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Category: Society

A suspect tried to blend in with 60,000 concertgoers. China’s facial-recognition cameras caught him

A suspect tried to blend in with 60,000 concertgoers. China’s facial-recognition cameras caught him

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The Washington Post reports: The 31-year-old man, wanted by police, had thought playing a numbers game would be enough to allow him to fade into anonymity. The population of China is a staggering 1.4 billion people, give or take a few million. More than 45 million of them live in Jiangxi province in southeast China, and 5 million of those people are concentrated in Nanchang, the province’s capital. On the night of April 7, nearly 60,000 people — or roughly…

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In America’s new civil war, one side must win

In America’s new civil war, one side must win

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Peter Leyden and Ruy Teixeira write: This is no ordinary political moment. Trump is not the reason this is no ordinary time — he’s simply the most obvious symptom that reminds us all of this each day. The best way to understand politics in America today is to reframe it as closer to civil war. Just the phrase “civil war” is harsh, and many people may cringe. It brings up images of guns and death, the bodies of Union and Confederate soldiers….

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The demise of the nation state

The demise of the nation state

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Rana Dasgupta writes: What is happening to national politics? Every day in the US, events further exceed the imaginations of absurdist novelists and comedians; politics in the UK still shows few signs of recovery after the “national nervous breakdown” of Brexit. France “narrowly escaped a heart attack” in last year’s elections, but the country’s leading daily feels this has done little to alter the “accelerated decomposition” of the political system. In neighbouring Spain, El País goes so far as to…

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The unnoticed rise of America’s white gangs

The unnoticed rise of America’s white gangs

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Donna Ladd reports: Surveys of young Americans have shown that 40% identifying as gang members are white, but police tend to undercount them at 10% to 14% and overcount black and Hispanic members, says Babe Howell, a criminal law professor at City University of New York who focuses on crime and race. “Police see groups of young white people as individuals, each responsible for his or her own conduct, and hold young people of color in street gangs criminally liable…

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It’s not my fault, my brain implant made me do it

It’s not my fault, my brain implant made me do it

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Probes that can transmit electricity inside the skull raise questions about personal autonomy and responsibility. Hellerhoff, CC BY-SA By Laura Y. Cabrera, Michigan State University and Jennifer Carter-Johnson, Michigan State University Mr. B loves Johnny Cash, except when he doesn’t. Mr. X has watched his doctors morph into Italian chefs right before his eyes. The link between the two? Both Mr. B and Mr. X received deep brain stimulation (DBS), a procedure involving an implant that sends electric impulses to…

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MLK’s vision matters today for the 43 million Americans living in poverty

MLK’s vision matters today for the 43 million Americans living in poverty

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Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. displays the poster to be used during his Poor People’s Campaign in 1968. AP Photo/Horace Cort By Joshua F.J. Inwood, Pennsylvania State University On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, while fighting for a 10-cent wage increase for garbage workers. These efforts by King were part of a broader and more sustained initiative known as the Poor People’s Campaign. King was working to broaden the scope of the civil rights…

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America still needs a radical revolution of values

America still needs a radical revolution of values

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William J Barber II writes: In the summer of 1966, Martin Luther King Jr. visited homes in the hamlet of Marks, Mississippi. Later he remembered the hundreds of children who lacked shoes. A mother told King that her children had no clothes for school. The Nobel laureate wept openly. “They didn’t even have any blankets to cover their children up on a cold night,” he recalled. “And I said to myself, God does not like this.” Then he vowed, “We…

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Are today’s teenagers smarter and better than we think?

Are today’s teenagers smarter and better than we think?

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Tara Parker-Pope writes: Today’s teenagers have been raised on cellphones and social media. Should we worry about them or just get out of their way? A recent wave of student protests around the country has provided a close-up view of Generation Z in action, and many adults have been surprised. While there has been much hand-wringing about this cohort, also called iGen or the Post-Millennials, the stereotype of a disengaged, entitled and social-media-addicted generation doesn’t match the poised, media-savvy and…

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How do you deal with your brother becoming a huge star in the white supremacy movement?

How do you deal with your brother becoming a huge star in the white supremacy movement?

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Gabriel Thompson writes: On a Saturday evening in April of 2017, Josh Damigo was home in Oxnard, California, about 50 miles up the coast from Los Angeles, when he received a text message from a friend. “Are you OK?” she asked. “Kinda,” he texted back. “Why do you ask?” “Um, your brother is all over Twitter right now.” Josh went online. “Oh shit,” he wrote back. That morning, a motley collection of people—from mainstream Donald Trump supporters to helmeted militia…

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Our children are acting like leaders because our leaders act like children

Our children are acting like leaders because our leaders act like children

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Ann Hulbert writes: Anyone used to worrying about coddled young people, their backbone eroded by oversolicitous elders and smartphone addiction, was in for a surprisingly mature show of spine at last weekend’s March for Our Lives. The Parkland, Florida, survivors-turned-prodigy-activists and their followers—along with Dreamers and other youthful protesters lately—couldn’t possibly be denounced as out-of-control “bums,” President Nixon’s epithet for (older) student protesters half a century ago. Quite the contrary. These young people do grit and gumption with star-pupil poise…

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More immigrants = less crime

More immigrants = less crime

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The New York Times reports: The Trump administration’s first year of immigration policy has relied on claims that immigrants bring crime into America. President Trump’s latest target is sanctuary cities. “Every day, sanctuary cities release illegal immigrants, drug dealers, traffickers, gang members back into our communities,” he said last week. “They’re safe havens for just some terrible people.” As of 2017, according to Gallup polls, almost half of Americans agreed that immigrants make crime worse. But is it true that…

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The policing of opinion has become established practice in societies that call themselves free

The policing of opinion has become established practice in societies that call themselves free

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John Gray writes: For liberals the recent transformation of universities into institutions devoted to the eradication of thought crime must seem paradoxical. In the past higher education was avowedly shaped by an ideal of unfettered inquiry. Varieties of social democrats and conservatives, liberals and Marxists taught and researched alongside scholars with no strong political views. Academic disciplines cherished their orthodoxies, and dissenters could face difficulties in being heard. But visiting lecturers were rarely dis­invited because their views were deemed unspeakable,…

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How Trump is rigging the census

How Trump is rigging the census

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Mother Jones reports: The census is America’s largest civic event, the only one that involves everyone in the country, young and old, citizen and noncitizen, rich and poor—or at least it’s supposed to. It’s been conducted every 10 years since 1790, when US Marshals first swore an oath to undertake “a just and perfect enumeration” of the population. The census determines how $675 billion in federal funding is allocated to states and localities each year for things like health care,…

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Western democracy isn’t just in retreat — it’s crumbling from the inside

Western democracy isn’t just in retreat — it’s crumbling from the inside

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Peter S Goodman writes: History was not supposed to turn out this way. In the aftermath of World War II, the victorious Western countries forged institutions — NATO, the European Union, and the World Trade Organization — that aimed to keep the peace through collective military might and shared prosperity. They promoted democratic ideals and international trade while investing in the notion that coalitions were the antidote to destructive nationalism. But now the model that has dominated geopolitical affairs for…

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