In Thailand, yellow is officially a slimming color — by decree of the new King and the military government. In Pakistan, the Japanese are making pink buses for women (really). In Egypt, the regime of wannabe autocrat Fattah El-Sisi has ordered that the country’s famous soap operas be more boring during Ramadan — because there’s nothing like watching a TV show about a kindly police officer who helps an old lady cross the street after a long day of fasting.
Back home in the good old US of A, Trump says he’s going to “look into” why his Nazi besties have gotten kicked off of Twitter and Facebook. It’s like the old philosophical question: who censors the censors? Who trumps the Trump? Who oompas the Oompa-Loompas?
Trump, a veritable AJ Liebling for the twenty-first century, is here to serve as a keen and quick-witted watchdog of the many follies of the press. As well as an indefatigable defender of the First Amendment right to countersue the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker after you’ve refused to pay them for their services.
In non-sociopath news, we learn that the legendary Congresswoman and ToM favorite Shirley Chisholm will soon be honored with a monumental piece of art in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park. So humankind as a species is not a total wash, I suppose.
This week we have many excellent stories to take your mind off the Anthropocene Blues:
- On Hearing Liz Phair’s “Flower” for the First Time (Memoir Mixtapes)
- Artists Release First Look at Shirley Chisholm Monument in Brooklyn (Contract Design)
- Japan’s Once and Future Female Emperors (Nursing Clio)
- Don Quixote unsaddled in landmark EU cheese dispute (Politico EU)
- US Workers Are Highly Taxed If You Count Premiums (People’s Policy Project)
- When America Was Female (Atlantic)
- Pushing Against the Boundaries of Koreanness (NPR)
- A Former Alt-Right Member’s Message: Get Out While You Still Can (Buzzfeed)
- After 10,000 ‘false or misleading claims,’ are we any better at calling out Trump’s lies? (Columbia Journalism Review)
- Bernie Sanders Had His Own TV Show. We Found the Archives. (Politico)
- A Hidden Order of Reality, i.e. reconsidering Lévi-Strauss (Boston Review)
- BYU speaker comes out during commencement speech (Salt Lake Tribune)
- Professor Found Responsible for Sexual Harassment Will Teach A Course This Fall (NYU Local)
- North Carolina shooting: at least two killed at UNC-Charlotte (Guardian)
- Italy’s controversial ‘boot camp’ integration school for refugees (Al Jazeera)
- Spain election: Socialists win amid far-right breakthrough (BBC)
- Brexit tears through UK’s political landscape (Politico EU)
- A Trans Woman Can Now Be Recognised as a ‘Bride’ Under the Hindu Marriage Act (VICE)
- Letter from a trans man to the old sexual regime (Texte Zur Kunst)
- “More Queer Writing, Please” (Boston Review)
- This is An Insanely Big Deal, i.e. Trump and Giuliani soliciting political hits on their domestic opponents from foreign interests (TPM)
- ‘Lingering Fields Of Yellow’ As California’s Super Bloom Begins To Fade (NPR)
- Raw and Red-Hot: Could inflammation be the cause of myriad chronic conditions? (Harvard Magazine)
- The myth of rational thinking (Vox)
- Why’d It Take So Dam Long to Get a Beaver Emoji? (Slate)