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Before we get bogged down in the presidential debate quagmire (which we'll talk about tomorrow, the day after, and probably beyond the weekend), let's talk food. First, manoushe, which is definitely not pizza.
A few months ago, Jason Rezaian embarked on a tour of immigrant-owned restaurants in the Washington, DC area. As the son of an immigrant father (and a first-generation American mother) himself, he knows all too well how important food is to the immigrant experience. In fact, if there's one key to understanding the stories of people who came to America, it's probably what they eat, and what they feed their new compatriots.
The first stop in the series is Z&Z, a Palestinian bakery in suburban Maryland that makes manouche, a fluffy flatbread that was in the Levant long before someone in Italy thought of putting tomatoes and cheese on top of the dough, writes Jason.
Brothers Danny and Johnny Dabaneh opened the place in 2021 in the same storefront where their grandfather once ran a fried chicken restaurant, where he had to sneak falafel onto the menu. Today, the brothers' customers have a much more international palate, and za'tar is not uncommon.
And yet, in a lovely interview that touches on fusion cuisine, his first manouche, and the foods he still misses, Danny Dubané acknowledges the challenges of running a restaurant in a sentence that seems to sum up the immigrant experience: “Until you're faced with a problem, you don't know how to solve it. And that's what we've done.”
Rahm Emanuel may be the U.S. ambassador to Japan, but his heart is in Chicago. In an op-ed about the city's persistent high school dropout rate, he suggested the rest of the U.S. should follow a plan the city implemented in 2017 when he was mayor.
“Learn. Plan. Prosper.” This law required all high school seniors to submit some kind of post-graduation plan, such as a college acceptance letter, a job offer or military enlistment confirmation, before they could receive their diploma.
Since the program's inception, graduation rates have risen steadily and college enrollment rates have soared because “Chicago is preparing all students for life after high school while they're still in high school,” Emanuel wrote, at a time when many other jurisdictions are cutting graduation requirements.
The op-ed goes into more detail about the program and how it benefits other sectors, but what I like most is this exact line from Rahm Emanuel: “Some may think that the U.S. ambassador to Japan should stay in his own sphere. I have never done that, and it is too late to change now.”
Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, schools have banned not only cell phones during class, but all cell phones altogether, a move we wholeheartedly support.
It was a dramatic step, but the problem was serious: Some schools had to remove mirrors from their bathrooms because students kept sneaking out of classrooms to film TikToks in front of them, according to the committee's report.
While schools will still need to fine-tune how the ban will be implemented, including how to handle emergencies (such as allowing the use of “dumb phones”), Los Angeles' decision will provide a major boost to both classroom and social learning.
The Chaser: Is the panic over smartphones silly? Are warning labels on social media a good idea? Amanda Ripley, Molly Roberts, and Ted Johnson discuss these questions and more on the latest “Impromptu” podcast.
From Mark Fisher's column on federal workers soon to return to the office.
Executive branches are trying to bring federal workers back to expensive offices, lawmakers have introduced bills to require them to come into the office, and even Neil Gorsuch has offered to carpool.
But America's most powerful checks and balances turn out to be those of remote workers who don't want to move more than six steps from their refrigerators. Cutting to downtown Washington, D.C., Mark reports, “Monday and Friday in particular, and Tuesday and Thursday, are the days of wandering through shuttered storefronts and deserted sidewalks. Wednesday's not much better either.”
Are Labour really responsible for fixing the Mayor's retail problems? Or making sure the comfort of their seats is worth the taxpayers' rent? Shouldn't we be thinking bigger?
For decades, ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel have perpetrated what Ruth Marcus calls a “double deception”: Jewish men are exempt from military service, while Jewish religious organizations receive large amounts of public funding for religious studies.
This is because, according to the Sephardic chief rabbi, without these institutions “the army would not succeed…. It is to those who study Torah that the soldiers succeed.” Ruth marvels at this boldness.
Israel's Supreme Court ruled unanimously this week that the system has no legal legitimacy. The court has ruled similarly before, but each time ultra-Orthodox Jews have engineered delays, sometimes threatening to leave Israel if they don't get their way. But this time, Ruth thinks that the pressures of the Israel-Gaza war may actually see the ruling stand, a silver lining in a terrible conflict.
New York Rep. Jamaal Bowman was a Democrat Trump supporter, writes Dana Milbank. He's gone now. Thankfully, the left knows when to stop. Former reporter Howard Blum writes that postponement after postponement in the murder of four Idaho students makes recovery impossible. Russian warships have been spotted conducting exercises off the coast of Cuba. Former CIA counsel Jeffrey Smith hopes Russia still remembers the agreement that ended the 1962 missile crisis.
It's goodbye. It's a haiku. It's… “goodbye.”
I need a new plan after graduation
Have a newsy haiku of your own? Email me with any questions, comments or concerns you may have. See you tomorrow!
