Welcome back to another edition of The Detour. On deck: A teenager’s story of joining an all-woman militia to track down ISIS 🔍, an 18th century British painting stolen by mobsters 🖼️, and the epic and complex stories inherent in all of us ❤️.
But first, here’s a snapshot of what has happened in the world in the last week or so:
230 — The number of journalists laid off at American publications, from the Los Angeles Times to National Geographic, in January alone. It punctuates decades of atrophy faced by the U.S. journalism industry: Since 2005, around 2,900 newspapers have shuttered or merged. In 2023, media companies cut more than 20,000 jobs. Could this spell trouble for the health of democracy? One of my favorite, still-standing publications, The Atlantic, explains the stakes.
$100,000 USD — The amount of federal grant money given to the Alutiiq Alaska Native tribe to build a first-of-its-kind database to repatriate local tribes with the remains of their ancestors housed in at least 12 institutions across the U.S. The initiative will take at least two years to build, and it has quite a significant name: The database will be called “Angitapet”, which means “we are returning them” in Alutiiq, an Indigenous language spoken in western and southwestern Alaska.
10,000 — The number of police officers that guarded the site of India’s controversial Ram Mandir, a brand-new Hindu temple complex in Ayodhya, India, during its inauguration last week. Prime Minister Narendra Modi hosted a special ceremony last Monday to consecrate the temple, but criticism abounds: The location has been a contested site for Hindus and Muslims for decades, as the $217 million USD project was built where the 16th-century Babri Mosque once stood. The mosque was destroyed by a Hindu mob in 1992.
For our main course, we have an excerpt from journalist Liz Flock’s new book that has easily become my favorite of 2024 so far. Released January 9, “The Furies” follows the stories of three women from around the world who have used unconventional means — even violence — to seek justice.
Our excerpt tells the story of 17-year-old Cicek Mustafa Zibo, who after two months of training in Northern Syria with the Kurdish Women’s Protection Units, or YPJ, learned how to take apart an automatic rifle and put it back together again, how to shoot a target while blindfolded, and how to protect the autonomous Kurdish-majority region in Syria while defeating ISIS.
Cicek Mustafa Zibo at Tal Tamr base in Syria // Credit: Delil Souleiman
This excerpt intimately follows Cicek’s journey of finding sisterhood, purpose, and freedom after joining the YPJ.
My personal favorite? Katmai National Park and Preserve in southern Alaska. (If you haven’t yet, I implore you to check out the park’s positively unhinged Fat Bear Week, which it hosts every October.) Speaking of national parks, check our site at frame.media tomorrow when we drop a story by journalist S. Nicole Lane about Michigan’s Isle Royale National Park and their success story of reintroducing wolves into the island’s delicate ecosystem.
A 1784 painting has had a hell of a half-century: Believed to have been stolen by mobsters in 1969, an original John Opie work was returned to a descendant of its original owner, 96-year-old Francis Wood, on Friday following a two-year FBI investigation.
This painting, titled “The School Mistress,” was in the possession of organized crime members for years before it was found in 1989 by buyers of a home once owned by the late mobster Joseph Covello Sr. in St. George, Utah. The buyer of Covello’s home died in 2020, after which a Utah accounting firm appraised the painting and discovered its roots.
Left: Francis Wood with family upon the return of the John Opie painting // 2024. Right: A copy of a presale letter for the Opie painting, dated September 23, 1930, from Spink & Son, London. Source: FBI
Francis Wood’s father, Earl Leroy Wood, purchased the painting in 1930 for $7,500 — the equivalent of roughly $137,760 today. Congratulations, Francis :)
This week — Waves continue to peak in Nazaré, Portugal, one of the big wave surfing meccas of the world. During peak season, lasting from November to the end of March, waves can reach heights of more than 80 feet (!!). See live webcams of the swells now, or check out highlights from the TUDOR Nazaré Big Wave Challenge, which wrapped on January 22. Extra credit: Watch 100 Foot Wave, an HBO docu-series about one pro surfer's quest to surf a 100-foot wave in Nazaré.
On Thursday, February 1 — European Union leaders will congregate for a special summit to figure out how the region could continue to support Ukraine amid Russia’s protracted invasion of the Eastern European country. So far, the EU has given over 5 billion euros to Ukraine to support its war effort — a portion of overall Ukrainian war aid given by European countries, which is in the tens of billions.
Speaking of Ukraine, on Friday, February 2 — The International Court of Justice will deliver its judgment on Ukraine’s ongoing case against the Russian Federation. Ukraine alleges that Russia has abused the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide to justify its war in Ukraine, which is approaching its third year in February.
Also on Friday, February 2 — The biggest soccer tournament in Africa, known as AFCON, begins its quarter finals in Ivory Coast with a face-off between Nigeria and Angola’s national teams.
Have you ever had the feeling of being in a city, maybe a subway car, and looking at the stranger across from you and suddenly and inexplicably realizing they have just as complex and rich a human experience as you do? That they have moments of quiet, grand ambitions, shortcuts they love, and an epic life unfolding in front of them. And that there are billions of epic lives happening all at once that we won’t ever see or know.
There's a word for that — sonder. It was coined by John Koenig in 2012 and published on his site, The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. The blog compiles all sorts of lovely words that put language to obscure emotions.
Sonder is a powerful form of empathy. With how fractious the world is right now, I think we would all feel closer to one another if we practiced it more. Here’s a screenshot of John’s original post on sonder.
Check out other wonderful words in The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows.
— Ben
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Quiz Answer: D, Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve. My favorite essay on this incredible place was written by Jon Krakaeur in his 2019 essay collection, Classic Krakauer.
