Month: April 2021
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Blake Bailey’s former Lusher students on how their eighth grade teacher groomed them.
Blake Bailey’s Students Worshipped Him. They Trusted Him. When They Grew Up, He Preyed On Them. What it was like to be in Mr. Bailey’s eighth grade English class. via Slate Magazine: https://slate.com/culture/2021/04/blake-bailey-lusher-journals-teacher.amp Mr. Bailey had opinions about many of Sam’s options. One female classmate, the teacher wrote, “is a splendid girl. I never have…
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‘We are witnessing a crime against humanity’: Arundhati Roy on India’s Covid catastrophe | Coronavirus | The Guardian
Arundhati Roy on India’s Covid catastrophe: ‘We are witnessing a crime against humanity’ The long read: It’s hard to convey the full depth and range of the trauma, the chaos and the indignity that people are being subjected to. Meanwhile, Modi and his allies are telling us not to complain via the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/apr/28/crime-against-humanity-arundhati-roy-india-covid-catastrophe There…
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U.S. Built the Afghan Military Over 20 Years. Will It Last One More? – The New York Times
How Long Can the Afghan Security Forces Last on Their Own? (Published 2021) As the United States withdraws from Afghanistan, it leaves behind broken and battered Afghan security forces to defend the country from the Taliban and other threats. Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/28/world/asia/afghanistan-security-forces.html Until recently, Lieutenant Atash was in charge of several police outposts. One sold out…
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Extremists Find a Financial Lifeline on Twitch – The New York Times
Extremists Find a Financial Lifeline on Twitch (Published 2021) QAnon adherents and other far-right influencers are making thousands of dollars broadcasting election and vaccine conspiracy theories on the streaming site. Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/27/technology/twitch-livestream-extremists.html Joan Donovan, a Harvard University researcher who studies disinformation and online extremism, said streamers who rely on their audience’s generosity to fund themselves…
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Terrorist Group Steps Into Venezuela as Lawlessness Grows – The New York Times
Terrorist Group Steps Into Venezuela as Lawlessness Grows (Published 2021) With Venezuela in shambles, criminals and insurgents run large stretches of the nation’s territory. We traveled through one of the regions under their control. Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/26/world/americas/venezuela-terrorist-colombia-ELN.html “Venezuela is sleepwalking into fragmentation by armed groups,” said Andrei Serbin Pont, a Latin America security analyst. “Recovering control…
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Is an Activist’s Pricey House News? Facebook Alone Decides. – The New York Times
Is an Activist’s Pricey House News? Facebook Alone Decides. (Published 2021) The New York Post has complained that Facebook is blocking and downplaying its stories. But the platform doesn’t pay any special deference to journalists. Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/25/business/facebook-nypost.html There’s something depressing about an internet in which you’re left choosing between Mr. Zuckerberg and Mr. Murdoch, as…
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The Slander Industry – The New York Times
The Slander Industry (Published 2021) Who makes money from destroying reputations online? Link: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/04/24/technology/online-slander-websites.html We soon discovered a secret, hidden behind a smokescreen of fake companies and false identities. The people facilitating slander and the self-proclaimed good guys who help remove it are often one and the same.
