Month: September 2022
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The Power of Positive Declassifying | The New Yorker
The Power of Positive Declassifying Poof! Just like that, what was secret is now not secret, all through the power of your beautiful, enormous, manifesting mind. via The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/the-power-of-positive-declassifying As you become more practiced in the power of positive declassifying, you will acquire the ability to declassify entire tranches of documents in a…
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Putin’s Escalation in Ukraine Is a Losing Strategy | The New Yorker
Putin’s Escalation in Ukraine Is a Losing Strategy The push to claim new territory and mobilize more troops is unlikely to reverse Russia’s losses on the battlefield—but it could move the war into its most dangerous phase yet. via The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/putins-escalation-in-ukraine-is-a-losing-strategy We are fighting alone, whereas Ukraine has many allies. And, as the…
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Inside Russia’s Vast Surveillance State: ‘They Are Watching’ – The New York Times
‘They Are Watching’: Inside Russia’s Vast Surveillance State A cache of nearly 160,000 files from Russia’s powerful internet regulator provides a rare glimpse inside Vladimir V. Putin’s digital crackdown. Link: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/09/22/technology/russia-putin-surveillance-spying.html Unlike more technologically savvy counterparts in China, where internet surveillance is more automated, much of the work of Russian censors is done manually, the…
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In Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge Trials Come to an End – The New York Times
16 Years, 3 Convictions: The Khmer Rouge Trials Come to an End The last surviving leader of the regime that killed 1.7 million Cambodians lost his appeal on Thursday. Some victims think the long, expensive tribunal was a hollow exercise. Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/22/world/asia/cambodia-khmer-rouge-tribunal.html It spent over $330 million. In the end, it convicted just three people
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“My Son Hunter” Is Not the Hunter Biden Movie We Need, or the One We Deserve | The New Yorker
“My Son Hunter” Is Not the Hunter Biden Movie We Need, or the One We Deserve The Breitbart film is an amateurish, often batshit satire-cum-thriller-cum-melodrama-cum-propaganda-organ, which switches between modes with the unexpectedness of a Surrealist cutup. via The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/my-son-hunter-is-not-the-hunter-biden-movie-we-need-or-the-one-we-deserve The movie promises to include, among its revelations, “Sex, Prostitution, Drugs, Cronyism, Money Laundering,…
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Review: ‘We Are the Proud Boys,’ by Andy Campbell – The New York Times
The Proud Boys and the Long-Lived Anxieties of American Men Andy Campbell details the history of an ascendant far-right group. Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/18/books/review/andy-campbell-we-are-proud-boys.html “I have superhuman strength,” said McInnes, who publicly resigned from the Proud Boys in late 2018. “I’m smarter than ever before. I also crave my wife in a way that’s unprecedented.”
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Why Is Trump Openly Embracing QAnon Now? | The New Yorker
Why Is Trump Openly Embracing QAnon Now? The former President is likely signalling to prosecutors that he won’t go quietly, so they had better beware. via The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/why-is-trump-openly-embracing-qanon-now At a campaign rally in Youngstown, Ohio, on Saturday night, for the Republican Senate candidate J. D. Vance, Trump played background music that the Times described…
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How a War Correspondent Understands Far-Right Extremism | The New Yorker
How a War Correspondent Understands Far-Right Extremism Luke Mogelson discusses his new book, “The Storm Is Here: An American Crucible,” and the precarious future of democracy. via The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/newsletter/the-daily/how-a-war-correspondent-understands-far-right-extremism I was surprised by how frightened many Americans on the far right are. I was prepared for the anger, but I hadn’t really understood…
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Why Hasn’t the U.N. Accused China of Genocide in Xinjiang? | The New Yorker
Why Hasn’t the U.N. Accused China of Genocide in Xinjiang? A new report from the Human Rights Office found “widespread arbitrary deprivation of liberty of Uyghyrs and other predominantly Muslim communities.” Some activists think it didn’t go far enough. via The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/why-hasnt-the-un-accused-china-of-genocide-in-xinjiang The most important element of the report is that the violations…
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R. Crumb Means Some Offense – The New York Times
R. Crumb Means Some Offense (Published 2022) Even from his refuge in France, the comics artist still makes America’s pulse race. Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/15/t-magazine/r-crumb.html Encountering Crumb today feels like being in a staring match with an artist who’s still almost daring the culture to eject him. “The average people out there,” he tells me, “what they…
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How Trump Supporters Came to Hate the Police | The New Yorker
How Trump Supporters Came to Hate the Police At the Capitol riot and elsewhere, MAGA Republicans have leaped from “backing the blue” to attacking law-enforcement officials. via The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/how-trump-supporters-came-to-hate-the-police “We have guns, too, motherfuckers!” a man yelled over him. “With a lot bigger rounds!” Another added, “If we have to tool up, it’s…
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Getting Brittney Griner Home | The New Yorker
Getting Brittney Griner Home The attention commanded by the W.N.B.A. star, detained by Russia on a minor drug charge, could improve things for other Americans wrongfully detained around the world. via The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/persons-of-interest/getting-brittney-griner-home Brittney Yevette Griner grew up in Houston, Texas, the daughter of a homemaker and a cop. It was a fairly…
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How Book Bans Turned a Texas Town Upside Down – The New York Times
How Book Bans Turned a Texas Town Upside Down In a political environment where book-banning efforts are being used to drive voter sentiment, librarians find themselves on the front lines. Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/08/magazine/book-bans-texas.html By January, the commissioners court had voted to dissolve the library board and appointed a new one, which included those who had originally…
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The Obsessive Pleasures of Mechanical-Keyboard Tinkerers | The New Yorker
The Obsessive Pleasures of Mechanical-Keyboard Tinkerers On the right machine, typing can be like playing a Steinway grand. Is tactile perfection possible? via The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-obsessive-pleasures-of-mechanical-keyboard-tinkerers “Second to your cell phone, the thing you actually touch the most every day is probably your keyboard.” Why shouldn’t it be perfect?
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The Election Official Who Tried to Prove “Stop the Steal” | The New Yorker
The Election Official Who Tried to Prove “Stop the Steal” How a group of conspiracy theorists enlisted a county clerk in Colorado to find evidence that the 2020 vote was rigged. via The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/news/american-chronicles/the-election-official-who-tried-to-prove-stop-the-steal Frank told me that, after building an audience of covid skeptics with his revisionist statistics, he was invited by…
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The Safe Space That Became a Viral Nightmare – The New York Times
The Safe Space That Became a Viral Nightmare An argument at Arizona State’s multicultural center spiraled into a disaster for everyone involved. Who was to blame? Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/07/magazine/arizona-state-university-multicultural-center.html I first heard about the video from a colleague and friend at my university as we waited in line to pick up our kids after school in…
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The Mysterious Murder of Darya Dugina | The New Yorker
The Mysterious Murder of Darya Dugina Whoever killed Dugina likely meant to kill her more famous father, but that reveals little about the motives and identities of the perpetrators. via The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-mysterious-murder-of-darya-dugina At one point during the service, Leonid Slutsky, who leads the (misnamed) Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, called out, “One country,…
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Trump’s Special Master Request Left Him Open to Justice Dept. Strike – The New York Times
Trump’s Legal Jab Left Him Open to Justice Dept. Strike A legal back-and-forth produced a straightforward narrative of how Mr. Trump and his lawyers repeatedly dodged the government’s attempts to recover sensitive documents for more than a year. Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/31/us/politics/trump-justice-department-special-master.html But when the delegation tried to visit the storage room, the filing said, one of…