Our lady was burning. Nine hundred years after construction began on a building that would become the center of Paris and attract 13 million tourists a year, Notre Dame was on fire. It took hours for fire fighters to make it to the source of the flames. By then it was feared the whole building could be reduced to ashes. "There was a feeling that there was something bigger than life at stake," said Ariel Weil, the mayor of the city’s Fourth Arrondissement, home to the cathedral, "and that Notre-Dame could be lost." It was damaged but not lost. And with the building still smoldering, French President Macron said it would be re-opened in five years. With a little lady luck and a lot of human effort and ingenuity, that seemingly far-fetched promise was kept. NYT (Gift Article): A Miracle: Notre-Dame’s Astonishing Rebirth From the Ashes. "The building was still smoldering when France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, promised to reopen it in five years. The timeline seemed a Hail Mary. The roof of the cathedral, supported by a medieval forest of oak trusses, had collapsed. Its 19th-century spire lit up like a matchstick against the darkling sky, its tip cracking and plunging through the ceiling. Restorations on that scale could take decades. The country was already rattled by uprisings over gasoline prices and a frayed social safety net that, like Notre-Dame, had long been a source of national pride and identity. The symbolism of the cathedral’s fire was unmistakable. Then came Covid. Yet here we are." (We're a lot of other places right now, too. But it's Friday. It's been a long few weeks. So let's just stay here for a little while.)

+ "It took about 250 companies, 2,000 workers, about $900 million, a tight deadline and a lot of national pride." NYT (Gift Article): How Notre-Dame Was Reborn.

2

Security Blanket

Joe Biden getting Hunter off the hook got most of the pardon-related headlines over the past week, but there's another set of pardons being considered. And this story is a lot more worrisome than the the Hunter story. "President Biden is considering blanket preemptive pardons for prominent critics of President-elect Donald Trump in both parties to shield them from possible 'retribution' or legal prosecution by the incoming administration." What makes this a big and very disturbing story is that these pardons are being considered to preemptively protect leaders who have done nothing wrong. In fact, just the opposite. Most of the names being thrown around are the people who did the most to hold democracy's thinning line. Biden considering blanket preemptive pardons for perceived enemies of Trump. (When people said this was an important election for preserving democracy, they weren't kidding.)

+ "There are few good things to be said about Donald Trump’s plan to fire the F.B.I. director, Chris Wray, and install in his place Kash Patel, a thuggish lackey who has spent years fantasizing about taking revenge on Trump’s enemies. But there is one: Patel has helpfully provided us with a list of people President Biden should pardon before he leaves office." Michelle Goldberg in the NYT (Gift Article): Trump’s F.B.I. Pick Has an Enemies List. Biden Should Pardon Everyone on It.

3

Waste Not

"At MaaT Pharma’s manufacturing center on the outskirts of Lyon in southeast France, a motherlode of human poo arrives every few months. From a white courier van, the refrigerated samples—individually packaged in sealed bags—are whisked to a biocontainment laboratory. There, a technician injects each pouch with a chemical solution. This liquefies the contents to maximize the volume of, um, material that can be extracted while preserving and protecting bacteria from damage ... If the idea raises a giggle, you aren’t alone—even those working in the field acknowledge the near-unlimited potential for schoolyard humor. But it’s a deadly serious endeavor: MaaT is a pioneer in using fecal-based therapies to treat cancer." Bloomberg (Gift Article): The Quest to Turn Human Waste Into Medicine.

4

Weekend Whats

What to Movie: Don't be put off by the unfortunately titled My Old Ass on Prime Video. It's a solid coming of age story set against a beautiful backdrop. And I have a feeling we could be seeing a lot of its star, Maisy Stella.

+ What to Watch: The Agency on Paramount Plus is a slick spy story with an all-star cast. The first few episodes have been solid.

+ What to Hear: I haven't been sharing a ton of new music in this section lately, and my Spotify Wrapped explained why. Basically, I spent the entire year listening to one new album. Pearl Jam's Dark Matter. I walk and hike a ton of hills. And this album never failed to get me to the top. (Bonus: Eddie Vedder's cover of Save it For Later is perfect.)

