Saturday roundup

Here are some good reads on North Korea, or rather, strategic stability, missile defense, and what they actually have. There's a lot of disagreement about this one (about the missiles themselves), but you might want to give it a skim to get a sense of the parameters in question.

This thread on what's happening in Charlottesville.

Regardless of what we think of Taylor Swift, she's spot-on in refusing to let her assailant change the subject.

I've critiqued Gopnik's language in the past but I appreciate his turn-of-phrase here:

We may or may not be able to Americanize our Buddhism, but we can certainly ecumenicize our analgesics.

Another excellent response to the infamous Google-bro memo.

A beautiful story about Barbara Cook's passing.