Índex per December 16, 2019 a TIME Magazine

WHAT YOU SAID ABOUT … PARTY’S OVER Anand Giridharadas’ analysis of the pitfalls of capitalism, in his Dec. 2/Dec. 9 cover story from the Ideas issue, drew praise from Mark E. Sommers of DeWitt, N.Y., who called it an “insightful” article on how “America for all has been hijacked by those who limit the American dream to just a handful of elites.” But others disagreed with Giridharadas’ belief that the influence of that group is waning. Kris Allen of Beulah, Colo., and Trarie Kottkamp of Berkeley, Calif., both felt that proof of the endurance of the elite sensibility could be found elsewhere in the issue, which also contained an interview with billionaire Stephen Schwarzman and pricey items on the list of the year’s best inventions. “Elites have never relinquished…

WHEN MALTA’S PRIME MINISTER JOSEPH Muscat announced Dec. 1 that he would step down, the news was both sudden and a long time coming. His decision was prompted by new arrests in the 2017 murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia, a Maltese journalist who had investigated corruption at the highest levels of the country’s government. More than two years have passed since a bomb detonated under the driver’s seat in her rental car, but—even after Muscat’s decision—the political crisis that was triggered by her death continues. RENEWED REVOLT The investigation into Caruana Galizia’s unsolved murder took a turn after the Nov. 20 arrest of Maltese businessman Yorgen Fenech, whom media reports have linked to payments to senior government figures. Muscat’s chief of staff and two ministers stepped down as police…

THEASTER GATES IS SWOOPING AROUND AND through the audience like a low-flying eagle circling a lake. It’s dark, but a band is playing Grace Jones covers, he’s a very good roller-skater, and he trusts the smoothness of the floor he installed. Occasionally he straightens a bit and shouts, “This is not a conference!” and sometimes “This is not a f-cking conference!” It’s the first night of Gates’ fifth Black Artists Retreat, a weekend of discussions, performances and films dedicated this year to exploring “Sonic Imagination.” But occasionally, because of the speakers and presentations, it verges on feeling like a conference. Hence the roller skates. Gates is a potter-sculptor, who is also an urban planner, who is also an archivist, who is also a factory owner, who is also a…

THE TRUMP administration went on offense again this month on a number of international trade disputes. On Dec. 2, the U.S. President tweeted his intention to impose new tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from Argentina and Brazil to retaliate against a “massive devaluation of their currencies, which is not good for our farmers.” The tariffs will hit both countries where it hurts since Brazil is one of the largest steel suppliers to the U.S. and Argentina’s economy was already so weak it turned a recent presidential election. Perhaps he wants to throw punches to project strength at a time when he’s about to be impeached The Administration also threatened to slap tariffs of up to 100% on $2.4 billion of imported French products like champagne, cheese and handbags…

1. Antonio Banderas Pain & Glory Banderas has been appearing in Pedro Almodóvar’s films since the early days of his career. How can so many years have passed? In Pain & Glory, he gives an aching, unguarded performance as a successful filmmaker nearing the tail end of his career, graying and anxious and hampered by severe pain. Banderas gives us a glimpse into what can happen to any of us as we age. He also pays a blood-brothers tribute to Almodóvar, a man who has brought great joy and a freeing sense of abandon to his audience, making us feel young even if we’re not. 2. Jennifer Lopez Hustlers We spend a great deal of time praising actors we think of as great, but we don’t always know what to…

1. ‘Old Town Road’ Lil Nas X “Old Town Road” contains many opposing truths. It’s both underdog and behemoth, eye-rollingly trivial and slyly progressive, radio-ready hit and oddball meme. It was this shape-shifting ability that made “Old Town Road” the ideal cultural artifact for 2019, in its many iterations and the conversations it inspired. Whether people went online to criticize it, dance to it or remix it, so many people interacted with the song in some way, continuously pouring fuel as it set record after record. And as Lil Nas X added to the fire by releasing a stream of remixes, the song became less a single record and more a fluid canvas for transgression. Each new version ruptured a new boundary—whether it was Billy Ray Cyrus singing about his…

