Five Things: Heat, Bikini, Artificial Sweeteners, Universal Inheritance, Surfing in Texas
You really want to read this.
Welcome to the latest edition of Five Things! I’m Nico, I read a lot and I like to share the best articles I read this week with you.
The sun is back and it’s hot here in Northern Germany. Wildfire alerts are in place and I guess we have to get used to it. School vacation will start next week, so things will slow down a bit and I’m looking forward to having a bit more relaxed morning routine. At the same time, home office will be different again with all the kids at home with their constant demands for food and entertainment. Our oldest daughter will be back from university for the summer, so this will be exciting and I hope we get to spend a lot of time together.
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This Sunday edition of Five Things again shows what I’m interested in at the moment. Obviously, climate change and the heat is something we all experience now. While the Bikini became commonplace almost everywhere in the West, it still cannot be worn in lots of places in the world. At the same time, we had a discussion in Hamburg at which public swimming pools topless bathing should be allowed at which times and then almost nobody showed up topless, probably because a Bikini was just as nice. Artificial sweeteners are a thing that we discuss a lot in our household and the recent WHO announcement put some sparks into the debate again. Back in Spain there’s a discussion not about Bikinis, but about a universal inheritance, which is an interesting idea to think about. The last article in this newsletter is about surfing in Texas and you should read it.
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Yes, it’s hot. But this could be one of the coolest summers of the rest of your life.
This is something that is really hard to digest. It doesn’t take that much imagination to figure out how many parts of the world will become unbearably hot during the summer months, which will obviously lead to bad harvests, famine, and lots of migration, and so on. Yet still people don’t think we all need to act fast, they still wait for others to do something. Crazy. (Vox)
How the bikini subverted fascism in 1950s Spain by entering through Benidorm
I had always thought that Benidorm was just this place where masses of tourists were roasting in the sun. But it turns out they had a really entrepreneurial mayor who saw opportunities for tourism in the 50s and made sure, people could dress the way they wanted, even if Franco hated it. (El Pais)
Being Alive is Bad for Your Health
So how bad are artificial sweeteners really? What does a WHO classification as “possibly carcinogenic” really mean? And at the end, we’re all going to die anyways. (The Atlantic / MSN)
Spanish minister proposes €20,000 ‘universal inheritance’ from age of 18
I like the idea of a universal inheritance as it aims at creating equal opportunities of young adults to start into their professional lifes. And when I look back at my time as a university student, I started out with a huge disadvantage as I didn’t have much money and needed to work to finance my studies. A universal heritage would have helped me tremendously and of course I like the “tax the rich” idea to finance it!
At 76, This Texas Surfer Is Still Chasing Waves—and Memories
I deeply regret that I never surfed. I did get a windsurfing license (Germany, land of the licenses…) when I was 13 or so, but that was in the mid-80s and the boards and sails were big and clunky and there weren’t any big waves on the nearby lake, just wind. When I lived in Northern California, I also never tried surfing. It’s still very much on my bucket list and I loved reading Barbarian Days: A Surfing Live - so this article just reinforces my dream about living close to a coast and surf in the morning. If the author still surfs with 76, I have some time left, I guess… (Texas Monthly)
That’s it. Have an amazing Sunday!