This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.

As president-elect, Donald Trump has the right to name the people he wants in his Cabinet. Some of Trump’s nominations, such as Senator Marco Rubio to lead the State Department, are completely ordinary. A few are ideological red meat for Republicans. Others are gifts to Trump loyalists.

Four of these nominees, however, are dangerous to the security of the United States and to the well-being of its people: Pete Hegseth (Defense), Tulsi Gabbard (Office of the Director of National Intelligence), Matt Gaetz (Justice), and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (Health and Human Services). The Senate must turn back these nominations, and do so en bloc.

The Gaetz and Kennedy nominations are apparently already in trouble, and more than enough has been written about them. Gaetz is an accused sexual predator (he has long denied the allegations); ironically, he is the least dangerous of this pack. Yes, as attorney general he would green-light every raving demand from MAGA world for investigations into Trump’s enemies, but in a strange blessing, he is also likely to be completely incompetent. The Department of Justice, as Trump himself learned during his first term, is packed to the rafters with very sharp lawyers who would almost certainly jam up any of Gaetz’s unconstitutional orders. Gaetz’s tenure at Justice would be a national humiliation and destructive to the rule of law, but it would also likely be very short.

The RFK Jr. nomination is, in a word, pathetic. Most of his views are little more than pure anti-science kookery, and if he is confirmed, Americans—and especially their children—will be in peril from this anti-vaccine crusader. But he would be a danger to the health of individual Americans (especially those who watch too much TV and spend too much time on the internet) rather than to the continued existence of the United States.

Which brings me to Gabbard and Hegseth.

Tulsi Gabbard, as I wrote last week, is unqualified for the job of DNI, but she is also a security risk: I have held security clearances for most of my adult life, and had I worked in any federal office next to her, I would have had no compunction about raising her as an “insider threat” because of her political views and her shady international connections. (As a member of Congress in 2017, she held meetings with the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad outside of U.S. government channels—an obvious problem for anyone seeking a senior role in national security.)

Gaetz, Kennedy, and Gabbard are terrible choices. The Hegseth nomination, however, is easily the most dangerous and irresponsible of all of Trump’s picks. (Gabbard is a significant hazard, but she would not have a gigantic army at her disposal, and she would not be involved with the control of nuclear weapons.) Like the other three in this group, Hegseth is shockingly unqualified for the job he’s been asked to take, but in this case, the Senate is faced with a proposal to place a TV talking head at the top of the Pentagon and insert him into the nuclear chain of command.

Hegseth has made personal choices that make him unfit to lead the DOD, including his extramarital affairs (which apparently helped tank his chances to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs in Trump’s first administration) and a payoff to a woman who claimed that he’d sexually assaulted her. He denies the assault allegation, but in any case, adultery is a criminal violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice and can be a career-ending mistake for a member of the armed forces.

I will leave aside whether Hegseth’s tattoos identify him as a white supremacist. Hegseth denies the claim. But some of Hegseth’s ink is popular with extremists; that’s why one of his own military comrades reported him as an insider threat in the first place—and not, as Hegseth and some whining conservatives claim, because he is being persecuted as a Christian. I knew many people in federal service with patriotic tattoos. (I have one myself, and no, it’s none of your business where it is.) I am also a Christian who wears a cross—one that I had blessed in a church—every day. That’s not what any of this is about.

Hegseth’s defenders seem unable to understand that neither Hegseth nor anyone else has a right to be the secretary of defense: If the nominee made choices earlier in life that would now undermine his effectiveness in the job, then that’s his problem, not the Pentagon’s. But even if Hegseth were not an example of a sexist, MAGA-bro culture—his statements about women in the military are particularly noxious—the Senate is still faced with the problem that he’s utterly unqualified.

A former Army major, he has no serious background in national-security or defense issues beyond his military service. (And how that service ended is apparently now a matter of some dispute.) He has not worked anywhere in the defense world: not in any of its agencies, not with any of its industries, not with any of its workforce in any capacity. He has never managed anything of any significant size.

Not only would he be incapable of administering America’s largest government department, but he’d also be in a position of terrifying responsibility for which he is unprepared. Imagine an international crisis, perhaps only a year or two from now. President Trump is facing a situation that could be rife with danger to the United States and our allies—perhaps even one that involves nuclear threats. At this dire moment, Trump turns to …

Pete Hegseth and Tulsi Gabbard?

