the topic in real time with readers Thursday at noon ET.
More politics
The initial stories last year about the Biden family’s very bitey dog, Commander, were treated mostly as amusing mountain from a molehill.
But after reviewing recently released Secret Service documents, Jill Abramson, former executive editor of the New York Times (and devoted dog trainer), writes that the episodes constitute “a harrowing narrative of pet ownership in high places run dangerously amok.”
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Abramson’s, ahem, biting commentary includes a great, if gory, summary of the incidents, should you need to get up to speed. One involves a White House tour put on pause while blood was mopped from the floor.
She doesn’t envy the Bidens’ excruciating dilemma regarding relinquishing a pet, but she concludes that “at some point, the trouble is not the animals — it’s the owners.”
Chaser: Alexandra Petri’s quiz challenging readers to rule historical documents as real or fake contains a terrific (imagined) excerpt of the Nixon tapes catching cocker spaniel Checkers on bad behavior.
Smartest, fastest
- Heather Long explains how we’ve been looking at inflation the wrong way — and why we’re feeling so confused about the economy as a result.
- León Krauze assesses whether Mexico can move past its authoritarian streak with a new president … mentored by the authoritarian old one.
- Organized labor, ironically, isn’t organized enough anymore, writes former National Labor Relations Board chairman William Gould. He presents a plan for unions to win and grow.
It’s a goodbye. It’s a haiku. It’s … The Bye-Ku.
Sharp mouthful of dust
One day replaced with the taste
Of honeyed orange
***
Have your own newsy haiku? Email it to me, along with any questions/comments/ambiguities. See you tomorrow!
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You’re reading the Today’s Opinions newsletter. Sign up to get it in your inbox.
In today’s edition:
The characterization of Gaza as the “world’s largest open-air prison” is a powerful one; its roughly 2 million inhabitants have indeed been blockaded for years by land, sea and air — and have suffered as a result.
But the descriptor belies all the vibrant life that exists within the strip’s borders, Post Opinions editor at large Negar Azimi writes. Or, at least, existed.
Since October, Israel’s bombing campaign has reduced much of Gaza to rubble. In Negar’s oral history, Palestinians remember their places that made Gaza, for all its injustices, home.
There’s the bakery that dished out sesame-covered ka’ak, and the seaside stalls for icy treats. An old Christian church and an old Muslim mosque. The orange farm belonging to the AbuShahla family that has been around (according to the AbuShahla family) “since Jesus was a Jew.”
Each spot has been “blasted, bombarded [or] bulldozed,” Negar writes. That alone makes for a haunting elegy, especially when paired with Palestinian artist Asma Ghanem’s illustrations.
But as you read further, the tumbled buildings begin to pale: Zookeepers return to find 9 out of every 10 animals dead of starvation. Then, a journalist talks about her bombed university — whose president was killed by an Israeli strike two months later. The journalist’s mentor killed five days after that. Twenty killed in that old Christian church.
Yet things can still get worse. Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu has threatened strikes against Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city and the last refuge for Palestinians. Without changes to how Israel has operated so far, the Editorial Board writes, it would be yet another humanitarian disaster.
That doesn’t have to happen. The board urges President Biden to keep pressuring — publicly, privately, whatever works — for a hostage deal that could set up a pause in fighting that could set up a longer peace that could set up even a Palestinian state.
And perhaps, one day, more ka’ak and more oranges, and much less grief.
Chaser: Max Boot illuminates a spot where humanitarian aid is actually succeeding: He traveled with U.N. relief workers as they tended to Ukrainian refugees.
Despite everything that culture told her, and despite everything that her country told her, marriage was not the answer for Lyz Lenz.
Lenz, a Substack writer and author of “This American Ex-Wife: How I Ended My Marriage and Started My Life,” explains in an essay adapted from the book how marriage made her — and makes so many women like her — miserable.
See, the United States lavishes benefits on the betrothed and makes ending a union much harder than beginning one. It touts marriage as a panacea for all social problems. But that’s all wrong.
“Maybe instead of discouraging divorce and pressuring people to marry for financial security,” Lenz writes, “we should make a more equitable society.”
That, she imagines, would lead to far fewer unhappy alliances of men and women, which in study after study are marked by exhaustion, abuse, unfair divisions of labor and wives who are far unhappier than their husbands. (I cannot help but conclude that heterosexual marriage is simply not for me, and I’ll be encouraging my boyfriend to avoid it, too.)
So many hold marriage as sacrosanct, Lenz writes, but it only works when it really works. She wants a rethink, and that starts with women raising the bar for their men.
And “if they raise the bar and it breaks, that’s okay,” Lenz advises. “There is power in giving up.”
Chaser: Questions or comments about modern relationships? Lenz and Shadi Hamid (who wrote a recent piece on polyamory) will discuss the topic in real time with readers Thursday at noon ET.
The initial stories last year about the Biden family’s very bitey dog, Commander, were treated mostly as amusing mountain from a molehill.
But after reviewing recently released Secret Service documents, Jill Abramson, former executive editor of the New York Times (and devoted dog trainer), writes that the episodes constitute “a harrowing narrative of pet ownership in high places run dangerously amok.”
Abramson’s, ahem, biting commentary includes a great, if gory, summary of the incidents, should you need to get up to speed. One involves a White House tour put on pause while blood was mopped from the floor.
She doesn’t envy the Bidens’ excruciating dilemma regarding relinquishing a pet, but she concludes that “at some point, the trouble is not the animals — it’s the owners.”
Chaser: Alexandra Petri’s quiz challenging readers to rule historical documents as real or fake contains a terrific (imagined) excerpt of the Nixon tapes catching cocker spaniel Checkers on bad behavior.
It’s a goodbye. It’s a haiku. It’s … The Bye-Ku.
Sharp mouthful of dust
One day replaced with the taste
Of honeyed orange
***
Have your own newsy haiku? Email it to me, along with any questions/comments/ambiguities. See you tomorrow!
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