Criticism, endorsements and the future: this week on Fresh Powder

But what if it’s bad?

Consider for a moment the significance of recent box-office hit Crazy Rich Asians, which many student journalists are filing reviews of lately. Great, right? But is it actually any good? New York Times critic Wesley Morris wrote a thoughtful essay about how cultural criticism — that of art, television, movies — has worsened, in 2018, by becoming more about what the piece stands for, or it’s “moral correctness,” than its actual quality. As Morris argues, you can be happy that TV has a place for Insecure, whereas it likely wouldn’t have a decade ago, but that shouldn’t mean you can’t criticize it. Let your review writers and columnists read this one, going inside the mind of a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist.

Wholesale changes

It’s the time of year when newspapers’ editorial boards sit down, debate and draft endorsements for candidates in the upcoming election. The Des Moines Register,which is in Iowa, a pretty consequential state for political happenings, took it a step further than individual endorsement. “The (Republican) party needs to be voted out of power and spend a few years becoming again the party of Lincoln, no the part of Trump,” The Register’s editorial board wrote.

Hits and misses

A man sits down in the Library of Congress and pilfers through every issue of Wired’s 25-year history. Why? To see what predictions they’ve gotten right (like the cameraphone revolution), wrong (like sending smells through the internet), and not right or wrong — the ones that still seem to be on the horizon. Which reminds me: Where’s the flying car that makes icy Minnesota highways completely irrelevant? (Prayer hands emoji.)

This also happened last week: We all found out the passcode into Kanye West’s iPhone and a Russian government official is in trouble after his wife’s filming of a twerking music video literally stopped traffic on a busy highway in Moscow.