The Senate must do everything in its constitutional power to stop this. Trump won the election, but no president has an absolute right to his Cabinet nominations: The Constitution requires the Senate to consent to those nominations. Trump has already warned that if the Senate balks, he will subvert this process by using “recess appointments,” in effect a demand that the Senate take a walk and let Trump do whatever he wants—to consent, in other words, to autocracy.

Incoming Majority Leader John Thune and others who still might care about their duty to the nation have time to go to Trump, right now, and tell him that these four nominations are DOA. They could tell Trump that it is in his own interest—the only interest he recognizes—not to risk multiple defeats. And if the Senate folds and decides to take these up one at a time, Trump will wear them down, likely accepting that Gaetz must be a Succession-style “blood sacrifice,” in return for which Trump gets everyone else. For Thune—who, one assumes, does not wish to begin his tenure as a statelier version of Senator Tommy Tuberville, the MAGA obstructionist who held up military promotions for months—accepting such a deal would be a huge strategic error.

Whomever Trump nominates as replacements will likely be dangerous in their own way. But these four nominees have to be stopped—and right now.

Related:

The thing that binds Gabbard, Gaetz, and Hegseth to Trump The perverse logic of Trump’s nomination circus

Here are four new stories from The Atlantic:

He was the world’s longest-held death-row inmate. He was also innocent. How Trump could make Congress go away for a while Thomas Chatterton Williams: Is wokeness one big power grab? Europe braces for Trump.

Today’s News

President Joe Biden authorized Ukraine yesterday to use U.S.-supplied long-range missiles for strikes inside Russia, according to U.S. officials. Russia said today that the decision would escalate international tensions and add “fuel to the fire” of the war. Trump confirmed on Truth Social that his administration is planning to declare a national emergency and enlist the military to carry out a mass-deportation program targeting undocumented immigrants. Trump picked Brendan Carr, a member of the Federal Communications Commission and a Project 2025 contributor, to lead the FCC.

Dispatches

The Wonder Reader: Learning where famous musicians sleep and what they eat can feel like finally glimpsing the unknowable, Isabel Fattal writes.

Explore all of our newsletters here.

Evening Read

Justin Chung for The Atlantic

How Jimmy O. Yang Became a Main Character

By Shirley Li

Jimmy O. Yang had been trying to make it as an actor for years—cobbling together bit parts in network sitcoms, auditioning for nameless roles such as “Chinese Teenager #1”—when he was cast in a new HBO series. The show, Silicon Valley, was a comedy about a group of programmers at a Bay Area start-up incubator; his character, Jian-Yang, was an app developer who spoke in broken English.

It was a small guest role, but he saw it as an opportunity.

Read the full article.

More From The Atlantic

There’s no longer any doubt that Hollywood writing is powering AI. Researchers are finally unraveling how the mind processes nothing. Trump’s New York sentencing must proceed, Randall D. Eliason argues. American kakistocracy Making government efficient again

Culture Break

Focus Features

Watch (or skip). Conclave (out now in theaters) treats Catholic theology as mere policy, like the membership rules at Augusta National. It’s even worse than The Da Vinci Code, Matthew Schmitz writes.

Examine. In a market with thousands of dog toys, Lamb Chop, the 1960s puppet, has somehow become ubiquitous.

Play our daily crossword.

Stephanie Bai contributed to this newsletter.

When you buy a book using a link in this newsletter, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic.

This is an edition of The Wonder Reader, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a set of stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Sign up here to get it every Saturday morning.

The lives of famous musicians have always inspired intense curiosity from fans and the press alike, sometimes to an unhealthy degree. A peek inside—learning where these artists sleep and what they eat, what music carries them through long nights, what their biggest fears are—can feel like finally glimpsing the unknowable. It makes them, and their art, feel just a little more human. Today’s newsletter explores the inner lives of well-known artists.

On Musicians’ Lives

What the Band Eats

By Reya Hart

Memories of the meals I ate growing up with the Grateful Dead

Read the article.

