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Created
Thu, 18/05/2023 - 04:51
More Indonesians than Americans are likely to vote in key presidential elections next year. But Australia is focusing on distant North America, not adjacent Southeast Asia, the zone where the Titans could clash. India is the world’s largest democracy – population 1.3 billion. It’s growing so fast that it will soon overtake one-party China. Far Continue reading »
Created
Thu, 18/05/2023 - 04:50
In a recent Guardian advert pleading for readers to hand over money to the paper, leading columnist Marina Hyde declared: ‘My absolute favourite thing about the Guardian is not being told what to write.’ Hyde – or Marina Elizabeth Catherine Dudley-Williams, as she prefers not to be known – was, in fact, making ‘the most Continue reading »
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Thu, 18/05/2023 - 04:00
Florida’s economy is already paying the price @gilbertoalvolante May 16th update. No workers in Florida. ♬ original sound – gilbertoalvolante In a time of full employment, chasing immigrants out of your state may not be the smartest move: The videos from Florida aren’t hard to find: Dozens of clips of empty fields, abandoned construction sites, and scores of truck drivers calling for boycotts of the state have racked up hundreds of thousands of views on TikTok and Twitter over the last month. The common thread? Fear and frustration over the state’s newest anti-immigrant law, signed a week ago by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, which mandates that businesses with 25 or more employees verify the citizenship status of workers through the federal online portal E-Verify or face stronger penalties, among other new restrictions. The new law, which goes into effect on July 1, is the latest move by DeSantis to capitalize on immigration politics as he prepares for a likely but as-yet-unannounced 2024 presidential campaign.
Created
Thu, 18/05/2023 - 03:00

At college graduations, the faculty wear dark flowing robes, satiny hoods, and puffy hats. Look closely, and you’ll notice little variations—they are not arbitrary. Each detail tells a rich story about the professor wearing the regalia.

Robe Color
Indicates the professor’s approach to dressing for class:

  • Black: Funky vintage
  • Red: Four-season surf vibe
  • Dark blue: Frump
  • Any other color: Whatever the fuck I want; I have tenure

The Velvet Bands on the Robe’s Sleeves
Indicates the professor’s approach to grading papers:

Created
Thu, 18/05/2023 - 02:30
It’s going to be a long campaign The long awaited Durham Report about his “investigation of the investigation” of the origins of the Russia probe was finally released on Monday after four long years. And just like everything that touches Donald Trump these days, the right insists that it says something completely at odds with reality — Durham’s report simply does not say what they say it says. But what else is new? Every nonsensical charge made by Donald Trump is deemed by his supporters to automatically be true and every charge against him is a hoax or a witch hunt. In this case Trump and his media enablers have been touting this investigation for years as “The Big One” that finally prove that “Russia, Russia, Russia” was a witch hunt, set-up by Hillary Clinton and the Democrats. It fails on every count to prove that case. All Durham concluded was that the FBI should not have opened a full investigation but rather a preliminary investigation based on what it knew at the time.
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Thu, 18/05/2023 - 00:30
“We have to go gutteral” on freedom Democrats made a “catastrophic mistake” by ceding freedom as an issue to Republicans, Anand Giridharadas told MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell Tuesday night. From Ronald Reagan on they added “freedom” like sugary sprinkles to everything from busting unions to French fries. Republicans came to “own” freedom through relentless branding, Giridharadas said, until Donald Trump came along with “American carnage.” In his wake, Republicans have abandoned freedom for control. Control of womens’ bodies.Control of what we can read.Control of what we can learn.Control of whom we can marry. Control of our health care.Control of the country itself. Especially that. Republicans have abandoned freedom for control, for authoritarians like Trump, Putin, Orbán, DeSantis, and (OMFG) Tommy Tuberville. (“He should just move to Russia. Suits him better,” tweeted Paul Rosenberg.) “All of these fights are fights for freedom,” Giridharadas adds. “And often, they are reframed in these wonky policy terms by folks on the left.
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Wed, 17/05/2023 - 23:00
This is what minority rule looks like We knew it was coming and it did: The North Carolina legislature banned most abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy Tuesday evening, voting to override the veto of Gov. Roy Cooper (D), while a similar measure heads to a final vote in Nebraska in the coming days. “It won’t stop here. NCGOP has repeatedly referred to this legislation as a ‘first step’. Stay engaged. And thank you to everyone who came today and sent messages of support. It means more than you know,” tweeted Rep. Lindsey Prather, a Buncombe County Democrat. North Carolina Republicans mustered the bare minimum of votes needed for the three-fifths override with the help of “partisan gerrymandering and an inexplicable recent party switch by a previously pro-choice lawmaker,” writes Stephen Wolf at Daily Kos: North Carolina’s legislative districts have been gerrymandered to favor Republicans to varying degrees ever since the GOP swept into power in the 2010 midterms.
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Wed, 17/05/2023 - 23:00

It’s an event: Randall Mann’s work is now gathered in Deal: New and Selected, a volume of poems as rich as they are chiseled. Mann is a love poet, or at least a poet of lust—though maybe that’s a description of all poets—but Mann is also a writer whose passion is almost always shot through with an overt and bittersweet cynicism. A singer of shining knives. Praise and complaint go together, after all—epideixis is sometimes called praise-and-blame rhetoric—and the visceral, cutting quality of Mann’s poems goes hand in hand not only with his love for terse, rhyme-taut lines but also with what we might call his subject: “action: / transaction.” His first book was called Complaint in the Garden and his third, Straight Razor. On the other hand, the lover-as-poet is visible in the book some may know him best for, his second collection, Breakfast with Thom Gunn, or a more recent gathering, such as 2021’s A Better Life, whose cover is a ravishing matrix of thumbnails, glam shots of naked men’s faces in various expressions of come-hither.

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Wed, 17/05/2023 - 22:42

Discover the untold truth behind US military presence in Somalia, its impact on the region, and the strategic interests at play in Mnar Adley and Alan Macleod's eye-opening interview with journalist Ann Garrison.

The post Oil Wars, Weapons and How the US is Fueling the Somalia Crisis, with Ann Garrison appeared first on MintPress News.

Created
Wed, 17/05/2023 - 22:00

Have you ever wondered what it’s like to be a South Asian American in today’s political climate? Are you looking for a cultural experience that goes beyond following Padma Lakshmi on Instagram and watching Hasan Minhaj’s latest special? This AAPI Heritage Month, “South Asian Americana: The Immersive VR Experience” is coming to a museum near you. Brought to you by the team behind “Immersive Van Gogh,” this virtual reality exhibit gives visitors a chance to experience everyday racism from the perspective of South Asian Americans.

Agonized at the Academy Awards

You’re being recognized as the first South Asian woman to win Best Actress at the Academy Awards for your performance in Brown Girl, White Man. But as the white male presenter finishes reading your first name, you can tell you’re about to be upstaged by a colonizer’s take on your family name. You watch as he contorts his mouth to emit an ethnic-sounding syllable, takes a pause, then bulldozes through another creative choice. It occurs to you that, just like your character, you are simply a brown girl defined by your relationship to a white man.

Created
Wed, 17/05/2023 - 20:20
1½ cups frozen chopped spinach (10-ounce package), thawed2 medium tomatoes½ teaspoon salt1 cup water½ cup clam juice1 tablespoon parsley1 tablespoon wine vinegar1 pound shelled, deveined shrimp Cook spinach according to package directions; drain. Cut a then slice off the top of tomatoes. Gently remove pulp; reserve. Sprinkle cavities with salt. Mix tomato pulp with spinach. […]