As a Belgian, I can truthfully say this is pretty much the most typically Belgian thing to happen. Our environmental planning is a total, chaotic mess - thanks in no small part to our plethora of different forms of government, pretty much all constantly contradicting each other. Still, I think it’s quite fun to live…

Must we live in a world where everything is either perfect or horrible, and we have to choose a side in some epic battle?

Back in the late 1990s, books by “Great Men”, defined as people who headed companies that made a lot of money, and they were ALL men, were thick on the ground. Every company that did well had a man in charge who thought his company did well because HE was in charge, and so his words were all people needed to become…

“when the progress comes on the terms of the wealthiest men in history, like Gates, we have to assume that progress benefits the wealthy more than anyone else.”

Jane Addams did talk about how helping the poor gave purpose to her own life, but both her work and her writings show her dedication to helping others from a very young age, and her attitude toward the people she helped was incredibly different from the other people you mention in the article. Addams and her partner…

Truly blows my mind how much the rest of us live our lives walking on eggshells while this creep lowers his bare nuts into the bathwater while firing up the old work Zoom. And the LA Times is like, “But of course.”

I clicked the link to the article about Gates relationship to Epstein.

Yup, I have this only because I live in a horribly expensive metro area in the US. The US is cursed by the fact that it came into enormous wealth and development right at the time when people could see only benefits and no downsides from car dependency. 

Appreciate you covering this. I was surprised and disappointed by the comment section on the last article from Jezebel about this—so many people tripping over themselves to try to see the nuance of a situation that is in fact quite clear cut to those of us in this particular literary community.

The thing about malls is that they are like suburbs. There are old style malls and suburbs that are dying and new style malls and suburbs that are thriving. Jezebel largely writes about the former because they hate that the latter is successful, mostly because they represent a version of the culture that isn’t as easy…

The mall of my youth contained a Parisians and a Gayfers. Gayfers offered a girls class called “White Gloves and Party Manners.” They also had a teen board of local popular high school girls, of which I was not a part. Still bitter about that. Bitches!

And I’m actually a bit sad about this divorce. It seemed like those two had a genuinely warm and respectful relationship, and I hate to see long term marriages end like that.

100%! And I reiterate my comment from the last article about it. In 2018 would this guy have been allowed to get naked in a tub in the middle of a conference room meeting? Or even, barring the nudity, why did he think it would be fine to show up to a professional meeting in a fucking mesh shirt?!?!!

Totally bizarre how many people fell all over themselves to let him off the hook with the bathtub thing because of the chronic pain angle. And in a world where one absolutely must take a meeting with the camera on while soaking in the tub, surely wearing swim trunks is an option. But then again, he could’ve simply resc…

Seriously: even if this bathtub thing was a one off (THIS SHIT IS NEVER A ONE OFF) it pretty much puts a big red circle around the fact that this guy has really shitty decision making skills, boundaries, and grasp of professional behavior.

Shit even my husbands 80 year old granny had a boyfriend! Like you can continue to live while you are alive!! What is wrong with people! 

Compared to other billionaires he is not shitty.  

So far, he’s given 53.8 billion dollars to charity. I don’t get the need of people to jump on him, either.

Jaysusfuckingchrist, Bill is 65. 65 is not old. If you’re 22, maybe. If you’re 76, like me, 65 is not old. Sit down, punk.

He’s not “hoarding” wealth. He created it. He founded what under his leadership became one of the largest software empires in history and a little thing called Windows which runs the vast majority of desktop computers. (Among other things.)

And unlike a lot of very rich people, he created a huge non-profit foundation…