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In a piece this week titled “Is the World Really Falling Apart, or Does It Just Feel That Way?” Max Fisher of the New York Times offered a sometimes insightful but ultimately unsatisfactory analysis. It’s actually an interesting article, but I found it irritating nonetheless, partly it’s because it included only a single passing reference to climate change: “No one wants to cheer a famine that is less severe than it might have been in the past, especially not the families whom it puts at risk, and especially knowing that future conflicts or climate-related crises could always cause another.

Revenge travel is an unsettling phrase. Just who is being avenged? Presumably we’re striking back against our constrained life of the pandemic. But the real victims, it seems, are overrun European cities and seaside towns. Crowds are high, prices are high, anxiety is high. Nobody seems very happy. There was an article this weekend in the Financial Times about cities reconsidering tourist economies. Should there be higher taxes on visitors the were there are in Bhutan?

Vatican City is an interesting “country.” It’s incredibly small in terms of area at just a half square kilometer in size. It also only has a population of just 453 people as of 2019. I’m actually kind of surprised there hasn’t been a more recent official number released. It kind of feels like you could just run through a full population census in a day. Regardless, the country is technically and legally independent, but is a country that small truly able to be fully independent?

Welcome to Original Jurisdiction, the latest legal publication by me, David Lat. You can learn more about Original Jurisdiction by reading its About page, and you can email me at davidlat@substack.com. This is a reader-supported publication; you can subscribe by clicking on the button below. Thanks! Who is the most powerful lawyer in America?[1] If you believe what you read in the New York Times and the Financial Times, then Viet Dinh, chief legal and policy officer at Fox Corporation, has a colorable claim to the title.

Source: Pexels/Karolina GrabowskaWhite noise during sleep has somehow become a very controversial topic. On one hand, many parents are advised that “white noise” is essential for helping their children to sleep and are compelled to buy expensive “white noise machines” for their babies and toddlers. Yet, on the other hand, there are claims on social media and blogs that white noise may hurt children’s hearing or even negatively impact their brain development.

I have never liked politicians and am unlikely to become infatuated with one in the future. There are a few rare exceptions to this rule, however, with one being the former President of Bosnia, Alija Ali Izetbegovic. Izetbegovic was Bosnia’s leader during the horrifying civil war and genocide that accompanied the breakup of the former Yugoslavia. Prior to that he was a well-known dissident intellectual who spent years in prison for his activism.

This week’s piece offers a conversation between Gabor Mate and his daughter, Hannah Mate, on Israel’s War on Palestine. (The U.N.’s description.) At times, I’ve had my differences with Gabor’s take on addictions, and also with what can come off as a interpersonal heavy-handedness—both of which he acknowledges in an open and graceful way. In this conversation, he is at his best, if one can say such a thing about such a terrible and protracted part of history.

The world is waiting tonight, in a kind of death watch, as Israel prepares for a massive invasion of Gaza. While I understand Israel’s fury in reaction to last week’s terrorist attacks - I share it, actually - I cannot see where invading Gaza is going to do more than increase the cycle of hatred that already plagues the region. So many innocent citizens of Gaza, as well as Israelis, stand to lose their lives - and the question hangs in the air: What will this solve?

First published by The Electronic Intifada, 27 March. The Jewish extremist responsible for concocting some of Israel’s worst atrocity propaganda about 7 October has admitted that one of his stories about Hamas executing children was untrue. Yossi Landau of the group ZAKA concedes in a new interview with Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit that dead bodies he previously claimed to have seen in Kibbutz Be’eri were “not children.” In the interview he admits: “When you look at them and they’re burned you don’t know exactly the ages.