The Wednesday Curator – June 22, 2016

June 21, 2016

From the Trump desk: Jonathan Mahler and Matt Flegenheimer wrote What Donald Trump Learned from Joseph McCarthy’s Right-Hand Man for the New York Times. The article details the relationship between Donald Trump and attorney Roy Cohn. Mr. Cohn was at the center of Senator Joseph McCarthy’s world in the 1950s. The 13-year relationship with Mr. Trump, which ended just before Mr. Cohn died from AIDS in 1986—and began when Mr. Trump was only 27—was as close as any attorney-client relationship gets. Mr. Cohn was an awful man, with a disbarment and plenty of other bad marks. That he represented Mr. Trump—and that they were so close for so long—says nothing good about Mr. Trump.

From the Clinton desk: Nothing to see here … but for a competent, calm campaign. Keep calm and carry on!

Steve Coll, a great reporter / author and the Dean of the Columbia Journalism School, reviewed two recent books about the immeasurable and generally ignored costs of war in We Buried the Disgraceful Truth. The review, in the June 23 issue of the New York Review of Books, reports on the human costs of the Afghan and Iraq Wars. The books are Consequence: A Memoir by Eric Fair and The Mirror Test: America at War in Iraq and Afghanistan by J. Kael Weston.

The Curator’s alter ego was in Minneapolis a week ago for a graduation celebration. In a visit with his nephew, a logistics engineer, all of the cool stuff about driverless cars and other off-the-edge technology kept coming back to security. So, here from New York magazine, written by Reeves Wiedeman, is The Big Hack. Chilled I am!

From the vault we offer You Gotta Carry That Weight: LeBron James enters the NBA. Written for Sports Illustrated by Jack McCallum in October 2003, it’s still a good read. One great series, and while the alter ego was sad for a moment—he was born in San Francisco—Clevelander joy was hard to ignore! Congratulations! (If you need an emotional picker-upper, watch Nike Basketball | Worth the Wait.)

Crab Cakes are fine summer fare. Here’s A Crab Cake Ready for the Summer Party Circuit by David Tanis for the New York Times.

15KITCHEN4-WEB-master768

For Better Tuna Salad Sandwiches, With Mayo or Without, Add More Fish, written by Daniel Gritzer for SeriousEats.com, addresses a simpler treat from the sea. Alas, there was a gap between Mr. Gritzer and the headline writer, for I can find nothing in the piece—read three times—about using more fish. Fancier, more expensive tuna—but only in the No Mayo version—but no mention of more!

Leave a Reply