The Wednesday Curator – 4/20/2016

April 19, 2016

Here’s some very thoughtful—and very, very smart—R-side analysis from Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson, in It may be too late for the GOP to stop Trump. Best line?

Polls show that a majority of Republicans agree with the helmet-haired billionaire. It turns out that once you tell people they get to choose their standard-bearer, they don’t take kindly to being patted on the head and told to go sit in the corner.

And from the other side? Here’s Bernie Sanders’s Forty-Year-Old Idea, by Russell Shorto for the New Yorker. This election is one effed-up mess—that’s an observation from a political junkie who is as a sentient being watching his 13th quadrennial election—but every reasonable person can distinguish between the sh*t show on the R side and the debate about ideas and, most importantly, tactics, on the D side.

And from the world of George Orwell aka Eric Arthur Blair, going back 32 years to 1984, consider How Facebook Could Tilt the 2016 Election by Robinson Meyer for The Atlantic. Only a little bit chilling!

A picture is worth a thousand words … if the picture represents the words well. The Dirty Little Secret That Data Journalists Aren’t Telling You, written by Christopher Ingraham for Wonkblog at the Washington Post, focuses on data, but the principle is the same. Mr. Ingraham’s discussion about map design offers significant insights about the need to communicate effectively.

Here’s Lynn Neary’s lovely ode to Make Way for Ducklings, Robert McCloskey’s Caldecott Medal-winning children’s book about the Mallards of Boston’s Public Garden. It’s my favorite children’s picture book!

Dan Barber, chef and co-owner of Blue Hill and Blue Hill at Stone Barns, has written Why Is This Matzo Different From All Other Matzos? for the New York Times. Mr. Barber offers a very interesting look at shmurah (guarded) matzo, from grain in the ground to sheets out of the oven.

Pesach begins this Friday evening at sunset (6:59 in Tucson). Eight days; no bread. Which, of course, leaves some of us focused on bread. With that focus, here’s A Better Chocolate Babka by Melissa Clark for the New York Times, and She Got the Babka from Seinfeld.

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