Month: November 2021
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A Mysterious Suicide Cluster | The New Yorker
A Mysterious Suicide Cluster Young people in a Missouri college town kept killing themselves. A parent of one victim is convinced that her son’s friend encouraged the deaths. Has a sinister figure been exposed, or is it a case of misplaced blame? via The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/04/19/a-mysterious-suicide-cluster Young people in a Missouri college town kept killing…
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Fact-checking Modi’s post-truth India – Rest of World
Fact-checking Modi’s India As the pandemic rages across the country, one team of fact-checkers contends with a post-truth dystopia. via Rest of World: https://restofworld.org/2021/fact-checking-modis-india/ On March 2, Alt News published a post showing that the attacker in the video wasn’t an Indian Muslim lashing out, unprovoked, at a Hindu, as the BJP spokesperson’s post might…
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Who Killed Mac Dre? | Passion of the Weiss
Who Killed Mac Dre? Over 1,200 documents from the Kansas City Police Department help shed light on one of hip-hop’s biggest mysteries. via Passion of the Weiss: https://www.passionweiss.com/2021/05/11/who-killed-mac-dre/ Despite multiple investigations and a string of alleged retaliation murders that left three more people dead, very little is known about the actual circumstances surrounding the death…
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Chinese dreams on Native American land: A tale of cannabis boom and bust – BBC News
Chinese dreams on Native American land: A tale of cannabis boom and bust How the pandemic cannabis boom led to chaos on the Navajo Nation, pitting two minorities against each other. via BBC News: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56835897 Just three days into their work, there was a knock at the door. Xia assumed it was someone calling them…
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Chicago PD automated policing program got this man shot twice
An automated policing program got this man shot twice The Chicago PD made a “heat list” to predict people involved with violent crimes — and instead, it caused them. via The Verge: https://www.theverge.com/22444020/chicago-pd-predictive-policing-heat-list “They wanna know why all these muthafuckin’ cops are here talkin’ with me,” McDaniel says. “And you know what? So do I.”
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The Plot to Kill the Olympics – Outside Online
The Plot to Kill the Olympics When Konstantin Grigorishin—über-wealthy Ukrainian businessman, aspiring philosopher, former pal of Russian oligarchs—introduced the upstart International Swimming League in 2019, he made the first move in an ambitious plan that could blow up Olympic sports and usher in a new era of athlete fairness. He also commenced a game of…
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The War on History Is a War on Democracy
The War on History Is a War on Democracy (Published 2021) A scholar of totalitarianism argues that new laws restricting the discussion of race in American schools have dire precedents in Europe. Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/29/magazine/memory-laws.html But by March 1932, hundreds of thousands of people were already starving to death in Soviet Ukraine, the breadbasket of the…
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The Bonnie and Clyde of MAGA World – POLITICO
The Bonnie and Clyde of MAGA World For a decade, Dustin Stockton and Jennifer Lawrence had surfed the wave of populist-right politics like few other people in America. Then came Jan. 6. via POLITICO: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/11/19/dustin-stockton-jen-lawrence-trump-profile-522823 Without money to pay attorneys, they say they reached out to the House Jan. 6 committee, and would like to…
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The QAnon JFK Cult in Dallas Is Tearing Families Apart
The QAnon JFK Cult in Dallas Is Tearing Families Apart “My sister may be too far gone, but it’s not too late to bring awareness to others. Do not fall into this trap.” Link: https://www.vice.com/en/article/qjb8mv/qanon-jfk-cult-tearing-families-apart According to Garner, her sister has so far handed over about $200,000 to the group, and is being forced to…
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Trying to Blur Memories of the Gulag, Russia Targets a Rights Group – The New York Times
Trying to Blur Memories of the Gulag, Russia Targets a Rights Group (Published 2021) Prosecutors are trying to shut down Memorial International, Russia’s most prominent human rights group, as the Kremlin moves to control the historical narrative of the Soviet Union. Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/22/world/europe/russia-memorial-prosecution.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage§ion=World%20News “Here you can see a vivid example of living memory which is…
