The Weekly Town Crier (06/25/21)
All the week’s news that’s fit to cry about (06/25/21).
We’ll Miss You:
Read “Antivirus pioneer John McAfee found dead in Spanish prison” at Miami Herald.
Religion and Stuff:
Read “Albert Mohler’s darkest hour” at Religion News Service. “In his bid to lead America’s largest denomination, he was his own worst enemy.”
Read “After politically charged debate, bishops vote to draft controversial Communion document” at Religion News Service.
Read “Targeting Biden, Catholic Bishops Advance Controversial Communion Plan” at New York Times.
Read “AOC, other Catholic Democrats urge bishops against ‘weaponization’ of Communion” at Religion News Service.
Read “Biden dismisses Catholic bishops potentially banning him from communion” at The HIll. “That’s a private matter.”
Read “Lieu calls Catholic bishops 'hypocrites' for move to deny Biden communion” at The Hill.
Read “Weaponizing the wafer: Why San Francisco Archbishop opposes communion for Biden” at San Fransisco Examiner.
Read “Black Mountain pastor makes first court appearance on child sexual offense charges” at WLOS.
Read “Members of The Ridge Church defend pastor charged with child sex offenses” at WLOS.
Read “Critical Race Theory, Sex Abuse, and Southern Baptists” at Christianity Today.
Read “How Critical Race Theory Overran the Southern Baptist Convention” at NY Mag.
Read ‘Christian Opponents of CRT Peddle A Hollow Salvation” at Sojourners.
Read “Under Attack from Fundamentalist Pirates, Evangelical Baptists Refused to Give Up the Ship” by David French. “In Nashville, Evangelicals clashed with toxic fundamentalists—and Evangelicals prevailed.”
Read “America’s largest evangelical denomination is at war with itself” at Vox. “Why the Southern Baptist Convention is in turmoil — and why you should care.”
Read “When Southern Baptists Share the Gospel with Democrats, You May Get Christian Democrats! Can You Handle That?” at Southern Baptist Voices.
Read “Southern Baptist Convention Calls for ‘Immediate Abolition of Abortion Without Exception or Compromise’” at FaithWire.
Read “Christian Nationalist Leader Attacks SBC Election, New President” at Roys Report.
Read/Listen to “The Fight Over Evangelicals’ Future” at Slate. “Conservatives are divided. So are their churches.”
Read “‘An excuse for the feast’: Witches celebrate the summer solstice with cakes, mead — and salsa” at Religion News Service. “For many pagans, spirituality is tied to nature, and eating local seasonal foods connects them to the earth and with a specific time and place.”
Read ‘Religion 'ISN'T the secret to happiness': Global study claims atheists are just as happy as those with a faith” at Daily Mail.
Read “Braveheart’s Warped History Keeps Suckering Evangelicals” at Daly Beast. “Mel Gibson’s sadomasochistic fantasy is beloved by evangelical Christians (and William Wallace wannabes like Ted Cruz), who wallow in its exaltation of violent, macho religion.”
Read “How 'Modest Is Hottest' Is Hurting Christian Women” at Christianity Today. “What the phrase communicates about female sexuality and bodies.”
Read “DeSantis gets standing ovation by promising to put on the 'full armor of God' to fight against leftism” at Washington Examiner.
Read “The Nigerian priest saving Igbo deities from the bonfires” at BBC.
Read “Former Megachurch Pastor & Presidential Adviser Kirbyjon Caldwell Enters Prison” at Roys Report.
Read “Whitewashing Evangelical Scripture: The Case of Slavery and Antisemitism in the English Standard Version” at Oxford Academic.
Read “Can a tender-hearted president solve the Southern Baptists’ trust problem?” at Religion News Service. “The nation's largest Protestant denomination is based on voluntary cooperation by more than 40,000 churches. That cooperation is threatened by growing distrust of national leaders.”
Read “My Farewell to Sojourners” by Jim Wallis at Sojourners.
Legal/Justice and Social Justice and Race or Gender or Sexism-Related Stuff:
Read “Much of our slang comes from the Black community. Not acknowledging that perpetuates racism.” at USA Today.
Read “How TV Dramas Informed And Misinformed Perceptions Of The War On Drugs” at NPR.
Read “DOJ warns Missouri officials state can't ignore federal gun laws” at The Hill.
Read “14 Votes Against Juneteenth: A Racist Act In The Halls Of Congress” at The Uprising.
Read “As Juneteenth marks the end of slavery, lawmakers turn their focus to forced prison labor” at Washington Post.
Read “North Carolina death row inmate freed after newly discovered evidence” at The Hill.
Read “Connecticut Becomes First State to Provide Free Calls from Prison” at Equal Justice Initiative.
Read ‘DOJ Asks SCOTUS to Reinstate Death Penalty for Boston Marathon Bomber” at Democracy Now.
Read “John Roberts Just Pulled Off His Greatest Judicial Magic Trick” at Slate.
