2019
October
25
Friday

Monitor Daily Podcast

October 25, 2019
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Peter Grier
Washington editor

Our five stories today look at the evolution of Rudy Giuliani, how Lebanon's fractured society is uniting to fight corruption, the return of Peronism in Argentina, why a Houston Rockets tweet has challenged the morality of a business relationship with China, and a possible collision between three black holes.

First, I’d like to tell a story about Rep. Elijah Cummings, Baltimore, and “The Lion King.”

Representative Cummings’ funeral was today in Baltimore. He’ll be sorely missed in the city where he lived most of his life. Former President Barack Obama spoke. So did Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, a fellow Baltimorean.

But in Baltimore almost everyone speaks of Elijah Cummings. I know this because I’ve lived there 20 years. Many people have a Representative Cummings story. They’ve met him in church or at a fundraiser. He spoke at their school. He’s a friend of a relative. 

Here’s one story: A year ago he spoke at the funeral of a civic leader from my neighborhood. He saw her grandchildren there and he told them that when he thought about their grandmother he thought about “The Lion King.”

“I’m a ‘Lion King’ junkie,” Representative Cummings said.

He said his favorite scene was when the young Simba cries out for his father. He hears this simple reply: “He lives in you.”

Their grandmother lives in them, he told the grandchildren. She lives “within all of us,” he said. And now it’s our job to pick up her baton and “make the world a better place ... and she will look down, and say, well done.” 

Well done, sir. Well done.


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Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

Alkis Konstantinidis/reuters
Demonstrators take part in anti-government protests in Beirut Oct. 23, 2019. In a departure, protesters are flying the Lebanese flag, not those of individual political movements.
Natacha Pisarenko/AP
Argentina's presidential front-runner Alberto Fernández stands with his students at the end of an exam in his classroom at the University of Buenos Aires School of Law in Argentina, Oct. 16, 2019. Argentina holds elections Oct. 27.

The Explainer

Jeremy Schnittman/NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
In September, NASA released a simulation of what a black hole would look like, with a glowing disk of hot gas distorted as though in a fun house mirror.

The Monitor's View

Courtesy of John Beale
Fred Rogers (l.) with Francois Scarborough Clemmons (r.) from "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood."

A Christian Science Perspective

About this feature

A message of love

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
Workers in a small barbershop wait for customers in Old Delhi on Oct. 27, 2011. From Bujumbura to Boston and Japan to Afghanistan, whether with mullets or traditional braids, hairstyles can mark rebellious individualism or proud heritage. But no matter the final look, styling time can be respite from busy routine and an opportunity for quiet human connection. It’s a universal standard: Let someone else coax the tangles out. Let someone else care for you.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Jacob Turcotte. )

A look ahead

Come back Monday. We’ll have a terrific video about modern-day Creole cowboys – riders of color who challenge the false image of an all-white Old West.

More issues

2019
October
25
Friday
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