Новости за 11.09.2020

If it feels to you as though the Covid-19 emergency is never going to end, that may be because September 13 will mark its six-month anniversary. Six months is a very long time for a public health emergency to last—too long, we can all agree. But it’s more than enough time for the federal government to convey the message that any business that fails to provide workers reasonable protections on the job from coronavirus will pay dearly for its negligence.

If one thing is clear about American history and politics, it is this: The United States has never honored the idea that everyone is created equal. It has never valued every human life the same, and it’s hard to find a better recent reminder of this than the coronavirus pandemic, in which poor people of color have been more likely to be exposed, more likely to lose their jobs, and more likely to die. There are large groups of people about whom this country simply does not care, and there is not much hope that November’s election... Читать дальше...

Writing for The New Republic, Clio Chang recently described her three-month attempt to receive unemployment benefits in New York after being laid off from her job at Vice. As a journalist who had been covering unemployment until the moment she needed to apply for it, she was better positioned than most Americans to navigate the system. And yet, despite living in a deep-blue state, she had to jump through hoops for an entire summer just to get a benefit she very clearly qualified for.

Brady Feeney hadn’t even taken any classes at Indiana University when he fell ill with Covid-19. Three weeks after he moved to Bloomington, the incoming freshman was in the emergency room, struggling to breathe. Before his illness, Feeney had been a perfectly healthy teenager, with no preexisting conditions. In high school, he was a three-time all-state football player and won two state titles in Missouri. But after two weeks of “hell” fighting the virus, his mother said, his bloodwork indicated possible heart problems. Читать дальше...

The “statement on a conservative future for the American labor movement,” released just before Labor Day by the fledgling think tank American Compass, opens, naturally, with a celebration of “economic freedom,” “limited government,” and markets. All of these things are good, American Compass claims, but something has nevertheless gone bad. 

At the beginning of Siegfried, the third opera in Richard Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelung cycle, the dwarf Mime is trying to repair a magic sword that was broken to pieces in the previous installment. But every time he offers the sword to Siegfried, the young hero easily shatters it again: “What use is this shiny sharpness / If the steel’s not hard and true!” he complains. Finally Siegfried takes matters into his own hands: Instead of welding the pieces back together, he grinds them into powder and reforges the metal. Читать дальше...

It all starts out harmless enough: A Manhattan couple, after years spent frequenting the city’s farmers markets, became increasingly focused on eating local and understanding where their food came from. They had visions of leaving behind their towering steel surroundings and starting their own farm upstate. Problem was, neither of them—one an architect and the other an executive at a cheese company—knew anything about farming or the agriculture industry. So a novel idea popped into their heads... Читать дальше...

In the fall of 1960, Melvin Van Peebles stood on the Champs-Élysées with wet cheeks and three reels of film under his arm. His life was in shambles. Hours before, the aspiring film director had been lauded during a screening of his films at the famed Cinémathèque in Paris. He was the guest of its founder, legendary cinephile Henri Langlois. After the event, Langlois kissed Van Peebles on both cheeks and drove away. As the afterglow of the applause faded, Van Peebles realized he was alone—stranded in France, with no money and no way home. Читать дальше...