How the Beatles Wrote ‘A Day in the Life’

By Nicholas Dawidoff

Fifty years after its release, the sprawling closing track on Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band remains a testament to the group’s ambitious songwriting.

Read the article.

The Improbable, Unstoppable Rise of Goose

By Charlie Warzel

Meet the jam band that just might persuade you to love a jam band.

Read the article.

Still Curious?

How a band falls apart, according to Stereophonic: The Tony-winning play explores the heartbreak and turmoil that sometimes accompany great music, Elise Hannum writes. “The songs that shaped my life”: Last year, Jeff Tweedy reflected on Joni Mitchell’s wisdom, Otis Redding’s invitation, and the Beatles’ schematic of love.

Other Diversions

Amazon Haul is an omen. The secret to thinking your way out of anxiety What the internet age is taking away from writers

P.S.

Courtesy of Phil Kunkel

I recently asked readers to share a photo of something that sparks their sense of awe in the world. Phil Kunkel, 72, from St. Cloud, Minnesota, writes, “I looked out of our hotel room window” In Arizona’s Monument Valley “just in time to catch the early morning magic of daylight beginning to appear behind the amazing rock formations for which the Valley is known.”

I’ll continue to feature your responses in the coming weeks.

— Isabel

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.

A few hours after Donald Trump was declared the winner of the presidential election, Senator Bernie Sanders released a fiery statement saying, in part, that “it should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them.” He concluded that those concerned about democracy need to have some “very serious political discussions.”

The statement drew both praise and pushback from others in his party. But the serious discussions Sanders warned about have indeed begun over the past week. Plenty of blame has been tossed around: Democrats have pointed to the economy, identity politics, Joe Biden, racism, sexism, elitism, Liz Cheney, the war in Gaza, and much more as factors in Trump’s resounding victory. Democrats will surely continue to dissect why voters moved to the right in almost every county, as one early analysis showed. Meanwhile, many Democrats are already sharing their vision for where the party should go next. Some are vowing to fight Trump at the state level, and others are pledging to find common ground with his administration. Those on the party’s left, including Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, seem to be using this moment to push the party to embrace more progressive policies that serve the working class.

And the soul-searching about how to change a party overrun by elitism has begun. Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, in a long thread on X yesterday, outlined what he saw as the party’s major problems, which included fealty to a higher-income voter base and how the party “skips past the way people are feeling … and straight to uninspiring solutions … that do little to actually upset the status quo of who has power and who doesn’t.” Murphy’s prescriptions included: “Embrace populism. Build a big tent. Be less judgmental.” Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, a car-repair-shop owner who won a very tight race against a MAGA Republican in Washington State, said, “We need people who are driving trucks and changing diapers and turning wrenches to run for office.” It’s not that lawyers should not be in Congress, she added, but “we need to change our idea of who is credentialed and capable of holding elected office.”

Other Democrats have blamed ultraprogressive messaging for playing a role in the Democrats’ loss, and suggested that the party needs to move on from that approach. Representative Tom Suozzi, who recently won the seat formerly occupied by George Santos on Long Island, told The New York Times that “the Democrats have to stop pandering to the far left.” Representative Ritchie Torres, who represents the Bronx, told my colleague Michael Powell that “Donald Trump had no greater friend than the far left,” which, Torres argued, “alienated historic numbers of Latinos, Blacks, Asians, and Jews with absurdities like ‘Defund the police’ or ‘From the river to the sea’ or ‘Latinx.’” To move forward, he suggested that Democrats can’t assume they “can reshape the world in a utopian way.”

Messaging isn’t everything, but given the Democrats’ current position in Washington, it will be key in the years ahead: Facing a probable Republican trifecta—the GOP has won back control of the Senate, and is just four winnable districts shy of a majority in the House—that will stymie their ability to effect legislation, much of what Democrats can do in the years to come boils down to their messaging (and may rely on a new generation of messengers). As Representative Dean Phillips—the only elected Democrat who mounted a primary bid to unseat President Biden this year—put it when asked by a Washington Post reporter what the party must do to reinvent itself, “We have good product and terrible packaging and distribution.”

