Sitdown Sunday: The world leaders who want to live forever

IT’S A DAY of rest, and you may be in the mood for a quiet corner and a comfy chair.

We’ve hand-picked some of the week’s best reads for you to savour. 

1. The world leaders who want to live forever

Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, both major world leaders, were allegedly caught on camera last year discussing their desire to live forever. What if they could?

(The New York Times Magazine, approx 12 mins reading time)

“But what if the tyrant succeeds in making himself immortal, or in expanding his allotted life span so radically that he might as well be? What if autocrats like Xi or Putin were to extend their rule by decades, or even to rule indefinitely, never relinquishing their grip on their respective states, on the lives of their citizens? Such a prospect is, to say the least, still scientifically remote. But that these two leaders seem to want it in the first place, and seem to believe that science might facilitate it, suggests something important about our political era — and hints at the shape of the era to come.”

2. The Titan disaster

The Guardian interviewed Christine Dawood, the mother of Suleman Dawod and the wife of Shahzada Dawood – two of the people who died aboard the Titan submersible in June 2023. Christine is speaking for the first time about her experience waiting on board a ship for her husband and son to return from the OceanGate expedition to see the wreck of the Titanic in 2023 – and the unbearable grief she has lived with since. 

(The Guardian, approx 20 mins reading time)

“Dawood watched as her husband and son were transported to the Titan, floating about 100 metres away on its launch and recovery platform. The two divers stationed there hauled the men on to the precarious structure and guided them into the sub one by one. ‘Have a great dive,’ one said to Suleman as he helped him inside. The hatch was bolted shut, and the flotation tanks at each corner of the platform were flooded with water. The Titan sank beneath the waves, detached from its platform and started its freefall. It would take about three hours to reach the wreck, 2.5 miles down on the ocean floor.”

3. Britain’s hunt saboteurs

Hunt saboteurs first began disrupting hunts in the UK in the name of animal welfare, leading to violence between the groups and hunt supporters, as well as arrests. But since 2005, hunting foxes is technically illegal in the UK, instead hunters are meant to take part in trail hunting, where hounds follow an artificial scent trail laid by humans. However, groups of hunt saboteurs are still active, and now they are on the side of the police trying to catch hunters breaking the law. 

(Dispatch, approx 12 mins reading time)

“In recent years, drones have changed the game: sabs are now able to capture footage from afar, when hunters don’t think they’re watching. The technology has led to aerial clashes, with hunters fixing chains to their own retaliatory, weaponised drones to knock the sabs’ machines out of the sky.”

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4. What happens to messages in bottles?

People across the world throw bottles containing messages into the ocean, wondering if someone will ever find them. Well, Cliff Buffington, one of the world’s most prolific hunters of messages in bottles, has made it his mission to do so.

(The New Yorker, approx 26 mins reading time)

“Buffington is one of the world’s most prolific hunters of messages in bottles. Since 2007, when he found his first M.I.B., as they’re known, he has recovered nearly a hundred and fifty specimens, ranging from love letters to promotional stunts, science projects, pleas for help, and drunken ramblings. ‘I have been taken prisoner by a grumpy old man,’ read one letter, written by a son who apparently wasn’t having a great time vacationing with his father. Another author confessed, ‘As we have no more wine on board for the apéritif, we try to pass the time as we can.’ (This writer, too, was French.) A man named Frank immortalized his holiday with a woman named Brenda on a sheet of paper from a Princess Cruises notepad: ‘It’s been interesting, it’s the end of a 8 year relationship. We are both putting messages in a bottle. . . . Brenda, hope you find what you are looking for. Love, Frank.’”

5. A millennial memoir

Lena Dunham, creator of Girls, was seen as the voice of millennial women at the height of her fame. Now her new memoir Famesick details the highs and lows of that experience. Amanda Hess writes about that peculiar time in culture.

(The New York Times Magazine, approx eight mins reading time)

“The announcement of ‘Famesick’ was met with both excitement for Dunham’s return and grumbling at the return of a certain type of discourse, one that I contributed to as a blogger for women-focused sites in the early 2010s. My phone shuddered as that long-dormant internetwide discussion creaked back into motion — and delivered a Slack message from an editor, asking if I, a 40-year-old woman who long ago left such youthful pursuits behind, was interested in writing about the peculiar media environment that made, and then unmade, Lena Dunham.”

6. The impact of being a billionaire

Writing for The Atlantic, Noah Hawley, creator of the FX series Fargo and Alien: Earth, shares his experience being invited to weekend gathering of billionaires hosted by Jeff Bezos. Hawley’s main takeaway from the experience seems to be that once someone has amassed a certain amount of wealth and power, their lives become so disconnected from reality that empathy loses all meaning

(The Atlantic, approx ten mins reading time)

“This sense of invulnerability has deep psychological ramifications. If everything is free and nothing matters, then the world and other people exist only to be acted upon, if they are acknowledged at all. This is different from classic narcissism, in which a grandiose but fragile self-image can mask deep insecurity. What I’m talking about is a self-definition in which the individual grows to the size of the universe, and the universe vanishes. Asked recently if there is any check on his power, President Trump—himself a billionaire, and by far the richest president in American history—said, ‘Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.’ Not domestic or international law, not the will of the voters, not God or the centuries-old morality of civic and religious life.”

…AND A CLASSIC FROM THE ARCHIVES…

7. The Tampa Bay murders of the Rogers

This Pulitzer Prize winning longread from Charlie French in the Tampa Bay Times is often hailed as one of the best longform articles ever written. The seven part series chronicles the murders of Jo Rogers and her daughters Michelle and Christe. On 4 June, three bodies were found floating in Tampa Bay over a week after the family had left their dairy farm for a trip to Disneyland.

(Tampa Bay Times, approx four hours reading time)

“Early on, when they were planning the trip, Jo and the girls had talked about visiting Gatlinburg or Gettysburg. But in the end they had decided to be more adventurous and make the thousand-mile journey to Florida. The three of them wanted what every other tourist wants from the Sunshine State. They wanted to lie on the beach and shake Mickey’s hand and throw away a few dollars on overpriced souvenirs. They wanted to let go, to be renewed, to lose themselves inside the myth.”

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