Maura Elizabeth Cunningham

A raw wind swept down Baton Rouge’s North 4th Street, threatening to wrench the baseball cap off my head as I waited with 3,500 other people for the Louisiana Marathon to get underway. Wearing ankle-length leggings, a tank top, and a long-sleeved t-shirt, I wished I had brought gloves and a knit hat with me as well. I knew I would warm up once I got moving, but I was starting to suspect I was under-dressed. Who knew Louisiana could be this cold in January?!?

The first few days of my trip had all been sunny and 70 degrees—exactly what I had hoped for when I booked an early winter getaway in New Orleans for a break from Michigan’s sub-freezing temperatures. But the weather had taken a turn on Saturday, and even consulting the forecast hadn’t adequately prepared me for what a blast of winter cold would feel like just before dawn on Sunday.

The sound of a cannon firing signaled the start of the race, and I shuffled forward with the crowd as we crossed the starting line and began to space out. Participating in the half marathon, I hoped that 13.1 miles of movement would help me shrug off the chill.

I did, at times, feel almost comfortable—when the sun peeked out from behind the clouds and bathed the race course in light, it grew warm enough to make the race enjoyable. But when the sun disappeared and the wind picked up … At least it’s not raining. At least it’s not snowing. It could be worse. I recited less-preferable scenarios in my head as I circled through the neighborhoods of Baton Rouge and back toward the finish line in front of the State Capitol building.

“There’s no bad weather, only bad clothing,” they say in Norway, and in Michigan I’m usually pretty good about gauging conditions and dressing appropriately. But yesterday I didn’t take the forecast seriously, convincing myself that winter in Louisiana “should” be warm. Stiff hands and cold ears were my payback—and a lesson learned is what I’ll take away from this race.

Thanks for joining me this week.

New Goodreads Reviews

Recommendations

China Stories

Yudhijit Bhattacharjee, “New York’s Chinese Dissidents Thought He Was an Ally. He Was a Spy.”

Directives from Beijing arrive swiftly, but the system falters where it matters most: execution. Communication within the bureaucracy is deeply asymmetrical. Orders flow downward in a torrent of dense, ideological language, leaving local officials scrambling to interpret Xi’s true priorities. Feedback from the ground up, meanwhile, is slow, fragmented, and distorted in a system that discourages honesty. Local officials, already crippled by debt and resource shortages, are preoccupied with studying ideology and attending political sessions, leaving little time — or capacity — for practical problem-solving. Even when they spot issues, they lack the language to express them in a hierarchy that rewards ideological loyalty over results. Paralyzed by contradictory demands — reduce debt, expand welfare, boost spending — and fearful of political missteps after years of anti-corruption purges, officials default to inaction. The result is a bureaucracy spinning its wheels, incapable of bridging the widening gap between lofty directives and ground-level realities. Beijing speaks to itself in an echo chamber, while the economy sputters under the weight of this fractured communication.

— Lizzie C. Lee, “How Xi Jinping Became a Prisoner of His Party’s Language”

Christian Shepherd, “In a first, China will send vice president to Trump’s inauguration”

Christian Shepherd, Vic Chiang, and Katrina Northrop, “‘TikTok refugees’ flock to another (heavily censored) Chinese app”

Alexandra Stevenson and Zixu Wang, “China’s Population Declines for 3rd Straight Year”

Andrew Stokols, “Why do Chinese cities all (mostly) look the same?”

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Kim Barker and Dzvinka Pinchuk, “For These Teenagers in Ukraine, Hope Arrived at the Stage Door”

Keith Gessen, “Do Russians Really Support the War in Ukraine?”

Corina Knoll, “Shattered in the Fire: A Historic Black Haven”

Raphael Rashid, “‘Everyone thought it would cause gridlock’: the highway that Seoul turned into a stream”

Dodai Stewart, “He’s a Security Guard at the Met. Now His Work Is Showing There.”

Stepping into the heart of Damascus, I was struck by this paradox of sameness and change. The streets, the buildings, even the smells were as I had left them. But the people — they were entirely different. In markets, on public transportation and in the souks, the change was palpable. Smiles adorned people’s faces. There was a lightness in their movements and a joy in their interactions.

— Faris Zwirahn, “Syria Is Alive With Possibility”

Catching Up

Featured photo: The Mississippi River at Baton Rouge, Louisiana, January 18, 2025.