"Blow up the bags of sham" – Jean Arp
On the evening of April 29 in Landskrona, Sweden, Maj Sjöwall died. That she died when she died is no surprise – she had been ill for quite a while – but, to those who admired her writing, Sjöwall’s death is deeply felt. With her partner, Per Wahlöö, Sjöwall created a ten-volume series of mystery…
More than 70% of Americans support scientifically-based COVID mitigation/control measures such as stay-at-home/shelter-in-place orders, physical distancing, wearing masks, and routine hand-washing. This is not some regional thing: 76% of North Carolinians, 82% of Oregonians, 80% of Mainers, and 95% of Los Angelinos support COVID measures. Even in Michigan, besieged by far right protesters, support is…
May Day 2020: Worker Unity in the Age of Pandemic (Common Dreams): Happy May Day! Around the world May 1 is celebrated as International Workers Day in commemoration of workers who were killed at Chicago’s Haymarket Square, protesting in support of strikers…that is May Day is celebrated everywhere but the United States. But, maybe will…
Lauren Kaori Gurley has been doing some great reporting on labor, especially on how workers are reacting to working during the pandemic. Yesterday, she reported that Workers at Amazon, Whole Foods, Instacart, Walmart, FedEx, Target, and Shipt say they will walk off the job on May 1 to protest their employers’ failure to provide basic…
Over there at the Vanity Fair, Gabriel Sherman has a frightening article titled Inside Donald Trump and Jared Kushner’s Two Months of Magical Thinking. Going past the headline, the piece is a tale of Jared Kushner, an unelected family member with no real-life experience in any job other than slumlord, pretty much running the show…
Was gone for a couple days, sorry about that, business to attend to. But, my absence means that we get to play catch up and go through some stories that passed from the front pages but are still relevant. US was warned of threat from anti-vaxxers in event of pandemic (The Guardian): Good sleuthing by…
Since the Paycheck Protection Act went into effect we’ve read lots of stories of major corporation, publicly traded companies worth millions if not billions of dollars, snatching money intended for small businesses. While some have returned money once their piggery was exposed (Shake Shake, Los Angeles Lakers, Ruth’s Chris, Potbelly), others are ignoring public anger…
In her April 27th rundown of the day’s news, Heather Cox Richardson wrote: Conservative columnist Henry Olsen wrote a Washington Post op-ed today suggesting that the party should try to sell voters on Trump by arguing that he is “Not Perfect, Just Better.†Noting that Trump’s approval rating was at 45.6% this morning, Olsen suggested…
President Donald Trump’s inaction, self-involvement, and corruption in dealing with the coronavirus doesn’t come out of nowhere. Trump’s reaction to America begging for help is the essence of Trump and it has many precedents, including this bit from the life of Citizen Trump. Late September 2017, audio surfaced of Donald Trump on a July 16,…
