It’s Saturday. You’re free, or at least more free, to do whatever you want. You pick up your phone, hunting for something to read – at last, finally, you have time to read. You tap a few notifications while you wait to think of something deserving of this brief window. Suddenly it’s 2pm, you still haven’t read more than a few captions … Suddenly, it’s – wait: here’s something. Five things! Some of the best stories from around the Guardian’s global pages this week, in case you missed them.
1. Looks like medieval torture, hurts a lot, costs even more
Men are paying thousands to get their legs broken and lengthened, in the quest to be taller. Ruth Michaelson, a journalist based in Istanbul, where many travel for the procedure, spoke to a few for whom the price is worth it.
What’s involved? A very painful-sounding surgery based on a Soviet technique from 1951 – details, and some confronting pictures, are in the article. Then, daily physiotherapy to learn how to walk again, blood thinners, massages and a lot of painkillers.
Do many people do it? There are few global statistics, but Michaelson notes an estimation by one Indian market research firm that the global limb lengthening industry will balloon by 2030 to close to $13.4bn (US$8.6bn).
How long will it take to read: about five minutes
2. The umpire who picked a side
Why did Donald Trump thank John Roberts so effusively in his mammoth March speech? The Guardian’s chief US reporter, Ed Pilkington, has gone deep on the chief justice, now 70. Over the past 20 years, Roberts has painted himself as a modern institutionalist, but experts say he is emboldening Trump’s drive toward authoritarianism.
View from a veteran: “The chief justice is presiding over the end of the rule of law in America,” says Michael Luttig, who served on a federal appeals court for 15 years.
View from a watchdog: “He has consistently shown hostility towards civil rights, trade unions and environmental protections, approaching the law with the rigidity of a rightwing ideologue,” says Lisa Graves, founder of a watchdog investigating rightwing groups that undermine democracy.
View from the academy: “When district court orders are ignored, and the supreme court turns a blind eye, then the rule of law has already been sacrificed,” says Amrit Singh, director of NYU’s Rule of Law Lab.
How long will it take to read: seven minutes
3. How do you stay focused when you have no food?
Ahmed Kamal Junina is an assistant professor of applied linguistics and head of the English department at Al-Aqsa University in Gaza, where everywhere, as he writes, “starvation is avalanching, nearly unstoppable”.
He explains how a day’s survival might come down to a few biscuits, or a single sachet of powder – and how, for many, the problem is even accessing money to pay for it (every bank is damaged, he notes; not a single functioning ATM is left).
An act of resistance: He goes on to explain his need to keep working, even when he can barely stand. “This is not about ego. It is about refusing to disappear,” he writes. “To generate knowledge in the context of hunger is to think through pain. To teach students who have not eaten and still tell them their voices matter. To insist, against all odds, that Gaza still thinks, still questions, still creates.”
How long will it take to read: a bit over three minutes
What to watch: Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk, Sepideh Farsi’s documentary and “shattering memorial” to Palestinian photojournalist Fatma Hassona – showing at MIFF this weekend, for Melbourne readers, and hopefully available more widely soon.
4. ‘I’ve been stupid and I miss you’
A quarter of the adult population describe themselves as estranged from a relative, according to Karl Pillemer, a professor who has written a book on the subject. But after decades pass and rifts remain unhealed, what drives family members to repair their ruptured relationships?
As Pillemer tells Deborah Linton, not all schisms can be bridged, especially in cases of deep, unresolved harm. But when the desire for reconnection is sincere – and mutual – “they can bring emotional closure, reduce regret and ease the grieving process for the one left behind”.
***
“We picked up exactly where we left off. There was no animosity. It was guilt free. We haven’t had a harsh word since.” – Scott, who reconnected with his brother, Bruce, after a 15-year rift.
Is there a common thread to really bad fallings out? Pillemer refers to the “volcanic event”, “where pressure has built up to a single trigger, the capstone in a history of conflict or communication problems”. Understanding what led to that, usually after some self-exploration, can help untangle things.
How long will it take to read: About eight minutes
5. Desire laid bare in the consulting room
On the matter of self-exploration: psychoanalyst Stephen Grosz ponders, in an extract from his new book, on what 40 years as a psychoanalyst has taught him about sex and desire.
“When you were a small child – vulnerable, full of need – what did you learn about intimacy?” he asks. “In a way, our sex lives can be thought of as a solution to the problems given to us by our earliest fears, longings and animosities.”
A life’s lesson: As a young man, Grosz thought the secret to happiness was in finding the “right” person, not realising, he says, “that each of us is responsible for our own happiness”.
“I thought the many kinds of pain we suffer when we love another person – longing, anxiety, grief – were feelings to avoid, symptoms to be removed. I didn’t understand that pain is the finest instrument we possess for knowing what we desire.”
How long will it take to read: A bit under nine minutes
Further reading: If reading this made your own career feel slightly less fascinating, try Elle Hunt’s piece on ways to have more fun at work. For more on the tangles of love, it’s hard to go past Gillian Rose.
Have a lovely weekend.
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