months ago, Jason Rezaian He embarked on a tour of immigrant-owned restaurants in the Washington, DC area. He is the son of an immigrant father (and As the son of a first-generation immigrant mother himself, he knows how important food is to the immigrant experience — in fact, if there’s one key to understanding the stories of those who came to America, it’s probably in what they ate, and what they fed 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 Though he’s now the U.S. ambassador to Japan, his heart remains in Chicago, where, in an op-ed about the city’s persistent high school dropout rate, he suggested the rest of the U.S. should emulate 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 steadily increased and college enrollment rates have soared because “Chicago is preparing all its students for life after high school.” meanwhile “High schools will have reduced graduation requirements,” Emanuel wrote, at a time when many other jurisdictions are reducing 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, Los Angeles has banned the use of cell phones in schools, not just during class time, but in general. Editorial Committee I wholeheartedly agree.
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.
Chaser: Is the smartphone panic silly? Would swatting warning labels at social media be a good idea? Amanda Ripley, Molly Roberts and Ted Johnson Discuss these questions and more on our latest “Impromptu” podcast.
from Mark Fisher’s A column about federal employees soon returning 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 Ruth Marcus They call it a “double deception”: their men are exempt from military service, while they and their 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 and a Trump supporter. Dana Milbank He is no longer with us. Thank goodness. The left still knows when to say “Fuck off.”
- Former journalist Howard Blum He wrote that the murders of four Idaho students have been postponed from one case to the next, making it impossible to repair the incident.
- Russian warships spotted conducting exercises off the coast of Cuba. Former CIA adviser Jeffrey Smith Hopefully Russia still remembers the agreement that ended the 1962 missile crisis.
It’s a goodbye. It’s a haiku. It’s… “goodbye.”
I need a new plan after graduation
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