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"You have, in your body, one of the most incredibly intricate detoxing systems that exists: Your liver regulates glucose, protein, and fat levels, removes ammonia from the body, as well as alcohol and some drugs. The rest of the heavy lifting is done by your kidneys, processing drugs with an intricate system of enzymes, balancing your body's water levels, salts, excreting waste right into your bladder." So, if your body is built to detox, why do you need expensive wellness products to help the process along? The short answer is that you don't. But wellness solutions from cleanses to crystals and salt lamps have been around for decades. And as we've repeatedly seen, the Internet is the ultimate enabler of all things fake. Here's Outline on the sickening business of wellness and the scams meant to cure you of your money.
"Fake news means a lot of different things to a lot of different people, but we are specifically focused on the worst of the worst -- clear intentional hoaxes." After taking heat for the spread of lies masquerading as news on its platform, Facebook has announced a new system that pairs user reporting with fact checkers to slow the stream of fake news. (If Kanye West meeting with President-elect Trump is the real news, maybe we're better off with the fake stuff.)
+ Jeff Jarvis: Facebook steps up. (If Facebook itself is determined to fight fake news, maybe you can help out by making your unctuous family holiday photos a little more realistic this year.)
"Grozny, Dresden, Guernica: some cities have made history by being destroyed. Aleppo, once Syria's largest metropolis, will soon join their ranks ... [and] the world has seen what happens when values cannot hold back the chaos and anarchy of geopolitics. In tragic, abandoned Aleppo the fighting has been merciless. The people who have suffered most are the poor and the innocent." The Economist with a good summary of a bad story: When interests triumph over values terrible things can happen.
+ "It was an incendiary political idea -- suggesting that Syria's Baathist dictatorship would be the next to fall after the Arab Spring revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, written by an apolitical teenage prankster. Painted on a cool and dry winter evening, it would improbably set in motion a chain reaction of events that continue to rock the Middle East --- and the world." From Mark MacKinnon in The Globe and Mail: The Graffiti Kids Who Sparked the Syrian War.
For obvious reasons, I've been thinking a lot about the intersection of politics and media these days. In this post, I look back at a pretty amazing day in October when two potentially massive news stories broke. One dominated our discourse for weeks, while the other was put on the back-burner --- only to return this week. This is How Pussy Won, Beating Everybody Including the Russians.
2016 has been maligned for many things, but no one can argue that it wasn't a pretty damn great year for Internet memes (you know, those fun things the Internet was known for before it got famous for fake news). Here's NY Mag with a look back at the best memes of 2016.
+ And Google is out with their always interesting look at the year in search.
+ And Jason Kottke has a collection of the best photo collections.
"Here's a complaint one might not expect to hear from teenagers: They wish their parents were around more often." Now, don't read too much into that. The teenagers don't want you to meddle, provide feedback, or even say a word. Just sit there. From the NYT: What Do Teenagers Want? Potted Plant Parents. (I look forward to this phase. At this point, my kids just want the iPad.)
"The world dismisses them as economic migrants. The law treats them as criminals who show up at a nation's borders uninvited. Prayers alone protect them on the journey across the merciless Sahara. But peel back the layers of their stories and you find a complex bundle of trouble and want that prompts the men and boys of West Africa to leave home, endure beatings and bribes, board a smuggler's pickup truck and try to make a living far, far away." And when you peel back those layers, what you'll find is another example of the far-reaching impact of climate change. From the NYT: Heat, Hunger and War Force Africans onto a Road of Fire.
"There are no clean victories for black people, nor, perhaps, for any people. The presidency of Barack Obama is no different. One can now say that an African American individual can rise to the same level as a white individual, and yet also say that the number of black individuals who actually qualify for that status will be small. One thinks of Serena Williams, whose dominance and stunning achievements can't, in and of themselves, ensure equal access to tennis facilities for young black girls. The gate is open and yet so very far away." In The Atlantic, Ta-Nehisi Coates reflects on the Obama era: My President Was Black. Interestingly, the prospect of a black president seemed almost impossible just a few years before Obama. And in some ways, it feels even more impossible now.
"The commander who oversaw the use of Reaper drones in Syria has said the relentless demand to deploy the unmanned aircraft means the RAF needs to test recruiting '18- and 19-year-olds straight out of the PlayStation bedroom' to operate the weapons." (We're just a few advances away from them recruiting newsletter writers.) From The Guardian, an interesting look at what kind of soldiers will fight the next wars -- and the very scary leveling of the playing field.
"If the attempt is successful, it will be the most significant moment for running since Roger Bannister's first sub-four-minute mile in 1954." WIRED's Ed Caesar takes you inside Nike's quest for the impossible: A two-hour marathon. If you're a normal person, imagine yourself sprinting for 26 miles.
+ WIRED takes a crack at explaining why LaCroix is so addictive. I've done my own tests. It turns out, it's the can. Seriously, pour some into a glass or cup and it loses all its superpowers.
+ "There, she found three Mobile police officers surrounding McPherson and his motorcycle at a gas pump, with what appeared to be guns drawn and pointed at her boyfriend." And thus began the weirdest proposal I've ever seen.
+ PSA: If you encounter a dentist who makes house calls, be afraid.
+ McSweeney's: "I know I said ten minutes ago that I'm taking a social media break, but I just made The. Best. Avocado. Toast."
This is a weekly best-of version of the NextDraft newsletter. For daily updates and to get the NextDraft app, go here. (Original story reprinted with permission from NextDraft.)
