Reading

In this column, Kristen Mulrooney writes letters to famous mothers from literature, TV, and film whom she finds herself relating to on a different level now that she’s a mom herself.

Dear Marmee,

I always hoped I would be just like you when I became a mother. I dreamed that one day, my most literary child would write a book based on our family and portray me as an extraordinary beacon of light, wisdom, and patience.

So far, it’s not looking great.

I’m trying my hardest, but I wake up tightly coiled and exasperated every morning before anyone has even started asking me to play Roblox with them. Like most writers, I consider myself a Jo, maybe not in terms of talent but at least in temperament. Under your guidance, Jo learned to be less reactive and more in control of her emotions, so I’m assigning you the role of my new mentor. Congratulations.

Fight back. We did it before. “There exists no more sordid and unlovely type of social development than a plutocracy,” Teddy Roosevelt insisted in Provincetown, Massachusetts in 1907. Roosevelt saw the harms of the first Gilded Age and sought, with public support, to end them: The utterly changed conditions of our national life necessitate changes in certain of our laws, of our governmental methods…. National sovereignty is to be upheld in so far as it means the sovereignty of the people used for the real and ultimate good of the people; and state’s rights are to be upheld in so far as they mean the people’s rights. Especially is this true in dealing with the relations of the people as a whole to the great corporations which are the distinguishing feature of modern business conditions. One hunded plus years later, we are in a second Gilded Age. Or haven’t you noticed? Robert Reich has: Billions in campaign contributions. Jim Crow 2.0.Workers exploited.Child labor has returned.Staggering inequality. Oh, and facsism. We beat back the first five at the beginning of the 20th century. Reich believes we can do it again.

Andrew Kersley reports on the massive profits being made by the hotel tycoon dubbed the 'Asylum King'.

It was a gloomy morning, fifth century, and I was nursing a hangover that felt like I’d been worked over by a shillelagh with something to prove. I was just about to take a shot of holy water—hair of the God that blessed me—when he walked in.

I should have known he was trouble. The green suit, the matching hat, legs as long as a toadstool on a Sunday bender. He had a thick red beard and knew how to use it. A leprechaun. I’d seen his kind before.

“We’re closed,” I muttered.

“You Saint Patrick?” the small man said.

“That’s what the heathens call me.”

“People say you work miracles.”

“People say a lot of things,” I replied.

“Word on the street is you beseeched the Lord to provide food to hungry sailors traveling through a desolate land, when a herd of swine miraculously appeared,” the stranger said.

“Bunch of hogwash. Listen, pal, I got pagans to convert. What can I do for you?”

“The name’s O’Bready. Clover O’Bready. I got a wee job for you,” said the man, approaching my desk. “What do you know about snakes?”

Art by Matt Smith

So what would happen when an ancient fuckin’ viking behrsehrkah would go behrsehrk is he’d fuckin’ go behrsehrk! N’ in ohrdah tah go behrsehrk he’d wohrk himself up intah a huge fuckin’ rage. Maybe he’d even bite down on his shield a little if he had one n’, yah know, fuckin’ chew on it some. N’ he’d be all foamin’ at the mouth n’ shit, n’ then he’d go n’ he’d completely fuckin’ blow a gasket n’ he’d go on a goddamned rampage n’ then he’d eventually crash if he didn’t fuckin’ die in the battle, n’ then he’d have tah go n’ rest n’ build his strength back up so as tah be able tah do it all ovah r’gain next time.

History is often understood through the stories of ‘great men’, reflecting capitalism’s encouragement of the individual and suspicion of the collective. Socialists, understandably, have traditionally sought to reject such narratives; a famous example is in the final address of Salvador Allende, the socialist president of Chile who, before his death in Augusto Pinochet’s 1973 coup, […]

Plus, conservatives declare war on “recreational sex,” lawmakers may hide their NFL handouts, and Larry Summers mimics the hot dog guy.

Former President Donald Trump, nursing personal grievances against “deep state” officials and White House staff...

Experience the London African Gospel Choir, whose genre-spanning music bridges cultures with the expression of pure joy

- by Psyche Film

Watch at Psyche

Pioneering sociologist Erving Goffman realised that every action is deeply revealing of the social norms by which we live

- by Lucy McDonald

Read at Aeon

Rampaging gangs, deploying revolutionary rhetoric, have vowed to repel an international intervention.

The post A New Haitian Revolution? appeared first on The Intercept.

After five months and well over 31,000 dead, there is no end in sight to Israel’s onslaught on Gaza.

The post Albanese an accessory to murder as Israel bombs and starves Gaza first appeared on Solidarity Online.

Gaza is on the brink of widespread starvation, with Israel refusing international appeals to let aid shipments in.

The post Israel starving Gazans to death first appeared on Solidarity Online.

The nationwide “Student Strike for Palestine” on 29 February showed both the potential and the striking amount of work still to be done to win students to taking action over Gaza.

The post Student Gaza protest shows challenge ahead first appeared on Solidarity Online.

As the death toll mounts and hunger stalks Gaza, supporters of Israel are finding it harder to defend the genocide. Instead, they are turning to smearing supporters of Palestine as antisemitic.

The post Smears of antisemitism over Palestine ring hollow first appeared on Solidarity Online.

In late February, the war-hawk Minister for Defence, Richard Marles, announced Labor would spend an extra $11.1 billion to double the number of Navy surface ships, taking total naval spending in the next decade to an eye-wateringly obscene $54.2 billion.

The post Labor’s naval build-up pours billions more into war first appeared on Solidarity Online.

When 39 asylum-seekers were discovered at Beagle Bay, 150 kilometres north of Broome on 19 February, Opposition leader and former offshore detention jailer, Peter Dutton, thought he was on a winner for the Dunkley by-election just a couple of weeks away on 2 March.

The post ‘I’m comfortable’ says Albanese as Labor embraces offshore detention first appeared on Solidarity Online.

John Mitchinson explores why perception is as much about what we know as what we see