Miley Cyrus’s Creepy Return to Wholesomeness

when I spoke to her in 2014 (back then, she and Hemsworth were done, she was dating a woman, and had taken to sticking her tongue out all the time), I was struck by how earnest she seemed about everything. She pulls from a seemingly bottomless font of sincerity

.. Most everybody readily acknowledges the artifice inherent to pop music—as consumers, we know and understand, to some degree, that the whole business is and always has been an aggressively managed charade. Part of the deal is that we still feign chagrin or incredulity (or both) when a pop star announces another reinvention. These shifts aren’t so interesting for what they broadcast about the state of an individual performer’s philosophical posture—in fact, I’d argue that, in that regard, they’re largely meaningless; far more compelling is what they indicate about an artist’s commercial potential, which is inextricably tied to the public’s hunger for change, and for new and flashier iterations of the same thing

.. Pop singers seeking colossal stardom tend to operate in only one of two modes:

  1. guileless, fresh-faced ingénue;
  2. or a sex-starved, lingerie-clad vixen.

(“Regular” has yet to become an especially profitable option.)

gen: The real reason Saudis rolled out the reddest of red carpets

The rationale for these deals is simple — to jump-start the Saudi economy and bring new jobs to the private sector, as Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir explained at a press conference on Saturday. “We expect that these investments over the next 10 years or so will provide hundreds of thousands of jobs in both the United States and in Saudi Arabia,” he said. “They will lead to a transfer of technology from the US to Saudi Arabia, enhance our economy and also enhance the American investments in Saudi Arabia, which already are the largest investments of anyone.”
.. a quasi-socialist state: an astonishing 90% of Saudis work for the government and have long enjoyed subsidies for water, electricity and gas. Health care and education are free.
But, in late 2015, the IMF warned that, given falling oil prices, the Saudi government could run out of financial reserves in five years if it kept up its present rate of spending.
.. The Saudi government calls it “Vision 2030.” The aim is to privatize the education, health care, agriculture, mining and defense sectors and to sell off Saudi Aramco, perhaps the wealthiest company in the world, which is estimated to be worth around a trillion dollars. The Saudis expect the United States to be a key player in all this
.. Its country is both young and incredibly connected — 70% of the population is under 30, and 93% of Saudis use the Internet, far more than in the United States.
.. Until a year ago, compliance with the dictates of Saudi-style Wahhabi Islam were rigorously enforced by members of the feared religious police, known as the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (the same name that was used by the Taliban’s religious police when the Taliban were in power in Afghanistan).
.. In one notorious episode in 2002, in the holy city of Mecca, the religious police prevented girls from fleeing a school that was on fire because they were not properly dressed. Fifteen of them perished in the flames.
But, last April, the wings of the religious police were clipped by King Salman and his son MBS, as he is universally known here. They no longer have the power to arrest suspects and now can only report them to regular police units.
.. In addition to getting the religious police to back off, the Saudi monarchy has allowed some music concerts to happen, but their biggest ambition, as described above, is to wean Saudi Arabia from its almost total dependence on oil revenues.
The Saudis see the Trump administration as a key to this, and that’s why they rolled out the reddest of red carpets for the President’s visit.
In return, Trump received the perfect platform to give his speech on Islam.
.. During the presidential campaign in August, Trump panned Obama’s Cairo speech, castigating Obama for a “misguided” speech that didn’t condemn “the oppression of women and gays in many Muslim nations, and the systematic violations of human rights, or the financing of global terrorism…”
.. But even if Trump’s speech does not herald any real changes in US national security policies, the business deals that the Trump administration is helping to broker with the Saudis will help move the Saudi economy away from its total dependence on oil.

Feminist Gloria Steinem Finds Herself Free Of The ‘Demands Of Gender’

GROSS: If I asked you to make a list of the five most important issues for women today, what would be on that list?

STEINEM: Well, I can do it. But I would like to say that the most important issues are those to the women who are listening. I mean, it’s not about dictating to each other what’s important but supporting each other and solving the ones that are in our daily lives.

GROSS: I like that point that you just made (laughter).

STEINEM: However, if you add up, you know, in terms of the numbers of people, I would say that competing for No. 1 would be violence against females worldwide. If you add up all the forms of violence, whether it’s domestic violence in this country, which is at an enormously high rate – I mean, the most dangerous place for a woman in this country is her own home. And she’s most likely to be beaten or killed by some – by a man she knows. Or it is FGM – female genital mutilation – or it is female infanticide or honor killings or child marriage and too-early childbirth, which is a major cause of death among adolescent girls worldwide. So, you know, violence has reached an emergency – well, it’s – I mean, any violence is an emergency. But, you know, collectively…

GROSS: What – well, the sense of emergency has certainly increased with groups like the Taliban and ISIS…

STEINEM: Yes, yes.

GROSS: Truly attacking women and denying them any form of rights.

STEINEM: Yes. No, it’s the extreme forms of patriarchy, often religious – so-called religious – and the violence against females in warzones – sexualized violence in the Congo and, you know, many in the former Yugoslavia. You know, and all of these have mounted up to a real emergency. But tied, I would say, for first place is the ability of women to decide when and whether to have children because that is a major cause of death. The lack of that ability is a major cause of death. And it is also a major cause of inability to be educated or to be free outside the home or to be healthy. You know, so I would say those two concerns, violence – sexualized violence against women and reproductive freedom or reproductive justice are right up there in our focus in every country.

Rogers Ailes, Hillary Clinton and Me

The Fox News makeup treatment is unlike any other in journalism. It involves false lashes, layers and layers of foundation and heavy applications of come-hither lip gloss.

.. Sexing up female reporters — even those from The New York Times — was part of the Fox News look as conceived by Roger Ailes

.. he had specific ideas about how women should treat him off-camera, as well.

While Mr. Ailes doled out attractive female anchors in revealing outfits as eye candy, his empire thrived partly on its audience’s widespread fear of the only woman who has ever had a real shot at the presidency, the person I was there that day to discuss: Hillary Clinton.

.. Over two decades, Fox News made Mrs. Clinton one of the longest-running villains on TV. Mr. Ailes would rewrite her part over the years:

  • In the 1990s, she was a bra-burning affront to stay-at-home mothers;
  • in her Senate race, she was an entitled wife riding on her husband’s coattails;
  • by the 2008 primary, she was Lady MacBeth, desperate to star in her own production.

.. But Fox News also gave something to Mrs. Clinton: proof of the “vast right-wing conspiracy

.. If there was any poetic justice, it was that a woman caused the downfall of Mr. Ailes in the end.