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What It Takes to Climb the World’s Most Forbidding Cliffs
What It Takes to Climb the World’s Most Forbidding Cliffs After decades of dominance, Tommy Caldwell is still seeking new ascents. via The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/11/29/what-it-takes-to-climb-the-worlds-most-forbidding-cliffs Chasm View was flush against the wall, seemingly hanging in midair at the edge of the abyss. Below the great face was a small glacier, and beyond that was…
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The Incredible Tale of the Greatest Toy Man You’ve Never Known | Inc.com
Link: https://www.inc.com/magazine/202111/scott-eden/al-kahn-pokemon-yu-gi-oh-cabbage-patch-kids.html In the days of Quiz Wiz, Kahn says, he traveled the world hunting for new ideas as head of product development for a toy conglomerate called Coleco. He had one of those all-inclusive Pan Am tickets of jet-age lore, where you could fly anywhere in the world in first class: Just show up…
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The Notorious Mrs. Mossler
The Notorious Mrs. Mossler A Houston socialite was accused of plotting her husband’s murder—and of having an affair with her nephew. But Candace Mossler was only getting started. via Texas Monthly: https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/the-notorious-mrs-mossler/ Within days, however, detectives discovered that Candace had been leading a clandestine life of her own. For nearly two years, she’d been carrying…
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What Happened to Gun Culture
What Happened to Gun Culture During the past three decades, it became one of the most dangerous elements of the right. How much of that can be blamed on the N.R.A.? via The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/annals-of-inquiry/what-happened-to-gun-culture At first, when the young buyers started showing up in the marketing data, old-timers at Kimber and elsewhere made…
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At the End of the World, It’s Hyperobjects All the Way Down | WIRED
At the End of the World, It’s Hyperobjects All the Way Down Do you feel lost? Alone? Powerless in the face of forces beyond your control? Timothy Morton can help—if you’re ready to have your reality blown apart. via WIRED: https://www.wired.com/story/timothy-morton-hyperobjects-all-the-way-down/ The message some readers heard in the arrival of these phenomena was a frightening…
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The Truth About Kyle Rittenhouse’s Gun
Opinion | The Truth About Kyle Rittenhouse’s Gun (Published 2021) Kyle Rittenhouse’s semiautomatic rifle endangered everybody around him — and himself. Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/17/opinion/kyle-rittenhouse-guns.html In the Rittenhouse case, none of that was true. At every turn that night, Rittenhouse’s AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle made things worse, ratcheting up danger rather than quelling it. The gun transformed situations…
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He’s Remaking Criminal Justice in L.A. But How Far Is Too Far? – The New York Times
He’s Remaking Criminal Justice in L.A. But How Far Is Too Far? (Published 2021) To keep people out of prison, George Gascón is risking everything: rising violent crime, a staff rebellion and the votes that made him district attorney. Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/17/magazine/george-gascon-los-angeles.html In Los Angeles, the district attorney’s office focuses on whether a young person would…
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Can Russia’s Press Ever Be Free? | The New Yorker
Can Russia’s Press Ever Be Free? The journalists of Novaya Gazeta report on dangerous conflicts—and endure threats of their own. via The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/11/22/can-russias-press-ever-be-free There have been threats and attacks: Kostyuchenko has been physically assaulted, detained, and credibly threatened with terrifying regularity. In 2017, the paper twice received envelopes filled with an unidentified white powder…
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Nightmare of the Windowless Dorm Room
Nightmare of the Windowless Dorm Room Charlie Munger, a Warren Buffett crony, donated two hundred million dollars to a university for a gigantic new dorm. The catch: no windows. How did guinea pigs in a similar Munger housing experiment fare? via The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/11/22/nightmare-of-the-windowless-dorm-room
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Episode 374 – Jesse Michaels Part 2 (Operation Ivy, Classics Of Love, Big Rig) — Turned Out A Punk — Overcast
Jesse Michaels is back! — Turned Out A Punk Link: https://overcast.fm/+Dx0jHYwqc