As the Democratic Party starts to identify which lessons to take from last week’s outcome, they’ll be reckoning with the gaps between presidential and downballot results: Many Democratic Senate candidates did well in swing states where Trump won the presidential race, which has prompted questions about whether the Democrats’ problem is more of a top-of-the-ticket one. And, for all the discussion coming from high-profile party members, reform for the Democrats may actually happen in a way that’s more “organic” rather than centrally directed, Michael told me—including momentum originating in local campaigns. “I suspect if there’s a change, it will come bottom-up and in fits and starts,” he added. For example: “Bernie Sanders in 2016 was dismissed by all serious or self-serious political writers and politicians, and nearly changed the face of the party. I suspect in smaller form that’s how change—if it comes about—will emerge.”

Related:

Mark Leibovich: In praise of clarity The cumulative toll of Democrats’ delusions

Here are four new stories from The Atlantic:

Trump signals that he’s serious about mass deportation. The Democrats’ Senate nightmare is only beginning. The Democrats need an honest conversation on gender identity, Helen Lewis argues. Helping Ukraine is Europe’s job now.

Today’s News

Trump is expected to announce that Stephen Miller, his top immigration adviser and former aide, will serve as his deputy chief of staff for policy. Trump said that Tom Homan, his former acting ICE director and a former Border Patrol agent, will be appointed as his “border czar,” with a focus on maintaining the country’s borders and deporting undocumented immigrants. Representative Elise Stefanik of New York is Trump’s selection to be the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Her nomination is likely to be confirmed by the incoming Republican-led Senate.

Dispatches

Work in Progress: The Democrats never truly addressed the cost-of-living crisis, Annie Lowrey writes. The Wonder Reader: Sleep is a universal human need, but there’s no universal solution to struggling with it, Isabel Fattal writes.

Explore all of our newsletters here.

Evening Read

Illustration by Lucy Murray Willis / The Atlantic. Source: Getty.

To Find Alien Intelligence, Start With the Mountains

By Adam Frank

The Cambrian explosion [is] the most rapid, creative period of evolution in the history of our planet. In the blink of a geologic eye (hundreds of millions of years), all the basic biology needed to sustain complex organisms was worked out, and the paths to all modern life, ranging from periwinkles to people, branched off. Mega sharks hunted in the oceans, pterodactyls took to the skies, and velociraptors terrorized our mouselike mammalian ancestors on land.

What drove this instantaneous, epic change in evolution has been one of the great unsolved problems of evolutionary theory for decades.

Read the full article.

More From The Atlantic

There really is a deep state. Why did Latinos vote for Trump? The Trump-whim economy is here. Trump is handing China a golden opportunity on climate.

Culture Break

Rosalind O'Connor / NBC / Getty

Watch. Saturday Night Live isn’t bothering with civility anymore, Spencer Kornhaber writes.

Read (or skip). Lili Anolik’s new book compares the authors and frenemies Joan Didion and Eve Babitz, but its fixation on their rivalry obscures the complicated truth, Lynn Steger Strong writes.

Play our daily crossword.

Stephanie Bai contributed to this newsletter.

When you buy a book using a link in this newsletter, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic.

This is an edition of The Wonder Reader, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a set of stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Sign up here to get it every Saturday morning.

If you tell five people you have trouble sleeping, you’re likely to get suggestions for five items that you can purchase. “Sleep is going the way of other types of buyable ‘wellness,’” my colleague Megan Garber wrote last year.

As anyone who has tried sleep hacks or sleep gadgets knows, what works for you is a very personal thing. Sleep is a universal human need, but there’s no universal solution to struggling with it. And sometimes the problems behind bad sleep can’t be solved by a mask or an app at all. Today’s newsletter explores sleep hacks, old and new, and how they got so tied up in America’s consumer culture.

On Sleep Tools

Your Pillows Might Be Killing Your Neck

By Olga Khazan

After waking up with a searing pain that radiates down to my shoulders, I hunt for the culprit.

Read the article.

Why Everyone Should Sleep Alone

By Mallika Rao

On the virtues of splitting up for the night

Read the article.

The Protestant Sleep Ethic

By Megan Garber

A recent memoir considers how much we concede when we regard rest as a call to judgment.

Read the article.

Still Curious?

