It’s tempting to ignore the former President’s expressions of rage, but the stakes for American democracy demand that attention be paid.
via The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/trumps-bloody-campaign-promises
According to human-rights organizations, Duterte’s extralegal rampage killed more than ten thousand people.
Over time, Donald Trump has been no less truthful about his intentions than Rodrigo Duterte
In one small Mexican city, journalists who tried to expose cartel violence and government corruption became swept up in the murders devouring the country.
Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/03/magazine/mexican-journalists-assassinations.html
But the man on the other end spoke in a way that was instantly familiar. Linares had come to know that pitched, menacing tone from years of run-ins with every kind of Mexican gangster.
“This is Commander Eagle,” the voice said. “I’m from the Jalisco New Generation Cartel.”
The rifle is a consumer product to which advertisers successfully attached an identity—one that has translated to a particularly intractable politics.
via The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/how-the-ar-15-became-an-american-brand
Watching the video last summer, I couldn’t help recalling, given Aldean’s association with a mass shooting, that one thing that was tried in a small town in recent American history was the massacre that killed nineteen children in Uvalde, Texas, last year; that law enforcement in that small town waited in the halls for an hour without confronting the shooter; that the small town’s only pediatrician later testified to Congress about identifying the dead by the cartoons on their clothes because their bodies were too damaged. Considered in this light, “Try That in a Small Town” becomes an allegory about posturing over perceived threats to national integrity while ignoring the lived reality of a horror too disturbing to mediate.
Divorce, trouble peeing, and stealing hotel food: Why did a job network become everyone’s favorite place for oversharing?
via Business Insider: https://www.businessinsider.com/how-linkedin-got-weird-work-life-blurred-lines-of-oversharing-2023-9
Take one post from Peter Rota, an SEO specialist from Massachusetts. “I have a secret,” he wrote to his thousands of followers in August 2022. “Most people are not even aware this is a real thing. Since 2015, I have struggled with peeing in public restrooms.”
Her: And so I would be a source and you would be a non-source. There’s fillers and players. So I would be a player and you would be a filler. Because you’re on a movie set type thing.
Me: Yeah.
You got it. You should look into it. It’s a real thing. And people are playing, they’re gamers. And they’re playing games with people’s lives. And it’s real. I’m not okay with it.
And then there’s, I think the non-source people are robotic. With skin and they have no soul. I mean just check it out. Like I, I believe some of it, but I can’t believe that it would be so extravagant like this. Do you know what I mean? If it was a movie set, like come on. But it’s weird because at night I can see almost like people in the background like and there’s lights lighting like, like it would be a stage or a set. It’s crazy.
So would it, would a non-source person know they were a non-source person?
Yeah, and the source person doesn’t know.
So I, I wouldn’t know that my life is a movie?
Okay.
But you would. Wild. I gotta look into this.
Man, you do. And then there’s a thing called Pareidolia where you see faces in trees, in dirt, piles, wherever you look. It’s a real thing. Haven’t you ever looked and seen like, like people, like I see, sometimes I see people in trees. Sometimes I see people in places that there really shouldn’t be and they’re blended in with whatever it is, wherever they’re at.
Like I, I drove up and sat behind the LDS conference. Where it goes up that hill. And I sat on the hill and I, I, I would give you my life that it was real. There was a person dressed exactly how the back of the building was and he was just, you couldn’t see his head, but you could see his shirt and it had a black stripe. And I could tell it was a freaking person. Just standing there. Just standing there.
Whoa.
And I, I don’t know what their thing is or what the motive or agenda is. You want to see something really weird. Go to 8th South and 2nd East. And halfway down there’s a Catholic church. Drive into the back and pull in and start watching the plants. I shit you not, I would have gave up my life once again and my soul that that was real. They’re people and they’re all doing nasty pornographic shit. You can see their faces, their arms, their movements.
Whoa.
And dude, I would have gave up my life that very moment. And I said, I’m going to find out what’s wrong. I got out of the van, walk towards the plant and there was nothing but heat. So like is it when you get close, it goes away.
How do they get out? How do they get away?
There’s a door there that they can go. I feel like there’s doorways to different realms. Okay, right next to us that we can’t. That’s why all these weird paranormal creatures are coming into play and shit. I’m not I don’t know what to believe but really ultimately I have faith in God my creator and I want to believe that but so many things down here at the grass. When you have your eyes open, you’re looking you’re looking around. So you’re seeing How about how’s that saying go believe 90% of what you see and 10% of what you hear? Or something like that.
