Новости за 27.09.2021

Kyrsten Sinema famously doesn’t talk to the press. She typically scuttles wordlessly past the gaggle of reporters staked out near the elevators senators use to get to the chamber when there are votes; it’s even difficult for reporters to get on her media list. But if she ever consented to an interview with me, I know what I’d ask: What is it exactly, senator, that makes you a Democrat?

President Biden has proposed, and Congress is currently debating, one of the most transformative pieces of legislation in modern history. Before we discuss what’s so transformative about it, let’s define what “it” is.

“I have nothing against the pipeline; they’ve always been good to the community,” bartender Mary Hesse said, voice rising. “My take is these protesters aren’t from here. They can go back to where they came from, and that includes Jane Fonda!”

In the closing days of the 2020 campaign, Joe Biden took a trip to Warm Springs, Georgia, where Franklin Delano Roosevelt used to go to receive treatment for polio. “This place, Warm Springs, is a reminder that though broken, each of us can be healed,” Biden said. “That as a people and a country, we can overcome a devastating virus. That we can heal a suffering world. That yes, we can restore our soul and save our country.”

“This is the girl,” a character thinks to himself on the first page of Alexandra Kleeman’s latest, Something New Under the Sun, as he watches what turns out to be a paparazzi video of a blonde actress snapping, á la Britney Spears, under the pressure of surveillance. That this phrase will make most readers think of David Lynch’s 2001 Mulholland Drive, a movie about delusion in which terrible things happen to an actress, is presumably no accident. This novel, a Hollywood satire that is also a profoundly unsettling work of sci-fi eco-horror... Читать дальше...

As vaccine mandates begin to take effect, thousands of Americans are scrambling to get religion. For those who oppose vaccination, a “sincerely held religious belief” might be the only way to avoid getting the shot—or losing their job. Online, one can find dozens of official-looking forms, letter templates, and tips on how to explain why your anti-vaccination beliefs are both sincere and religious. Some people are even attempting to turn the exemption business into a lucrative side hustle. Leaders... Читать дальше...