Read “Idaho Republican candidate for governor claims US is under attack from 'invasive species'“ at American Independent.
Read “Jesse Jackson, William Barber arrested protesting filibuster and Manchin” at Religion News Service.
Read “Rudy Giuliani suspended from practicing law in New York state” at AZ Family.
Read “With Giuliani’s Law License Suspended, Here Are The Other Trump Lawyers Who May Face Discipline Next” at Forbes.
Read “Parkland parents trick former NRA president into speaking in anti-gun violence video” at Salon. “Empty chairs were placed in a stadium to represent seniors who didn't graduate this year because of gun violence.”
Read “Connecticut Legalizes Recreational Marijuana” at Democracy Now.
This week in traitorous, white-supremacist Confederate monuments (and/or Columbus monuments // and/or other “American monuments” // Insurrectionists // and/or weird Confederacy stuff):
Read “Tucker Carlson And The Far Right Want To Recast Jan. 6 As A False Flag By The Deep State” at Huff Post.
Read “Charlottesville Neo-Nazi Trial Won’t Move Over Violence Fear” at Bloomberg.
Read “Pelosi announces a select committee will investigate Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob” at Washington Post.
This Week In Protest-Related News:
Read “A Group of White Cops Beat a Black Undercover Officer at a BLM Protest” at Vice.
Read “Portland riots: Police crowd-control team resigns after officer indicted” at BBC.
Read “Charges dismissed against trucker who drove into George Floyd protest” at The Hill.
This Week With The Police:
Read “North Carolina sheriff's office settles for $6M in excessive force lawsuit” at The Hill.
Read “Black students pulled from car by Atlanta police sue city” at NBC. “Video of the May 2020 confrontation — shared widely online — shows officers shouting at the students, firing Tasers at them and dragging them from the car.”
Read “Baltimore May Soon Ban Facial Recognition For Everyone But Cops” at Wired.
Read “The history of the US police” at Al Jazeera. “From slave patrols to the criminalisation of Black communities, racism has been a feature of US policing for centuries.’
Education and The Learnings // School Re-Openings
Read “Ted Cruz says critical race theory is as racist as 'Klansmen in white sheets'“ at The Hill.
Read “How a Conservative Activist Invented the Conflict Over Critical Race Theory” at New Yorker. “To Christopher Rufo, a term for a school of legal scholarship looked like “the perfect weapon.”
Read “'The Tea Party to the 10th power': Trumpworld bets big on critical race theory” at Politico.
Read “Partisan war over teaching history and racism stokes tensions in U.S. schools” at Reuters.
Read “Teachers Say GOP’s Critical Race Theory Bills ‘Whitewash American History’ at Huff Post. “Republicans are pushing laws to prevent teaching about systemic racism and white privilege in schools. Teachers say they just want to teach the truth.”
Read “Why Juneteenth Isn't Taught In Schools — And What That Means For Our Understanding Of Slavery” at WBUR.
Read “Top U.S. military leader: ‘I want to understand White rage. And I’m White.’” at Washington Post.
Read “How the media's helping GOP fuel critical race theory hysteria” at Press Run.
Read “US sees record school shootings since March as students struggle with return from pandemic” at The Hill.
Read “DeSantis signs bill requiring Florida students, professors to register political views with state” at Salon.
Read “Supreme Court Sides With Teen Who Was Punished By School Over Expletive-Laden Snapchat Rant” at Comic Sands.
Your Weekly Coronavirus Roundup:
Read “‘We want them infected’: Trump appointee demanded ‘herd immunity’ strategy, emails reveal” at Politico. “Then-HHS science adviser Paul Alexander called for millions of Americans to be infected as means of fighting Covid-19.”
Read “Unvaccinated Arizonans made up 95% of COVID-19 cases in May” at AZ Mirror.
Read “The Spectacular Failure of the MyPillow Guy’s Mask Operation” at Daily Beast.
Read “More than 150 Houston Methodist employees resign or are fired over COVID vaccine mandate” at Houston Chronicle.
Read “NYC offering in-home vaccinations to all residents” at The Hill.
Read “Jim Bakker, his church settle lawsuit over COVID-19 claims” at Religion News Service.
Read “Nearly all COVID deaths in US are now among unvaccinated” at Associated Press.
Miscellany Cultural Items (and some Technology):
Read “Lessons from California’s Pot Industry Bailout” at Bloomberg. ‘California’s 15% tax on legal marijuana has pushed consumers to the illicit market, it’s clear that much more has gone wrong with legalization in the state.”
Read “French software engineer may have cracked the Zodiac killer's code” at Boing Boing.
Read “Retail workers are quitting at record rates for higher-paying work: ‘My life isn’t worth a dead-end job’” at Washington Post.
Read “Michael B. Jordan to rename his rum brand after appropriation accusations” at The Hill.
