Reading

Created
Thu, 07/08/2025 - 08:41
ingredients:1 plump 4-pound duck (cleaned, singed, and washed)7 Tablespoons butter1 canned or fresh trufflesalt, pepper30 pitted prunes½ pound foie gras (goose liver mousse)1 envelope unflavored gelatin instructions:1. Stuff the duck with a walnut-size piece of butter, the sliced truffle, salt and pepper. Sew up the openings.2. Brush the duck with butter and season with salt […]
Created
Thu, 07/08/2025 - 07:51

Long-time viewers of Adam Curtis’s BBC documentaries might see a trailer for Shifty, his new five-part online-only series, and wonder if it is saying anything new. ‘There come moments in societies when the foundations of power begin to move’ reads the caption, and we see Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Stephen Hawking, Ian Curtis, […]

Created
Thu, 07/08/2025 - 07:51

The final defeat of the Spanish Second Republic at the hands of Franco’s Nationalist rebels in 1939, after almost three years of bloody fighting and brutal repression, not only presaged the global conflict into which the world was about to sink, it also set the stage within Spain for what would come after the war. […]

Created
Thu, 07/08/2025 - 07:51

In 1961, at a bus station in Montreal, a young poet was waiting to meet an esteemed writer. The writer’s second novel, published the year before, had gained positive notices from William Burroughs and Norman Mailer. But now he was on the run from a death penalty notice, his heroin prescription having been found in […]

Created
Thu, 07/08/2025 - 07:51

In a contemporary Britain where pubs and clubs are closing at an accelerated rate, politicians are trying to ban band appearances, living costs are curbing consumption, austerity has become not just an economic regime but a way of life. Keir Starmer’s government is constitutionally joyless, his Grey Labour the overseer of austerity and the punisher […]

Created
Thu, 07/08/2025 - 07:50

Here’s a classic early episode of The Simpsons, in which Bart bunks off school to eat ice cream and sneak into the cinema, leaving his hapless school principal to trail him around Springfield. Arriving at the town’s youth club only to find the building empty and derelict, Principal Skinner utters the immortal words: ‘Am I […]

Created
Thu, 07/08/2025 - 07:49

Over the past four decades, neoliberal economics and globalisation have systematically dismantled the security once afforded to the working class through its own efforts. Through the privatisation of public services, the offshoring of manufacturing, and the outsourcing of what remained, wealth has been funnelled upwards, leaving behind hollowed-out communities reliant on failing public infrastructure and […]

Created
Thu, 07/08/2025 - 07:49

I was outside a museum, in the suburbs of a large capital city. The museum had closed; there were very few shops or cafes nearby, and there was a park on the edge of the museum site. I had a sensation which, as someone with Crohn’s disease, I’m very familiar with — that is, the sudden […]

Created
Thu, 07/08/2025 - 04:42

The Grayzone visits the family of Mohammed Zakaria al-Mutawaq, a severely malnourished toddler living in a Gaza City tent, who has become a symbol of the Israeli-imposed famine sweeping the besieged territory. After Mohammed appeared on the front page of the New York Times and several other major papers, Israeli propagandists accused the media of misinformation, claiming his pre-existing muscular condition explained away the hunger crisis. We spoke to his mother, Hedaya, to get the full story. We also spoke […]

The post VIDEO: Meet the symbol of Gaza’s famine – and target of Israel’s propagandists first appeared on The Grayzone.

The post VIDEO: Meet the symbol of Gaza’s famine – and target of Israel’s propagandists appeared first on The Grayzone.

Created
Thu, 07/08/2025 - 03:00

Kasey —

From the moment I first saw you, I knew my life was about to change. You were beautiful—also intelligent, funny, and kind. Not long after we met, I knew I wanted to spend my life with you. Let me know if you’d like these opening lines to be warmer or more emotional. Do you want me to personalize them in some way?

I love your confidence, your resilience, and your openness to new experiences. Do you remember when we moved in together and spent that whole first weekend building furniture? This is an example of an anecdote you could include. Should I suggest a different meaningful experience you and Kasey might have shared?

As a couple, we have been through the highest highs and the lowest lows—some very low lows. While I’d be happy to include the details of your infidelity here, it might be better to reference the episode subtly—she will know what you mean. Kasey, you have taught me everything I know about commitment and forgiveness. Thanks to you, I know what true devotion looks like. How’s that? If you’d like, I can rewrite this to more directly reference the incident with Kasey’s sister.

Created
Thu, 07/08/2025 - 02:02
We live in an unequal society where inequality is increasing in many areas, especially regarding income and wealth. The differences in living conditions for different groups, in terms of class, ethnicity, and gender, are unacceptably large. In the world of education, family background still has a significant impact on pupils’ performance, and it becomes even […]