DO YOU REMEMBER WHEN YOU FIRST ENCOUNTERED LOUISA MAY ALCOTT’S Little Women? It must have been read to me, because I don’t remember a time when I didn’t know who Jo March was. I don’t know if I wanted to be a writer, which is why I liked Jo March, or Jo March was a writer so I wanted to be a writer too. But I did the thing you can only do with books as a child, where your own autobiography and the contents of a book merge. It’s been adapted many times. What made you want to adapt it now? I reread the book as an adult, and I was bowled over by how modern it was, how much it was about women, ambition, art and money. There…

‘He’s two-faced.’DONALD TRUMP, U.S. President, on Dec. 4, at a NATO summit, after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was caught on a hot microphone apparently complaining about Trump with other world leaders 18,000 Age, in years, of a prehistoric puppy found frozen in permafrost in Russia $9.4 billion Amount Americans spent online on Cyber Monday, Dec. 2, a record for the retail holiday ‘We are still in. The United States is still in.’NANCY PELOSI, Speaker of the House, pledging at U.N. climate talks in Madrid on Dec. 2 to continue fighting climate change despite the Trump Administration’s plan to withdraw from the Paris Agreement 14,315 Number of Thanksgiving Day inquiries to the Butterball Turkey Talk Line, which provides answers to turkey-related cooking questions Spuds A weak potato harvest brought fears…

Harris ends presidential campaign California Senator Kamala Harris suspended her run for the White House on Dec. 3. The Democrat surged after the July debate but struggled to maintain her position in the polls and with donors. The week also saw the end of lower-profile bids from former Pennsylvania Congressman Joe Sestak and Montana Governor Steve Bullock. Putin signs ‘foreign agent’ law Russian President Vladimir Putin approved a bill Dec. 2 that will allow Russia to declare journalists and bloggers “foreign agents” if they distribute content and receive funding from abroad. Journalists and human-rights activists say the law is meant to allow the Kremlin to silence its critics. Georgia Senate pick rankles Trump allies Georgia Governor Brian Kemp on Dec. 4 named businesswoman Kelly Loeffler to replace U.S. Senator…

DIED William Ruckelshaus Saturday Night Massacre resister I MET WILLIAM RUCKELSHAUS—WHO DIED ON NOV. 27 AT 87—at the Department of Justice in 1969, when he ran the civil division and I was Associate Deputy Attorney General. Ruckelshaus came late to Watergate. He’d been the first administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, starting in 1970, before he took over the FBI in April 1973; President Nixon thought Ruckelshaus looked like an FBI director because he was kind of jowly. I didn’t have regular dealings with him, but one of the more interesting conversations we had over the years was about the Saturday Night Massacre, the firing of special prosecutor Archibald Cox on Oct. 20, 1973. Nixon told Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire Cox. Richardson wouldn’t do it and resigned.…

“HAVE YOU EVER BAKED A CAKE BEFORE?” I ASKED Quinn, 9, at the beginning of a recent recipe-testing session in Boston. He seemed a little nervous as he shook his head no. But just over two hours later, Quinn carefully frosted his (slightly slanted) layer cake before proudly serving a piece to his parents. He had baked his first cake, with only a bit of help. Since then, Quinn has been baking regularly at home and putting what he learned—like measuring all his ingredients before starting to bake—into practice. And although he definitely enjoys sampling his creations, he has also discovered the joy of sharing the food he’s made with others, from muffins for his friends to cookies for his soccer team. As editor in chief of America’s Test…

1. Fleabag In 2016, this black comedy about a young woman caught in a self-destructive spiral launched creator-star Phoebe Waller-Bridge to fame. But it matured in the three years between seasons, giving its lead an impossible love story. By allowing its antihero a measure of grace without sacrificing audacity, Waller-Bridge conjured a vision of redemption that has eluded other millennial TV creators—and closed the decade with its single best season of comedy. (Amazon) 2. Russian Doll Somehow, a show from Natasha Lyonne (opposite), Amy Poehler and Leslye Headland managed to surpass even the stratospheric expectations of those women’s fans. Built like, yes, a nesting doll, the story opens with Lyonne’s New York cynic Nadia dying on her birthday. A moment later, she’s back at the party where she started the night,…