How smartphones hurt sleep: Blue light makes the brain think it’s time to wake up, just as you’re getting ready for bed, Olga Khazan wrote in 2015. “I found the key to sleep”: “It’s my foot,” Amanda Mull wrote in 2019.

Other Diversions

The invention that changed school forever America has an onion problem. “Dear James”: I love to drive fast, and I cannot stop.

P.S.

Courtesy of BD

I recently asked readers to share a photo of something that sparks their sense of awe in the world. BD, 73, in Nederland, Colorado, sent this photo of “watching beautiful crows on a cold winter day.”

I’ll continue to feature your responses in the coming weeks.

— Isabel

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.

Americans across the country are getting ready to wait.

Knowing the winner of the presidential election by tomorrow night is a real possibility. But the race could also take several days to be called, as it did in 2020, and some House races are likely to take days. In most other modern presidential elections (leaving aside the recount of the  2000 election), news outlets have declared a winner within hours of the polls closing. But in this week’s election, the closeness of the race and the popularity of mail-in voting could lead to a longer timeline. Amid all the unknowns, one American tradition may get lost: the social ritual of Election Night.

Over the generations, Election Night has brought Americans together and prepared them to accept the outcome of a race. Many voters missed out on that gathering in 2020, in part because they were in pandemic isolation. And as my colleague Kate Cray wrote at the time, “Watch parties and their kitschy decor don’t necessarily fit with an election in which many voters fear the collapse of democracy.” A communal gathering was even less appealing to liberals “still traumatized by 2016,” Kate noted. This year, Americans of all political loyalties are finding the election anxiety-inducing: A recent survey from the American Psychological Association found that 69 percent of polled adults rated the U.S. presidential election as a significant source of stress, a major jump from 52 percent in 2016 (and a slight bump from 68 percent in 2020).

Still, some Americans are preparing for classic election watch parties at friends’ homes or in bars. But this time around, voters’ self-preservational instincts are kicking in too. A recent New York magazine roundup of readers’ Election Night plans in the Dinner Party newsletter included streaming unrelated television, drinking a lot, and “Embracing the Doom Vibes.” For some, prolonged distraction is the move: The cookbook author Alison Roman suggests making a complicated meal. Even party enthusiasts seem wary: In an etiquette guide about how to throw a good Election Night party with guests who have different political views, Town & Country suggested that “hosting a soiree of this nature in 2024 is like setting up a game of croquet on a field of landmines.” One host suggested giving guests a “safe word” to avoid conflict.

Election Night was once a ritual that played out in public—generally over the course of several days, Mark Brewin, a media-studies professor at the University of Tulsa and the author of a book on Election Day rituals, told me. A carnival-like atmosphere was the norm: People would gather at the offices of local newspapers to wait for results, and winners’ names were projected on walls using “magic lanterns.” Fireworks sometimes went off, and bands played. With the popularity of radio and TV in the 20th century, rituals moved farther into private spaces and homes, and results came more quickly. But even as technology improved, “this process is always at the mercy of the race itself,” Brewin explained.

Election Night rituals of years past weren’t just about celebration. They helped create the social conditions for a peaceful reconciliation after impassioned election cycles, Brewin said. In the 19th century, for example, once an election was called, members of the winning party would hand a “Salt River ticket” to the friends whose candidates lost (Salt River is a real body of water, but in this case, the term referred to a river of tears). The humor of the gesture was its power: It offered people a way to move forward and work together. Such rituals marked the moment when people “stop being partisans and become Americans again,” Brewin said.

That concept feels sadly quaint. This week, Americans are bracing for chaos, especially if Donald Trump declares prematurely that he won or attempts to interfere in the results of the race. An election-watch gathering might seem trivial in light of all that. But Americans have always come together to try to make sense of the changes that come with a transfer of power, and doing so is still worthwhile—especially at a time when unifying rituals feel out of reach.

Related:

Is this the end of the Election Night watch party? How to get through Election Day

Here are four new stories from The Atlantic:

Trump’s followers are living in a dark fantasy, Adam Serwer writes. Inside the ruthless, restless final days of Trump’s campaign The “blue dot” that could clinch a Harris victory How is it this close?

