'Americans have friends. We just never really see them'

'The friendship paradox'

Olga Khazan at The Atlantic

Americans "reported having an average of about four or five friends," but a "big hurdle is the time and effort it takes to schedule a gathering," says Olga Khazan. A "slew of books and apps aim to help people tend to their friendships, but these tools all have the same limitation: they put the onus on each individual to initiate and maintain contact." So "maintaining friendships in this atomized new world might require ratcheting down expectations."

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'Bad movies prove profit can be a force for good in film'

Stephen Bush at the Financial Times

Many "directors, writers and actors are led astray by corporate greed," says Stephen Bush. The "excessive spending and poor scripts on their various projects are downstream of well-aired difficulties at the top." Movies and TV shows "made these days badly miss the voice of someone trying to keep costs low," but the "age of costly film and TV also has lessons for the rest of the corporate world" as a " parable about the lack of cost control."

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'Donald Trump is deeply threatened by Kamala Harris — and desperately flailing'

Sidney Blumenthal at The Guardian

Donald Trump's "narcissism is his grand strategy," and "both Kamala Harris and his advisers constrain and threaten him," says Sidney Blumenthal. The emergence of Harris has "left Trump on the stage in a play." Against a "candidate of change (a woman), his resistance to change (attacking the woman) is his only way to cling to his authenticity." It is an "impossible task to pry him away from his impulses, especially when it's a survival instinct."

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'The cartel takeover in Colorado is a dispatch from the future'

Collin Pruett at The American Conservative

The "chaos previously limited to the border is spreading across the mainland United States," says Collin Pruett. Conflicting reports of a Venezuelan gang in Aurora, Colorado, have "pierced through the 'boiling frog' syndrome that often prevents U.S. media from accurately conveying" border crises. As "American attitudes and political trends increasingly mirror those of Latin America, the type of warfare seen there becomes a more likely consequence," but "American leadership still has time to close Pandora's box."

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