From the Magazine: Is George Soros' legacy under threat?

The annual New York issue: 24 hours. 23 photographers. One city. View in [Browser]( | Add nytdirect@nytimes.com to your address book. [The New York Times]( [The New York Times]( Friday, July 20, 2018 [NYTimes.com »]( The New York Issue [From the Magazine: George Soros and his losses]( By THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE [Damon Winter captures an intimate portrait of George Soros for The New York Times Magazine.]( Damon Winter captures an intimate portrait of George Soros for The New York Times Magazine. Damon Winter/ The New York Times. Dear Reader, I hope you’ve had a good week. I spent mine thinking about [this week’s cover story on George Soros]( the 87-year-old billionaire from New York who made his fortune running a hedge fund and now operates as a full-time philanthropist, political activist and freelance statesman. Michael Steinberger, a regular contributor to the magazine, writes an intimate account of how Soros, who once bet big on liberal democracy by donating vast sums to Democratic candidates and progressive causes, now finds himself under the weight of the current political climate that threatens his legacy. Although he has been a controversial figure in Europe since the 90s, anti-Soros sentiment is a more recent phenomenon in the United States: right-wing efforts to demonize Soros have become unrelenting and quite successful, with Twitter as the outlet for his haters to trace virtually every national trauma. It even lends Soros a little vulnerability: For our cover portrait captured by photographer Damon Winter, [Soros declined to smile]( saying there wasn’t much reason to be hopeful. It’s an authentic, captivating look at how a public figure has evolved in the national consciousness over the decades. There a lot more to read from this week’s issue. I’ve noted some highlights below. [THE WATER WARS IN ARIZONA]( It begins with a family’s finding muddy water running from their faucets, brown like the desert outside. In Arizona, industrial agriculture thrives thanks to lax regulations, but excessive corporate farming is slowly depleting the reserves of underground water in the valley. A man delivers water throughout Sulphur Springs Valley to residents whose household wells have gone dry, and these deliveries have become their sole measure of water security. This is the story of how a valley was slowly drained of its water reserves, but it is also the story of a family’s reckoning with the reality of a waterless future, as the aquifer retreats quietly beneath them. [YOUNG JEAN LEE, THE FIRST ASIAN-AMERICAN PLAYWRIGHT ON BROADWAY]( For the playwright Young Jean Lee, nervous laughter from an audience could mean more than a standing ovation. “The twisty, turbulent, argumentative work of Young Jean Lee is full of such traps,” writes Parul Sehgal in her profile of the artist. “Do you get the joke, or are you the joke? Your responses become part of the play, part of what you watch with fascination and dread.” Lee is the first female Asian-American playwright on Broadway; her play “Straight White Men” opens on July 23. Read Sehgal’s masterful profile of Lee and learn how she takes aim at identity and watches the audience squirm. [PARKER POSEY'S LOVE FOR GEN X]( When Parker Posey lived in Los Angeles, she would drive around and roll the window down and say, “I’m a vegan!” In this week’s Talk column, the actress talks to Molly Lambert about her forthcoming memoir, moments in her life like having $1.75 in her bank account, her mentor Nora Ephron and her abiding love for her generation. [A PERFECT SALAD WITH CANNED TUNA]( The days in New York are hot and long, and that’s the perfect season to make the summery salad that writer Tejal Rao first had at Cicatriz in Mexico City, which changed her mind about canned tuna. With salted cucumbers, chunks of ripe avocado, lightly pickled onions and lots of fresh herbs, all lavishly seasoned with lime juice and olive oil, it's the kind of salad where someone picks up the bowl and drinks the tangy elixir of lime juice and olive oil that pools at the bottom, before the server can take it away. You don’t want to leave any of it behind. [THE HISTORY BEHIND THE GRAFFITI OF WAR]( About 5,000 years ago, someone decided to paint a battle scene between archers in a cave in Spain — perhaps one of the first instances of what we’d call “war graffiti” today. That person was probably an early grunt who had just finished griping that the chow was bad and that he’d had to march too far that day. Like the American-style graffiti that dominated cities across the country in the 1970s and 1980s, the drawings of war are part of a culture that comes with its own vocabulary, characters and aesthetics. They serve a far greater purpose than merely offering a glimpse into the past: They are a defiant and public proclamation of a human being’s existence. [THE LESSONS TO BE LEARNED FROM MEDICAL CASE STUDIES]( The Pulitzer-prize-winning writer Siddhartha Mukherjee makes a case for case studies that describe, in great detail, the afflictions of their subjects. No diagnosis, only description, observations without explanations. Citing a case report by another legendary medical writer, Oliver Sacks, Mukherjee invokes the value of a medical case study in which the doctor does not turn into the sorcerer; the mystery is not solved, no rabbit is extracted from a hat, but the report makes you want to go on reading it forever. As scientific journals prioritize randomized studies and mechanism-driven investigations — the “why” over the “what” — Mukherjee longs for the kind of writing that doctors like Sacks published, with the vividness to their description and the idiosyncrasies of suffering that can be found only in real testimony. Onward, Jake Silverstein Editor-in-Chief [Letter of Recommendation: Used Clothing]( By DANIEL FROMSON You might want to forget that a stranger once owned that jacket you bought — but you shouldn’t. [John Chiara’s Uncanny City]( New York has rarely looked as grand and otherworldly as it does in these photographs. ADVERTISEMENT [After a Soccer Ball to the Head, Why Did He Develop ‘Brain Sloshing’?]( By LISA SANDERS, M.D. Help Dr. Lisa Sanders get to the bottom of unsolved medical mysteries for a future documentary show. This week: Can you diagnose one of her own patients who experiences hazy sensations in his brain? [Parents Aren’t Good Judges of Their Kids’ Sugar Intake]( By GRETCHEN REYNOLDS Three-quarters of parents underestimated the total amount of sugar in common foods like juice, yogurt and pizza. If you enjoy our newsletter forward this email to a friend and help the magazine grow. Getting this from a friend? [Sign up to get the magazine newsletter](. Let us know how we can improve at: [newsletters@nytimes.com](mailto:newsletters@nytimes.com?subject=Newsletter%20Feedback%20NYT%20Magazine) Check out our [full list of free newsletters]( including [Summer in the City]( The best of what to see and do and eat and drink each week. 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