+ What to Read: Looking for a few great feature articles to curl up with this weekend? BusinessWeek (Gift Article) has you covered with their annual collection of stuff their writers and editors were jealous of. Jealousy List 2024. "We’ve asked our editors and contributors to identify that one story in 2024 that filled them with the kind of indescribable resentment that theologians once thought was a dangerous gateway to other sins."

5

Extra, Extra

Moving Target: As Taylor Swift's year-defining Eras era comes to a close, she has one more market to move. While more and more shopping moves online, the previously struggling Target had a pretty darn good Black Friday. They are the exclusive sellers of the The Eras Tour Book. Taylor Swift might just save Target’s Christmas.

+ Quarter Horsepower: So much for the grass roots. This election (and the next four years) was all about billionaires. One in particular. Elon Musk spent a quarter-billion dollars electing Trump, including financing mysterious RBG PAC. Consider that Musks net worth is about 337.3 billion. It cost him less than the .3 to win an election and become perhaps the world's most powerful person.

+ Healthcare Hitman: "'This is a smart guy. This has been very well planned out. Being on a bus, he would be inconspicuous and would not have to go through all the problems that would arise at an airport with a gun.' But the thing he didn’t account for, Long said, was being asked to drop his mask by a clerk at his hostel — a moment that ultimately gave investigators crucial surveillance footage of his face." The healthcare hitman is still on the loose. Amazing he's been able to hide for this long in NYC in this era of widespread camera coverage. Here's the latest.

+ An Apple a Day: "Much as the CEO seems awestruck by AI and his just-released Apple Intelligence, he’s more convinced that the tech giant’s health apps will define the company’s legacy." Tim Cook Wants Apple to Literally Save Your Life. (Hopefully the health apps are more accurate than the AI notification summaries...)

+ Ballot Boxers: "A top Romanian court on Friday annulled the first round of the country’s presidential election, days after allegations that Russia ran a coordinated online campaign to promote the far-right outsider who won the first round." (Anyone else sensing a trend?)

+ Assad Ending? "Islamist-led rebels are closing in on Syria's third largest city Homs The rebels seized Hama to the north on Thursday, a second major blow to President Bashar al-Assad who lost control of Aleppo last week. Their goal is the overthrow of Assad's regime." Syrian rebels close in on Homs as Russia tells its citizens to leave country.

+ Tik Block:"A federal appeals court on Friday upheld a law banning TikTok nationwide unless the viral video app was sold off by its China-based parent company, rejecting TikTok's claim that the crackdown violates the free speech rights of millions of Americans." Now we all have to keep swiping to see what the Supreme Court thinks.

+ Court Orders: "At the company’s plant amid the forests of the Upper Peninsula, workers traversing a maze of conveyors, saws and other machinery dried, cut, planed and shaved strips of wood during the two 10-hour shifts that run six days a week." A really cool look at a company that makes basketball courts for everyone from high schools to the NBA. NYT (Gift Article): The Midwestern Roots, and Woods, of N.B.A. Courts.

6

Feel Good Friday

"As parliamentarians scrambled to get inside the National Assembly building to reverse the emergency measure, a woman in a leather coat confronted one of the soldiers who was trying to stop the lawmakers, grabbed his automatic rifle and tried to tug it away while yelling 'Aren’t you ashamed?'" In the 6-hour mayhem of South Korea’s martial law, a woman’s act of resistance was a defining moment.

+ Dave Eggers just opened a library of books written entirely by children.

+ The 2024 Outsiders of the Year. Thirteen adventurers, athletes, and renegades who pushed boundaries, toppled barriers, and shook up the outdoors.

+ US added a strong 227,000 jobs in November. (That terrible economy strikes again...)

+ Dick Van Dyke stars in Coldplay video as he turns 99.

+ For his wife’s 40th birthday, he paid for 40 shelter dog adoptions.

+ Looking for something unique to buy this holiday season. Enjoy the 2024 Kottke Holiday Gift Guide.

+ Manischewitz to sponsor first Jewish quarterback in BYU history. (I'll drink to that! Not Manischewitz, but I'll drink to it...)