Internationalities:
Read “UN assembly condemns military coup in Myanmar” at The Hill.
Read “Hungary's anti-gay law threatens programming of TV favourites” at Vox.
Politics And Sucheries:
Read “Joe Biden Is Confirming Judges Faster Than Decades Of Past Presidents” at Huff Post.
Read “Biden announces bipartisan deal on infrastructure” at The Hill.
Read “States Have Cut Off Unemployment. So Why Aren’t More People Looking for Jobs?” at Slate.
This Week In Political Corruption:
Read “At Long Last, Donald T$&mp Finally Admits: 'We Didn't Win'“ at Yahoo.
Read “Arizona election audit takes wild turn: Voter data is transported to a "secret" lab in another state” at Salon. “Arizona voter data hits the road, and the location it's being sent to is apparently a secret.”
Read “Led by Trump's old doctor, over a dozen GOP lawmakers demand Biden take a cognitive test” at Salon.
Read “As Gaetz investigation ramps up, feds mount sweeping probe into Central Florida political scene” at Yahoo.
Read “Georgia releases names of over 100K people at risk of having voter registration canceled” at The Hill.
Read “Trump-inspired death threats are terrorizing election workers” at Reuters.
Read “House Republicans Are Still Pushing Trump’s Election Conspiracy Theories” at Slate.
Read “Corporations like Amazon pay big bucks for "union avoidance" — and it all happens in the dark” at Salon.
Read “What would America be like if Trump's coup had succeeded? Suppressing SNL is only the start” at Salon.
Music-Related News and Such:
Read “The Horrors of Bull Island, “the Worst Music Festival of All Time” (1972)” at Open Culture.
Read “Billie Eilish Apologizes for Mouthing Racist Slur in Surfaced Video: “I Am Appalled and Embarrassed at Pitchfork.
Read “A Little Less Lonely: Joni Mitchell’s Blue at 50” at Treble Zine.
Read “Untangling MF DOOM’s Lifelong Struggle With the U.S. Immigration System” at Pitchfork.
Browse Treble’s picks for “The 33 Best Albums of 2021 So Far.
Read “Inner Ear Studios’ Original Location Shutting Down” at Pitchfork.
Read “Go Spelunking in Mark E. Smith’s Mind With This Collection of the Fall Ephemera” at Rolling Stone.
Read “Factory Records co-founder and Joy Division album cover designer Peter Saville honoured with CBE” at Manchester Evening News.
Browse Rolling Stone’s picks for “The 50 Greatest Pop-Punk Albums.”
Read “Britney Spears Has Wanted Out of Her Conservatorship for Years. Why Is She Still in It?” at Vice.
Read/Listen to “Ripley Johnson of Rose City Band” at Petal Motel.
Read “Photos of New York's explosive 80s music scene” at I-D Vice.
Read “Blink-182’s Mark Hoppus Reveals Cancer Diagnosis” at Pitchfork.
Read “Talking Heads’ David Byrne buys $5.5M Toluca Lake mansion” at New York Post.
Read “Winston Marshall Leaves Mumford and Sons After Endorsing Andy Ngo’s Book” at Spin.
Read “Behind the Music Returning to Paramount+ with New Episodes: Watch the Trailer” at Consequence.
Movies/TV/Video Games/Etc.:
Read “Chris Cuomo calls Fox News a 'disgrace' for not informing viewers that Tucker Carlson shouldn't be taken seriously” at Yahoo.
Read “Diamond and Silk suggest Fox News is racist for dumping them over COVID-19 conspiracies that were also embraced by white hosts like Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity” at Business Insider.
Books/Reading/Authors
Browse “Umberto Eco’s 36 Rules for Writing Well (in English or Italian)” at Open Culture.
Read “Enter an Archive of 6,000 Historical Children’s Books, All Digitized and Free to Read Online” at Open Culture.
Read “What We Can Learn from Studying UFOs” at Scientific American.
Science/Animals/Nature/Environment/Etc.:
Read “New type of ancient human discovered in Israel” at BBC.
Read “The Truth Has Not Always Been Out There” at New York Times.
Food And Drink Cultures:
Read “Pepsi Seeks Trademark for Rockstar-Branded Beer, Hard Seltzer” at Bloomberg.
Read “California man arrested over theft of 42,000lbs of pistachios” at BBC.
Read “The Horrifying Legacy of the Victorian Tapeworm Diet” at Atlas Obscura.
Misc. Oddities:
Read ‘Yes, There Really is a Softball Field at Area 51” at Vice.
Local:
Read “Before she embraced Donald Trump, Kari Lake signed on with Democrats as Barack Obama's fortunes soared” at 12 News.
Read “Lake Mead's decline points to scary water future in West” at The Hill.
Read “New Mattel-inspired theme park finds a home in Glendale” at 12 News.
Read “Flat Tax Exacerbates Inequalities for Households of Color” at AZ Center For Economic Progress.