PicoBlog

Good morning! Hello to new readers, and welcome to the latest edition of the Vietnam Weekly, written by Ho Chi Minh City-based reporter Mike Tatarski. On Wednesday, I published an analysis of the 2023 Vietnam Provincial Governance and Public Administration Performance Index - or PAPI - for paying subscribers. The index provides a fascinating insight int… ncG1vNJzZmiumZrBr63MsJyeo5yue7TBwayrmpubY7CwuY6pZqaZo6h6rrHTq6Zmm5%2Bjs7a%2FyKil

This week on the podcast Angela Kinsey & Rainn Wilson reunite years after The Office to explore some of life’s biggest questions. The two talk about the recent deaths in their lives and how grief can breed gratitude. They also discuss finding true happiness, the power of mindfulness, and achieving a balanced work-life. Angela shares her unique insights on gratitude's role in personal success and the secrets to maintaining long-lasting friendships.

Here’s an apple for your thoughts, what defines a monster? In the Death Note film: Death Note: Relight: L's Successors, L is asked by a group of Wammy house orphans if there’s anything he’s scared of. Naturally, being the intellectually quirky anomaly that is L/Ryuzaki, he says “Well I suppose, monsters.” Hearing this for the first time, the natural response of the orphans is that of laughter and even opposition amongst themselves about how monsters don’t really scare L.

The Keepthings By Deborah Way What memento would you keep after the death of someone you love? These are the stories of lost loved ones, inspired by the things they left behind. A new story published every week, plus occasional subscriber-only bonus content. ncG1vNJzZmirpZfAta3CpGWcp51kjaWxwaipmqCnlsY%3D

Here’s a literary phenomenon that you don’t see much about: the decade writer. Some novelists and short-story writers do so much of their best work in a particular decade that you can practically ignore everything they ever wrote that was published outside of that decade and still consider yourself a relative authority on their fiction. For the purposes of this essay, I am not talking about any random ten-year stretch in an author’s working life, say 1847-1856.

After The Ball, by Ramon Casas (1899)Have you ever returned home after a party or a concert, thrown yourself onto the couch, your head still spinning from all that you’ve seen, too tired to even take off your shoes? That’s exactly what this painting, by Ramon Casas, depicts. The title tells us that this is a ‘young decadent’ woman spread out on the couch, seemingly in bliss, after a long night out.

In the Apple TV+ series “Lessons in Chemistry,” Elizabeth Zott, thinking she’s likely pregnant, goes after-hours to the Hastings Research Institute, where she works as a laboratory technician, and steals two frogs. She takes them home, puts each one in a labelled glass container—one marked “control” and the other “experimental”—prepares a hypodermic needle (containing, we presume, her urine) and injects the one destined to be “experimental.” After some time, she takes the cover off the glass containers.

The topic of tradwives might be an odd topic for a man to be writing about. Interestingly enough, I have recently run into this subject several times. An ex-Mormon influencer and personal friend, Jennie Gage, is an ex-tradwife who told her story to Business Insider. She also appeared on the Tamron Hall Show, which investigated the growing tradwife trend. ncG1vNJzZmiimaK9orjMnqmaraSdvLN60q6ZrKyRmLhvr86mZqlnlJqwsLrSramum6Seu6h506GcZqyilrG4tcWeZKanppq6prrT

I said this last week: Many today claim they are in a “phase of deconstruction.” I have not been able to determine just exactly what they mean by deconstruction but the general point is clear. They find the Christian faith as they have experienced it to be inadequate. Whether it is some intellectual problem (science vs. Genesis 1-2 and the creationismn they were taught) or the hypocrite problem (well-known pastors collapsing) or social problem (why can’t the church get on board with universal health care?