10 Labor Day Reads – The Big Picture

• Do you spend money more like a millennial or a boomer? Take this quiz to find out. Are you pouring money into day care, car loans or a luxury vacation? Your spending says a lot about your income bracket and whether you have kids. But there are also generational influences — and a growing gap between how older and younger generations spend money. (Washington Post)

• How America Can Break Its Highway Addiction: In the 1980s, an unlikely alliance slowed the construction of nature-destroying dams. We just might be able to pull it off again. (Slate)

• As a young Afghan interpreter, he helped a US officer. Then he needed help getting out: Karimi, a former U.S. military interpreter – like thousands of other Afghan allies vulnerable to Taliban reprisal – had been left behind. Instead, he and his family had made it as far as neighboring Pakistan. Interpreters like Karimi were supposed to be eligible for a pathway to the U.S. called a special immigrant visa. Now, after years of struggle, red tape and critical help from his former boss and friend, retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Will Selber, Karimi finally had his. (USA Today)

• The secret inside One Million Checkboxes: Teens wrote me a secret. I found them. (eieio.games)

• The 401(k) millionaires club hit a new record. What’s their secret? While this elite group benefited from surging stock prices, their gains are markers of steady investing over time and having the patience to ride out the rough patches. (Washington Post)

• The Business—and Politics—of Storytelling: “Everyone is talking about ‘narratives,’” Crisis of Narration begins. Han offers no specifics about this “everyone,” or about what they may have said in their discussions about narration. He adds merely that everyone’s discourse “betrays a crisis of narration.” Our ability to make sense of our own personal experiences within the framework of an autobiographical life story, and of our collective identity and aspirations within the framework of a political history, he declares, is being degrad­ed—as love, labor, etc., are said to have been degraded in Han’s other texts—by modern technology. (American Affairs Journal)

• A Strange Encounter With A Stranger: We all need picked up out of a roadside ditch now and then… (Slack Tide)

• Reflections On Turning 6-ZERO: This week, I turn 60. I graduated college 40 years ago. Holy Shit! Entering the spring of old age is no tiny matter. While allowing that tidbit to sink in, reflecting on a six-decade journey is worthwhile. Here are some lessons learned the hard way. (A Teachable Moment)

• Meet the megadonors pumping millions into the 2024 election. The 50 biggest donors this cycle have collectively pumped $1.5 billion into political committees and other groups competing in the election, according to a Washington Post analysis of Federal Election Commission data. (Washington Post)

• Larry David: My post-birth abortion: A Trumpian fantasy brought to life. (LD is a FN genius)  (Washington Post)