Today’s News

Vice President Kamala Harris will finish her last day of campaigning in Philadelphia, and Donald Trump will host his last rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan. A Pennsylvania judge ruled that Elon Musk’s America PAC can continue with its $1 million daily giveaway through Election Day. Missouri sued the Department of Justice in an effort to block the department from sending federal poll monitors to St. Louis.

Dispatches

The Wonder Reader: Isabel Fattal explores the appliances we’ve relied on for decades, and those that claim to usher in new ways of living—with varied success.

Explore all of our newsletters here.

Evening Read

Illustration by The Atlantic. Sources: Jacopin / BSIP / Getty; Velimir Zeland / Shutterstock.

A ‘Crazy’ Idea for Treating Autoimmune Diseases Might Actually Work

By Sarah Zhang

Lupus, doctors like to say, affects no two patients the same. The disease causes the immune system to go rogue in a way that can strike virtually any organ in the body, but when and where is maddeningly elusive. One patient might have lesions on the face, likened to wolf bites by the 13th-century physician who gave lupus its name. Another patient might have kidney failure. Another, fluid around the lungs. What doctors can say to every patient, though, is that they will have lupus for the rest of their life. The origins of autoimmune diseases like it are often mysterious, and an immune system that sees the body it inhabits as an enemy will never completely relax. Lupus cannot be cured. No autoimmune disease can be cured.

Two years ago, however, a study came out of Germany that rocked all of these assumptions.

Read the full article.

More From The Atlantic

David Frum: No one has an alibi. Donald Trump’s hatred of free speech The shadow over Kamala Harris’s campaign The institutions failed. Xi may lose his gamble. Samer Sinijlawi: My hope for Palestine

Culture Break

Illustration by The Atlantic. Source: Getty.

Mourn. We’ll never get a universal cable, Ian Bogost writes. It’s the broken promise of USB-C.

Watch. Kamala Harris made a surprise appearance on Saturday Night Live, but another segment that night made a sharper political point, Amanda Wicks writes.

Play our daily crossword.

P.S.

One peek into Americans’ mental state on Election Night comes from their orders on food apps. In 2016, Election Night alcohol demand on Postmates was nearly double that of the prior Tuesday—and that demand spiked again at lunchtime the next day. For the delivery app Gopuff, alcohol orders were high on Election Night in 2020—especially champagne and 12-packs of White Claw. And, less festively, orders for Tums and Pepto Bismol rose too. However you pass the time waiting for results this year, I hope you stay healthy.

— Lora

Stephanie Bai contributed to this newsletter.

When you buy a book using a link in this newsletter, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic.

This is an edition of The Wonder Reader, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a set of stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Sign up here to get it every Saturday morning.

You know America’s most controversial appliance when you hear it: The leaf blower is loud, it’s messy, and it’s a hazard to the environment. But Ian Bogost recently argued that we’re thinking about leaf blowers all wrong: “Excessive use of blowers, not the tools themselves, should be taken as the villain here,” he wrote. A full ban on the appliance is impossible as long as yards are part of American life, so limiting its use would be the best path forward.

Today’s newsletter explores the appliances we’ve relied on for decades, and those that claim to usher in new ways of living—with varied success.

On Our Appliances

A Defense of the Leaf Blower

By Ian Bogost

Reassessing America’s most hated appliance

Read the article.

A $700 Kitchen Tool That’s Meant to Be Seen, Not Used

By Ellen Cushing

KitchenAid’s newest stand mixer seems like a great appliance—for people who don’t actually bake.

Read the article.

The Microwave Makes No Sense

By Jacob Sweet

Every kitchen appliance is getting smart—except one.

Read the article.

Still Curious?

Your TV is too good for you: 4K resolution is a sham, Ian Bogost argues. KitchenAid did it right 87 years ago: Modern appliances are rarely built to last. They could learn something from the KitchenAid stand mixer, Anna Kramer argues.

Other Diversions

The silliest, sexiest show of the year Why you might need an adventure Why are baseball players always eating?

P.S.

Courtesy of John Ambrose

I recently asked readers to share a photo of something that sparks their sense of awe in the world. John Ambrose, 72, wrote that he took this photo “looking due west from my front door in Glastonbury, CT. The sky kept changing and went from an orange to a deep pink.”

I’ll continue to feature your responses in the coming weeks.

— Isabel