MinnPost Picks: on kitchens, terrible teens, and hippie soap

“Floods have ravaged Hamilton for over a century. Can outsiders persuade the town to move?” The Seattle Times A Seattle nonprofit has hatched an elaborate plan to move an entire town in northwest Washington. The goal? Help restore salmon habitat in Washington state to help save southern-resident killer whales. Evan Bush at The Seattle Times looks at why the flood-prone Hamilton is considering the possibility. —Walker Orenstein, workforce and environment reporter “The Frankfurt Kitchen Changed How We Cook—and Live,” CityLab If you have ever lived in an apartment in America, and I think that's everybody, you might have learned to hate the small efficiency kitchens that are common in buildings as recent as last year and as old as the Depression. But this CityLab article shows that they were a great improvement over what was available before, and were the work of a German architect. —Peter Callaghan, state government reporter “How a decades-old hippie soap brand became a touchstone of wellness culture,” Vox The domain of Dr. Bronner's all-natural liquid Castile soap used to be VW vans and hippie colonies. Now it's all over influencers' Instagrams, without the company spending a dime the way others do to sponsor posts. Since its founding in the '40s, Dr. Bronner's has been more about lefty politics than luxe; its label more of a garbled manifesto than an advertising tactic. For Vox, Kieran Dahl on the unlikely rise of Dr. B's as a clean living status symbol. — Greta Kaul, data reporter “Teenage Pricks: Trumpism’s brand of boy power,” The Baffler What do the Trump 2020 banner displayed at a Jordan High School basketball game, the racist jeering by Covington Catholic High School students and Brett Kavanaugh’s indignant tantrum at his own confirmation hearing have in common? It’s easy enough to view them as isolated incidents, just blips on the ever-expanding radar screen of Trump-era outrages. But Alex Pareene draws the through-line between these events and ends up offering something that could be taken as a summation of Trumpism writ large: “We can’t give you anything material, because we stole it all and are hoarding it, but we can create a world in which you can regularly act on your worst impulses and get away with it.” —Tom Nehil, news editor

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MinnPost Picks: on kitchens, terrible teens, and hippie soap

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MinnPost Picks: on kitchens, terrible teens, and hippie soap