Music: Tarkovsky Quartet — ‘Nuit Blanche’
Heat — the next big inequality issue
The Guardian reports: When July’s heatwave swept through the Canadian province of Quebec, killing more than 90 people in little over a week, the unrelenting sunshine threw the disparities between rich and poor into sharp relief. While the well-heeled residents of Montreal hunkered down in blissfully air conditioned offices and houses, the city’s homeless population – not usually welcome in public areas such as shopping malls and restaurants – struggled to escape the blanket of heat. Benedict Labre House, a…
If Stephen Miller’s ideas on immigration had been in force a century ago, his own family would have been wiped out
David S Glosser writes: Let me tell you a story about Stephen Miller and chain migration. It begins at the turn of the 20th century, in a dirt-floor shack in the village of Antopol, a shtetl of subsistence farmers in what is now Belarus. Beset by violent anti-Jewish pogroms and forced childhood conscription in the Czar’s army, the patriarch of the shack, Wolf-Leib Glosser, fled a village where his forebears had lived for centuries and took his chances in America….
Google tracks your movements, like it or not
The Associated Press reports: Google wants to know where you go so badly that it records your movements even when you explicitly tell it not to. An Associated Press investigation found that many Google services on Android devices and iPhones store your location data even if you’ve used a privacy setting that says it will prevent Google from doing so. Computer-science researchers at Princeton confirmed these findings at the AP’s request. For the most part, Google is upfront about asking…
How the Trotskyist movement manages to survive despite its long record of failure
Music: Miles Davis — ‘Flamenco Sketches’
Trump made socialism great again
Shadi Hamid writes: The election of Trump—and the populist upsurge he helped encourage—has confirmed that politics is no longer the art of the possible, but the improbable. If Trump can win the highest office in the land, then why can’t the rest of us run for something, too? Why shouldn’t a 33-year old Egyptian-American named Abdul run for Michigan governor? Why shouldn’t a 28-year old, who was only a bartender a year ago, defeat a Democratic establishment stalwart? And why…
Charlottesville is not an anomaly
Rev. William J. Barber II tells Politico: A year after Charlottesville, America’s conscience has been stirred, but we have yet to reach a true moral awakening. The same politicians who quickly denounced the violence and murder in Charlottesville as an act of hate and racism remain complicit in passing racist public policy. Denouncing acts of racism is good public relations, but dismantling the works of racism is the true challenge facing our leaders. When 23 states pass voter suppression laws,…
A generation of American soldiers with little to fight for but one another
C.J. Chivers writes: Second Platoon did not hide its dark mood as its soldiers waded across the Korengal River in the bright light of afternoon. It was early in April 2009 and early in the Pentagon’s resumption in earnest of the Afghan war. The platoon’s mission was to ascend a mountain slope and try to ambush the Taliban at night. They were about 30 men in all, riflemen and machine-gunners reinforced with scouts, a mix of original platoon members and…
Peter Tse: Free will — essence and nature
Music: Bill Evans — ‘Peace Piece’
Democrats need to stand for something, as well as against Trump
Gary Younge writes: For quite some time during the primary season for the 2016 presidential race, Democratic party leaders were delighted that Donald Trump was leading the Republican pack. They assumed the brash reality TV star would expose the bigotry of the Republican base before flaming out and leaving a more plausible candidate beholden to an energised mob, and consequently unelectable. After Trump insulted Heidi Cruz (a Goldman Sachs executive and wife of fellow Republican presidential hopeful Ted Cruz) for…
Are you still sure there’s no need to worry?
Anne Applebaum writes: “Don’t worry, the institutions will stop him.” Or: “Don’t worry, he hasn’t done any real damage yet, the institutions have stopped him.” How many times have you heard some version of this analysis since the election of President Trump? Sometimes, the speaker is an optimist, someone with faith in the U.S. Constitution. Sometimes, the speaker is a skeptic, someone who dislikes the alleged “hysteria” of those who think Trump’s corrupt habits, autocratic language and authoritarian behavior are…
How the Trump era gave us Congress’s first Muslim woman
Eugene Scott writes: Rashida Tlaib beat a crowded Democratic primary field on Tuesday in Michigan’s 13th District, putting her on a clear path to becoming the first Muslim woman elected to Congress. That is certainly groundbreaking, but it is not that surprising, given the current political climate. The Trump era gave us this moment. Tlaib is one of several Muslims seeking high-profile political offices, including Minnesota congressional candidate Ilhan Omar and Michigan’s Fayrouz Saad, who lost the crowded 11th District…
More than 100 seats that backed Brexit now want to stay in EU
The Observer reports: More than 100 Westminster constituencies that voted to leave the EU have now switched their support to Remain, according to a stark new analysis seen by the Observer. In findings that could have a significant impact on the parliamentary battle of Brexit later this year, the study concludes that most seats in Britain now contain a majority of voters who want to stay in the EU. The analysis, one of the most comprehensive assessments of Brexit sentiment…
Michio Kaku: Why there are higher dimensions