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP HAD BARELY BEEN in Afghanistan for a few hours on Nov. 28 when he made three bold declarations. In coming days, Trump said, the Taliban would stop their attacks and stalled peace talks would resume. But, he also told Afghan officials, the U.S. would keep a small number of troops there indefinitely. “They didn’t want to do a cease-fire, but now they do want to do a cease-fire,” Trump said of the Taliban, during a press conference at Bagram Airfield, north of Kabul, roughly 13 hours after flying from Maryland under the cover of darkness for a surprise Thanksgiving visit to the troops. “It will probably work out that way.” Unfortunately, that’s not how the Taliban see it. The combination of notions Trump floated is a…

WHEN THE REMAINS OF U.S. NAVY SAILOR Victor Patrick “Pat” Tumlinson are buried on Dec. 7 in his hometown of Raymondville, Texas, 78 years will have passed since he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Tumlinson, just 19, and 428 others perished aboard the battleship U.S.S. Oklahoma when it was sunk in the surprise attack, which killed 2,403 American personnel, sank or damaged 21 ships, and resulted in the U.S. entry into World War II. And of the people killed at Pearl Harbor, the remains of more than 1,300 are still classified as unidentified. Now, the Department of Defense, armed with new technology and a record of success identifying those killed in more recent conflicts, is making a concerted effort to sift through some of the…

In July, Prime Minister Boris Johnson gave himself an additional title no predecessor had assumed: Minister for the Union. The union in question is not the European one which Johnson is determined to leave. It is simply his own country, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The title betrays a deep anxiety. For in breaking one union with Europe, Brexit is endangering another: the centuries-old union of England with Wales, Scotland and (part of) Ireland. Assuming, as the polls predict, that Johnson’s Conservative Party wins the U.K. general election on Dec. 12, he will have to grapple with that contradiction. Five years ago, it was clear where the danger to the Union was coming from—mainly Scottish and Irish nationalism. Although Scotland voted to remain part of…

1. Pain & Glory In any life, there’s only so much time to do all we want to do. In Pedro Almodóvar’s Pain & Glory, Antonio Banderas (previous page) gives the performance of a lifetime as 60-ish filmmaker Salvador Mallo—a stand-in, more or less, for Almodóvar himself—who’s in so much physical pain that he may never work again. Worse yet, he may not care; instead of life after death, he’s settling for death before death, a premature leave-taking that’s a betrayal not just of his gifts but also of the time on earth any of us is given. Then a lost love reappears, and other bits of his past—particularly recollections of his mother, played as a young woman by a radiant Penélope Cruz—float into view, demanding to be explored through…

1. FKA twigs Magdalene Historically, Mary Magdalene is a conflicted character: vilified, sanctified, reduced to the contours of her femininity. On Magdalene, British artist FKA twigs (opposite) seeks to complicate that vision of womanhood with her own, broadening and intensifying her story and creatively blending ideas from hip-hop, R&B, industrial and choral music. Some moments are hauntingly tender, as on the delicate chorus of “Home With You”; that’s quickly offset by brutally distorted drums and FKA twigs’ intimate expressions of pain. Other moments are bombastic, with layers of electronic production and lyrics she drops as an angry rebuke, like on the arresting “Fallen Alien.” Rescue comes in the form of self-recognition. On “Mary Magdalene,” she makes it clear in an opening overture she lays down like a mantra: “A woman’s time…

1. 1619 Four hundred years after the frigate White Lion brought slavery to America, New York Times writer Nikole Hannah-Jones reframes the country’s history through the lens of that institution. Each episode demonstrates how our economy, political system and popular culture are rooted in the slave trade and built on the work of African Americans. Despite the podcast’s sweeping goals, the stories are intimate and conversational—as with a standout episode in which culture critic Wesley Morris identifies the echoes of black artists’ songs in the most unexpected genres. 2. You’re Wrong About … You might think you know everything about Tonya Harding or O.J. Simpson, but as journalists Michael Hobbes and Sarah Marshall re-examine these and other stories from surprising new angles—like the perspective of Paula Barbieri, Simpson’s girlfriend…