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Tommy Robinson, the Far-Right Agitator, Lifted by Trump, Turns to Russia – The New York Times
U.K. Far Right, Lifted by Trump, Now Turns to Russia (Published 2021) The anti-Islam agitator Tommy Robinson struck gold in America. Keeping it might require help from Moscow, where other British far-right activists are also finding friends. Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/23/world/europe/uk-far-right-tommy-robinson-russia.html A former soccer hooligan and founder of the English Defence League, one of Britain’s most notorious…
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The ‘Herald Square Bomber’ Who Wasn’t – The New York Times
The ‘Herald Square Bomber’ Who Wasn’t (Published 2021) After 9/11, U.S. authorities used informants to secure hundreds of terror convictions. But did they help create plots where none existed? Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/15/magazine/fbi-international-terrorism-informants.html In its rush to find informants to search for terrorists, the government had unwittingly created an incentive system. Many had committed crimes and agreed…
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“I Felt Hate More Than Anything”: How an Active Duty Airman Tried to Start a Civil War — ProPublica
“I Felt Hate More Than Anything”: How an Active Duty Airman Tried to Start a Civil War Steven Carrillo’s path to the Boogaloo Bois shows the hate group is far more organized and dangerous than previously known. via ProPublica: https://www.propublica.org/article/i-felt-hate-more-than-anything-how-an-active-duty-airman-tried-to-start-a-civil-war In a federal indictment unsealed on Friday, prosecutors said Carrillo and four members of the…
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Opinion | I Met a Taliban Leader and Lost Hope for My Country – The New York Times
Opinion | I Met a Taliban Leader and Lost Hope for My Country (Published 2021) Afghan women know the cost of the wars started by men, and we will continue to suffer after American forces withdraw. Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/21/opinion/Afghanistan-Taliban-Women.html As men continue to bicker over the future and control of Afghanistan, I have already lost my…
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They Hacked McDonald’s Ice Cream Machines—and Started a Cold War | WIRED
The Cold War Over Hacking McDonald’s Ice Cream Machines Secret codes. Legal threats. Betrayal. How one couple built a device to fix McDonald’s notoriously broken soft-serve machines—and how the fast-food giant froze them out. via WIRED: https://www.wired.com/story/they-hacked-mcdonalds-ice-cream-makers-started-cold-war/ “No one at McDonald’s or Taylor will explain why there’s a secret, undisclosed menu,” O’Sullivan wrote in one…
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Iran Rattled as Israel Repeatedly Strikes Key Targets – The New York Times
Iran Rattled as Israel Repeatedly Strikes Key Targets (Published 2021) Recent attacks suggest that Israel has a clandestine network inside Iran and that Iranian security services have been powerless to break it. Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/20/world/middleeast/iran-israeli-attacks.html In less than nine months, an assassin on a motorbike fatally shot an Al Qaeda commander given refuge in Tehran, Iran’s…
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Alex Jones Faces a Reckoning – The New York Times
Alex Jones’s Podcasting Hecklers Face Their Foil’s Downward Slide (Published 2021) Dan Friesen and Jordan Holmes turned their Infowars-skewering podcast into a business. In the post-Trump era, they’re documenting Mr. Jones’s reckoning. Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/18/us/politics/alex-jones.html “We used to talk about his outbursts at the very beginning as being so fake, just like: ‘This is performative outrage.…
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One America News Network Stays True to Trump – The New York Times
One America News Network Stays True to Trump (Published 2021) A recent OAN segment said there were “serious doubts about who’s actually president,” and another blamed “anti-Trump extremists” for the Capitol attack. Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/18/business/media/oan-one-america-trump.html He recalled seeing a photo of someone in the Capitol mob holding a flag emblazoned with the OAN logo. “I was…
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Opinion | On Afghanistan, Biden Ditches the Generals – The New York Times
Opinion | Biden Ditches the Generals, Finally (Published 2021) Another casualty in the graveyard of empires. Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/17/opinion/sunday/biden-afghanistan-war.html Gates told reporters he had only just learned the “eye-opener” that the Taliban were attracting so many fighters because they paid more. Generals in Afghanistan said the Taliban were giving fighters $250 to $300 a month, while…
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Adam McKay on How To Be Political and Entertaining and Not Destroy the World – The New York Times
Adam McKay on How To Be Political and Entertaining and Not Destroy the World (Published 2021) “Is there a sincere attempt to understand the world, or is the action just one of manipulation and distraction?” Link: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/04/12/magazine/adam-mckay-interview.html This reminds me: I read that you and your mom have very different politics — she’s a Trump…
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The John Patterson Kidnapping in Mexico – The Atlantic
A Kidnapping Gone Very Wrong In 1974, John Patterson was abducted by the People’s Liberation Army of Mexico—a group no one had heard of before. The kidnappers wanted $500,000, and insisted that Patterson’s wife deliver the ransom. via The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/05/john-patterson-kidnapping-mexico/618396/ “That young 31-year-old woman, she acted with no help, no one to hold her;…