Well, let me ask you this. I’ll look into the source non-source. Is there anything you can do to protect yourself or or what is what do you do there?
No, I really I really don’t know. That would probably be something very I think would be dangerous to even try and find out because if they know, you know, I mean, you know, I don’t know if I believe it. I mean, it’s just too extravagant. This is all too extravagant. But what if what if I’m smart enough and intelligent enough to implement what if you know and it’s just so crazy, you know, I want you to go over there tonight. I want you to I’m going it right after that.
I’m going to go check out that conference center.
You got to do it in the dark. You got to do it when it’s dark. Okay, and I’m telling you sure as I’m standing here. You’re going to see what I saw. And I really maybe get my number and call me after you know, yeah.
Would you give me your number?
Okay, and just text me what you saw because I’m about ready to go completely viral. Okay, it’s real but I found out the plant is a devil’s snare. I found out the name of the plant and there was this drunk guy and he fell by the stairs. But as he was laying there, I should you know, I’m not lying. I tell you that on my daddy’s grave when he was laying there where I turned and looked at his head it his head turned into a pig. Whoa, you can see the two ears. And his snout and now when you go over there and look where he was plant is dead. There’s something I don’t know what I don’t know what is going on.
Yeah.
I’m telling you something going on. We went to Home Depot to get something and it was really late at night. Yeah, it was closing time and we walked out and there was a semi there with a loading truck and he was loading up about 25 cars. Where in the fuck’s all the people? Where are all the people?
Right.
I don’t get it. I need I need somebody.
I’m sure you’re level-headed.
I’m a level-headed person. I don’t need drugs. I do Xanax. Yeah, my anxiety. But other than that, that’s why I put my life on it. That’s real and I’ll put my life on it that you’ll see the same shit.
I’ll check it out.
It is fucking crazy. And if you don’t feel comfortable take take a buddy with you. Take a buddy always have two people because if you don’t if if you are alone, how are you going to explain? It’s hard. It’s hard to explain. So it would be cool to have a buddy see what you saw and don’t say anything of what you’re seeing. Wait till wait wait until he says. Oh my God. Just show up just show up and let them experience it. Yeah, and see what they say. Yeah, yeah, yeah, because that’s the best way to verify that shit. Wow, and if I’ve seen it my friends seen it. When you show the picture people are tripping out on it.
Yeah.
Now if you do see it, it’s real right?
A veteran reporter looks back on when he was laid off from his newspaper gig and instead of taking a dead-end desk job turned to running van loads of marijuana across state lines
via Rolling Stone: https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/confessions-of-a-weed-smuggler-1234825272/
This is something they don’t tell you about criminal activity. When you’re facing economic hardship, you’re also usually facing mind-numbing, soul-destroying drudgery at the jobs that are available to you. It’s not just that they don’t pay you enough. They also make you feel dead. A lot of people turn to illegal or otherwise questionable activity simply because they want to feel alive.
The Pentagon’s Replicator initiative envisions swarms of low-cost autonomous machines that could remake the American arsenal.
via The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/ai-and-the-next-generation-of-drone-warfare
As she envisions it, there will be “constellations” of these systems “flung into space, scores at a time”; pods of small, solar-propelled boats outfitted with sensors, trawling the ocean and relaying real-time intelligence; and “flocks” of aerial drones, some conducting surveillance and others carrying weapons
The Hulu series tackles depression, the carceral state, and racial tension in L.A. It’s also laugh-out-loud funny.
via The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/on-television/how-this-fool-became-the-summers-best-comedy
Luis is impulsive, Napoleonic, and stuck in the values he held when he entered prison; Julio is self-important, neurotic, and paralyzed by choice even in porn. The protagonists aren’t irreproachable role models but something rarer and more valuable: relatable assholes
Uncovering the location of this year’s ‘White Boy Summer Fest’, attended by Finnish and international neo-Nazis.
via bellingcat: https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2023/08/31/saunas-and-swastikas-finlands-summertime-neo-nazi-meet-up/
They called the gathering ‘White Boy Summer Fest’ after an internet meme co-opted by far-right extremists. Bellingcat first investigated the phenomenon in 2021. Run by a far-right cultural collective and combat sports group, the event was first held last year, and organisers have indicated plans to make White Boy Summer Fest (WBS) an annual affair.
