| |  | | Assistant editor | | Missed yesterday's edition? You can view previous newsletters on this page. | Kara-Murza, you're on with Navalny | | | Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is seen on a TV screen, as he appears in a video link provided by the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service, during a hearing on Aug. 4. (Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP) | | It's astounding enough that contributing columnist Vladimir Kara-Murza, unjustly imprisoned by Russia, manages through a lawyer to transmit us his columns from Pretrial Detention Center No. 5 in Moscow. His latest — describing a surreal encounter with Alexei Navalny, the leader of Russia's opposition movement — is even more astounding. Vladimir writes that he was given no notice before being plucked last month from one metal cage and plopped into another to appear via video as a defense witness for Navalny, in yet another court proceeding. Of course, the trial was a sham. To add to the Kafka of it all, Vladimir nonchalantly writes, "We hadn't spoken since Alexei's arrest in January 2021, so it was nice to see one another." Under Russian policy, detained opposition leaders aren't supposed to interact at all. But thanks to occasional oversights or inevitabilities, it happens. And each time, Vladimir writes, it's a reminder of a Russia worth fighting for. Chaser: Last year, also from jail, Navalny laid out for The Post what Russia after President Vladimir Putin ought to look like. | | Once upon a time, a taco truck operating under the name Los Patroncitos occasionally parked itself outside The Post's newsroom. So beloved was this truck by Post Opinions that the late editorial page editor Fred Hiatt, in one of his greatest acts, once arranged for it to show up in his driveway over the weekend so we could all eat carnitas until we wept tears of joy. Now, like a salsa stain in the wash, Los Patroncitos has disappeared from Franklin Square. Many food trucks have, the Editorial Board reports, as downtown D.C. remains a ghost town. So the board reached out to several food truck operators to ask them what it would take to get them back downtown. They responded with creative, frank solutions. Let's hope Los Patroncitos and its compatriots return, because, as the board writes, "There is perhaps no better vital sign of how D.C.'s recovery is going than the story of specialty food trucks." Also, we're hungry. Chaser: Readers have plenty of their own ideas for revitalizing downtowns. Here are 15 of them. | |  | | From Tove Danovich's essay on the most beguiling heavenly body, which is, yes, pulling about an inch and a half away from us every year. But tonight she is at her closest and fullest; it is the second super moon of this month. August won't double up again until 2037. Danovich invites us to take this serendipity to contemplate the moon as our ancestors have done for centuries — and in so doing, contemplate ourselves. We've given the full moons throughout the year such names as "harvest moon" or "sturgeon moon"; those aren't about stuff going on up there, but our little lives down here. As Danovich writes, "To track the action in the heavens is to become aware of the universe's sleepy timetables — and how quickly life passes for humans." | | Former president Donald Trump is ahead in the polls in Iowa. But, writes Henry Olsen, Trump has a big weakness. Weirdly, it's not the 91 charges across four criminal cases! Instead, Henry writes, Iowa's evangelical Christians aren't all in yet, and to win the Iowa caucuses, Trump needs them to be. Reporting from the state, Henry chats with a bunch of folks in that community who are looking for "a person of character who can win." That's probably not Trump, he writes — and most people he talked to were considering someone else in particular. Now about those 91 charges across four criminal cases (or at least the 13 in the Georgia indictment): Contributing columnist Hugh Hewitt says it's time for the media to start thinking about how to handle what promises to be the first "trial of the century." The Georgia trial, unlike the others, will almost certainly be televised. "Do not be surprised if TV networks are already shopping for properties near the courthouse and locking up telegenic local lawyers," Hugh writes. He sketches out what he proposes as a better game plan for coverage. | | It's a goodbye. It's a haiku. It's … The Bye-Ku. Taco truck trundles Down a lonely, dusty road Dark side of the moon *** Have your own newsy haiku? Email it to me, along with any questions/comments/ambiguities. See you tomorrow! | | | | | | |
Email
No comments:
Post a Comment