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Regardless of the incoming and outgoing officials, Inauguration Day in America is one of the most interesting and amazing events in the world. And I'm not just talking about the swearing in of a new president. It's also moving out -- and moving in -- day at the White House (all in the course of a few hours). WaPo has an interesting look at what will be happening while most eyes are on the parades and the speeches: The 5 craziest hours in the White House. "The outgoing family's moving trucks, escorted by the Secret Service and officers of the U.S. Park Police, pull into the west side of the South Portico driveway. The incoming president's moving trucks pull into the east side of the South Portico ... All boxes are emptied, and clothes are placed in closets and drawers. Unlike pretty much everyone else who has ever relocated, the president will not have three unopened moving boxes sitting in the back of a closet. The First Family's favorite products were purchased ahead of time and will be ready for them to use -- everything from mattresses and linens to shower heads and shaving cream. The first family never runs out of toilet paper." (And I thought the White House bowling alley was the biggest perk.)
"We have a lot of firepower. We've got the scientists. We've got the universities. We have the national labs. We have a lot of political clout and sophistication for the battle. And we will persevere." California Sunday Magazine reports on what promises to be a key battleground over the next four years: California vs Donald Trump.
+ "The instability in the political arena has brought some people out to just get prepared, not knowing what may happen. People see it's possible to have more than just a natural disaster." Suddenly, left coast liberals and hardcore preppers have something in common. My personal go bag has semi-automatic weapons, a thick wad of cash, and a fully loaded vaporizer (in case I need to send smoke signals).
What are they Puffin in Iceland? According to the latest numbers, not much. And that's exactly what researchers and public officials hoped they'd achieve when they embarked on a "radical and evidence-based" quest to identify why teens get hooked on drugs (with the hopes of ultimately removing or replacing some of those triggers). Consider these remarkable stats: "Today, Iceland tops the European table for the cleanest-living teens. The percentage of 15- and 16-year-olds who had been drunk in the previous month plummeted from 42 per cent in 1998 to 5 per cent in 2016. The percentage who have ever used cannabis is down from 17 per cent to 7 per cent. Those smoking cigarettes every day fell from 23 per cent to just 3 per cent." The strategy has several components, but one of the key elements is the move to replace artificial highs with natural ones. From Mosaic: Iceland knows how to stop teen substance abuse but the rest of the world isn't listening.
It "isn't advertised on TV or in the newspapers, and yet it's become a viral marketing success story, with owners often describing themselves as 'addicts' or 'cult members.'" And it's a pretty big group of owners since their favorite product is Amazon's number one selling item in the US. NPR on The Viral Word-Of-Mouth Success Of Instant Pot.
+ Golfers, like most consumers, believe that you generally get what you pay for in the equipment market. The Kirkland balls disproved that.
I didn't do my running this morning because running is bad for your knees. Oh, wait. According to the NYT's Gretchen Reynolds, running may actually be good for your knees by "changing the biochemical environment inside the knee in ways that could help keep it working smoothly." Tomorrow, I'm not going to do my running because it's bad for your ankles.
Citizens of North Korean don't have access to the Internet. But it turns out that those who defect to South Korea can catch on pretty quickly. From Vice: Meet the North Korean defectors who are becoming social media stars.
Netflix has nearly 90 million subscribers. That gives them a lot of dough to spend on content. And with competition heating up (from Hulu, the cable providers, Amazon, Apple and others), they are spending big time. Just consider one category: Comedy. They are offering mega-deals to top comedians (from Seinfeld to Schumer to Rock) and cornering the market. The content wars are incredibly good news for comedians and other content creators. We'll have to wait and see whether the Netflix strategy leaves the company with the last laugh.
As America's health care debate reaches a fevered pitch, The New Yorker's always excellent Atul Gawande reports on an aspect of care that is often overlooked. While most of our medical resources are aimed at "intensive, one-off procedures," we lose sight of the heroism of incremental care. This kind of care is all about developing a longterm relationship with a doctor. And that relationship can often begin with something as simple (and as powerful) as a nod: "[Dr.] Loder gave a sympathetic shake of her head, and that was enough to win the woman's confidence. The patient knew that she'd been heard by someone who understood the seriousness of her problem -- a problem invisible to the naked eye, to blood tests, to biopsies, and to scans, and often not even believed by co-workers, family members, or, indeed, doctors." (Imagine someone saying, Take two of these and call me in the morning, and really meaning it...)
+ "What people forget is, those who end up on opioid pain management have usually tried everything else unsuccessfully." We hear a lot about the opioid crisis. We hear less about patients who need the drugs to function. From Stat: A civil war over painkillers rips apart the medical community.
I know it's a "first-world problem," but I can't stand the damn stickers on supermarket fruit. If you feel the same, you'll be happy to learn that hope is on the horizon. Swedish supermarkets are replacing the stickers with lasers that provide natural branding.
+ Japan may finally help the world put an end to complicated bidet controls.
+ "Yoga is something you do for yourself, but beer brings people together." Beer Yoga is finally starting to catch on...
+ LA Times: Using lasers, scientists turn mice into ferociously efficient hunters. (This is the first story in years that has grabbed the attention of my cats.)
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.)