Joe Biden was determined to get out of Afghanistan—no matter the cost.
via The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/10/afghanistan-withdrawal-biden-decision/675116/
Sullivan sometimes felt as if every member of the American elite was simultaneously asking for his help. When he left secure rooms, he would grab his phone and check his personal email accounts, which overflowed with pleas. This person just had the Taliban threaten them. They will be shot in 15 hours if you don’t get them out. Some of the senders seemed to be trying to shame him into action. If you don’t do something, their death is on your hands.
Very rarely can we see an entire system reflected in one person. The creator and executive producer of “Saturday Night Live” is such a person.
via Longreads: http://longreads.com/2023/08/17/lorne-michaels-saturday-night-live/
Just as SNL’s maleness empowered its men to mistreat their female colleagues, the show’s whiteness made it an environment where, to name just a few examples: Black actors were given few and stereotypical characters by white writers; Michaels was unlikely to place two sketches about Black characters in succession; performers wore blackface well into the early 2000s, with Michaels defending the practice in 2008; and future The White Lotus and Insecure star Natasha Rothwell resorted to raising her hand in order to pitch jokes in the writers’ room less than a decade ago. The show’s poor record is difficult to divorce from its leadership: if SNL was ever a show by white men, for white men, it was because Michaels didn’t care to make it anything else.
How the U.S. government came to rely on the tech billionaire—and is now struggling to rein him in.
via The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/08/28/elon-musks-shadow-rule
In the past twenty years, against a backdrop of crumbling infrastructure and declining trust in institutions, Musk has sought out business opportunities in crucial areas where, after decades of privatization, the state has receded. The government is now reliant on him, but struggles to respond to his risk-taking, brinkmanship, and caprice. Current and former officials from nasa, the Department of Defense, the Department of Transportation, the Federal Aviation Administration, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration told me that Musk’s influence had become inescapable in their work, and several of them said that they now treat him like a sort of unelected official. One Pentagon spokesman said that he was keeping Musk apprised of my inquiries about his role in Ukraine and would grant an interview with an official about the matter only with Musk’s permission. “We’ll talk to you if Elon wants us to,” he told me. In a podcast interview last year, Musk was asked whether he has more influence than the American government. He replied immediately, “In some ways.” Reid Hoffman told me that Musk’s attitude is “like Louis XIV: ‘L’état, c’est moi.’ ”
How Yevgeny Prigozhin’s private military company went from fighting alongside Russian forces in Ukraine to staging a mutiny at home.
via The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/08/07/inside-the-wagner-uprising
(Prigozhin did not respond to a request for comment.)
In Southeast Oklahoma, a father-son reporting duo’s series on the county sheriff led to an explosive revelation.
via The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/07/31/a-small-town-paper-lands-a-very-big-story
He developed such severe anxiety and depression that he rarely went out; he gave his firearms to a relative in case he felt tempted to harm himself. Angie was experiencing panic attacks and insomnia. “We were not managing,” she said
Lara Logan was once a respected “60 Minutes” correspondent. Now she trades in conspiracy theories that even far-right media disavow. What happened?
via The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/07/lara-logan-60-minutes-correspondent-conspiracy-theories/674168/
In October, during an appearance on Newsmax, Logan declared that the global elite “want us eating insects” while they “dine on the blood of children.”
It was a groundbreaking smash, but things got so toxic behind the scenes that even co-showrunner Damon Lindelof now says: “I failed.” A powerful excerpt from the new book ‘Burn It Down.’
via Vanity Fair: https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2023/05/lost-tv-show-culture
But an extreme version. “I can only describe it as hazing. It was very much middle school and relentlessly cruel. And I’ve never heard that much racist commentary in one room in my career,” Owusu-Breen recalled. Here is a partial roster of statements sources heard while working at Lost. The first four were heard by Owusu-Breen, as well as another individual I spoke to:
Librarians once worried about shushing patrons. Now they have to deal with mental health episodes, the homelessness crisis, and random violence
via The Walrus: https://thewalrus.ca/future-of-libraries/
“I have been threatened with violence on a number of occasions, knifed and punched in the face,” one respondent reported. “Verbal threats of rape, at least once a month,” said another. “As time passes, I have felt more unsafe in my workplace—which surprises me,” said a third. “I love my job but it has changed dramatically over the last few years for the worse.”