Новости за 01.06.2020

Save for the rare clip of someone like Cornel West speaking God’s honest truth on CNN, mainstream media coverage of the nationwide protests against racist policing largely follows the same rules: mealy-mouthed language when describing police violence; clear, active language when describing confrontation initiated by protesters; and a both-sides approach to escalation that frames militarized police and protesters with lighters and water bottles as equally positioned. Responding over the weekend... Читать дальше...

In late 1961, a Miami chiropractor named Jerome Harold became outraged when he learned that his local grocery stores were selling ham imported from Poland. The country was still firmly under Communist control, but a new Kennedy administration policy had opened up trade with certain Eastern Bloc nations, hoping the exchange of goods would pry the nations away from the influence of the USSR. And so the United States had recently inked a deal to send iron ore to Poland in return for ham from the country’s farmers. Читать дальше...

At an event announcing $16 billion in federal relief for food producers on May 19, Donald Trump spoke at a podium flanked by tables stacked with corn, onions, apples, and other fruits and vegetables. “The American farmer is the backbone of our country,” Trump said. “There’s no president that’s treated the farmers like Trump.” Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue briefly donned, and then removed, an American flag face mask.

On an early November morning in 1969, Richard Oakes, shirtless but with his boots still strapped on, leaped off the side of the three-masted boat carrying him and a group of Native student activists to Alcatraz Island. Three others followed, racing ahead of the boat that slowly trailed them. It was perfectly cinematic, the kind of thing people might tell stories about 50 years on, which was the point. As Kent Blansett pointed out in his biography of Oakes, Journey to Freedom: Richard Oakes, Alcatraz... Читать дальше...

It’s long been an article of faith among Democrats that they have nothing to learn from Republicans. Democrats tend instead to believe that the GOP is the party of evil that achieved power through underhanded methods such as suppressing the votes of minorities. While this is true to some extent, Republicans have also used and mastered methods that are simply Politics 101. Democrats could copy any number of these techniques without reservation—and with no small benefit. Here are a couple of cases in point. Читать дальше...

“I think I was depressed,” Barbara Ehrenreich said when I asked why she wrote her novel, Kipper’s Game. Published in 1993 and reissued earlier this year, the story is part science fiction, part thriller, part mystery, part romance: Della, a recently divorced scientist, is searching for her son, Kipper, a video game developer who went missing a few years ago. He may or may not provide the connection between the other characters—radio hosts preaching apocalyptic doom over pirate frequencies, scientists... Читать дальше...

Topher Bloomquist had been living in his car for nearly a year when California imposed its stay-at-home order to combat the novel coronavirus pandemic. Bloomquist, a 43-year-old former I.T. worker from San Diego, was scraping by as a food courier for delivery apps like Postmates and DoorDash. “I was keeping my head above water, but it was just above water,” Bloomquist told me. That was, until a Shop-Vac fell from a truck while he was driving and smashed into his car. The engine limped along but eventually stopped running. Читать дальше...