Новости за 13.01.2020

On the eve of what was ludicrously called Operation Iraqi Freedom, I was a teenager in Boise, Idaho, protesting in front of the state Capitol with the Idaho Green Party, a scattering of mostly Gen X neo-hippies. It was, in retrospect, an incredibly dismal time to cut one’s teeth as any kind of anti-war activist. Though there were mass worldwide demonstrations—larger than even the Vietnam war protests, everyone involved kept pointing out—the war machinery churned on. In March 2003, the United States... Читать дальше...

In April last year, 22 former fire and emergency chiefs from across Australia issued a statement just before a federal election, calling on Australia’s two major political parties—one of them likely to form the next government—to increase national emergency resources, such as large firefighting aircraft. According to a former fire commissioner who started fighting fires in the 1970s, Australia was only equipped to deal with the weather conditions of that era. He himself said he could no longer predict fire patterns. Читать дальше...

The Rooney Rule, a policy that requires any team in the National Football League to interview at least one diverse candidate for any open head coach or senior executive position, was introduced in 2003, not due to the NFL’s benevolence (as ESPN personality Bomani Jones has reminded everyone) but because the year before, magniloquent lawyer Johnnie Cochran and attorney Cyrus Mehri threatened to sue the league for discrimination. They had good cause: In 2002, Herm Edwards of the New York Jets and... Читать дальше...

The proceedings began with three fast, muted raps on the door. Layleen Cubilette-Polanco’s family and friends, joined by many, many people who’d never even met her, filled every row in the small, mostly beige hearing room on the third floor of the federal courthouse, somewhere between downtown Brooklyn and the waterfront. Five months before, on June 7, 2019, Layleen, a young transgender woman, died while she was held on $500 bail in New York City’s despised jail complex on Rikers Island.

Remember how 2018 was the year of the grifter? We were inundated with juicy stories of amazing con artists, from Anna Delvey’s rich girl scam to Elizabeth Holmes’s other rich girl scam. The summer of that year was christened “scam season” by The New York Times’ Amanda Hess. If 2018 was the year of charlatans scamming each other out of their money, 2020 is the year of presidential candidates scamming us out of our limited, precious attention. And just like in 2018, it’s the rich people who are perpetuating the biggest frauds. Читать дальше...

Who gets remembered, who gets lionized, in the history of leftist politics? Amy Aronson’s new biography of the feminist socialist reformer Crystal Eastman—the first full-length treatment of her life—grapples with this question up front. During the 1910s, Eastman was internationally famous, a firebrand speaker and leader in the fights for women’s suffrage, labor reform, international peace, and the preservation of civil liberties. She helped found the National Woman’s Party, the Woman’s Peace Party... Читать дальше...