The Weekly Town Crier (10/02/20)

flowerpower.jpg

All the week’s news that’s fit to cry about (10/02/20).





We’ll Miss You:

Read “In Memory of Mac Davis” at American Songwriter.

Religion and Stuff:

Read “Trump Secretly Mocks His Christian Supporters” at The Atlantic. “Former aides say that in private, the president has spoken with cynicism and contempt about believers.” “The president's religious right base doesn't mind that he doesn't share their doctrinal beliefs or even belittles them — they care that he selects conservative justices who protect religious liberty and the unborn and that he fights for them.”

Read “The story behind Amy Coney Barrett’s little-known Catholic group People of Praise” at Washington Post.

Read “The Church Mothers Teach Us to Delight in Scripture” at Christianity Today. “Monica and Macrina didn't just influence Augustine and Gregory of Nyssa. They were biblical interpreters in their own right.”

Read “For Conservative Christian Women, Amy Coney Barrett’s Success Is Personal” at New York Times.

Read “Christian group raises over $500K for Kenosha shooter Kyle Rittenhouse” (EDITOR’S NOTE: This should read: “Christian” group raises . . . “

Read “Christians Struggled with Relational Health Prior to the Crisis—So What Has Changed?” at Barna.

Read “What Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination doesn’t mean” at Christian Century. “Don’t bother looking for the political significance of the Supreme Court nominee’s Catholicism. There isn’t any.”

Read “Ravi Zacharias’s Ministry Investigates Claims of Sexual Misconduct at Spas” at Christianity Today. “Three women have come forward with additional allegations against the late Christian apologist.”

Read “Making Your Church Manlier Won’t Make It Bigger” at Christianity Today. “History tells us that denominational growth has nothing to do with sex ratios in the pews.”

Read “Meet the new Justin Bieber: Popstar, husband, holy hugger” at Religion News Service.

Legal/Justice and Social Justice and Race or Gender or Sexism-Related Stuff:

Read “Racism has cost America $16 trillion this century alone” at WSMV Nashville.

Read ‘Indigenous Groups Protest Border Wall Construction At Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument” at KJZZ.

Read “The US government won't detail why TikTok is a security threat” at CNET.

Read “Ballistics don't support AG Cameron's claim Breonna Taylor's boyfriend shot officer” at Louisville Courier-Journal.

  • Read “Officer Charged in Breonna Taylor Case Pleads Not Guilty” at Wall Street Journal.

  • Read “Kentucky attorney general didn't recommend any homicide charges to Breonna Taylor grand jury” at The Hill.

Read “A lot of differences’: Experts address health disparities among Asian American subgroups” at Cronkite News.

Read “California will house transgender inmates by gender identity” at SF Gate.

Read “Federal court orders Texas prison system to provide hand sanitizer for some geriatric inmates during pandemic” at Texas Tribune.

Read “They Have Lost So Much But They Will Not Lose Their Right To Vote.' Advocates Fight To Enfranchise Americans Displaced by Wildfires” at Time.

Read “The 'Dindu' Conspiracy: Donald Trump, America and an Inanimate Object Called Whiteness” at The Root.

Read “This Indian Company Just Introduced a Period Leave Policy” at Global Citizen.

Read “Trump refused to condemn white supremacists. The debate didn't get any better from there” at Mashable. “"Proud Boys, stand back and stand by! But I'll tell you what, somebody's got to do something about antifa and the left." Drumpf went on to say: “This is not a Right Wing Problem," once again denying his own security officials.

  • Read “A Pro-Trump Militant Group Has Recruited Thousands of Police, Soldiers, and Veterans” at The Atlantic. “....The

  • Read “A Pro-Trump Militant Group Has Recruited Thousands of Police, Soldiers, and Veterans” at The Atlantic. “....The leaked database laid everything out. It had been compiled by Rhodes’s deputies as new members signed up at recruiting events or on the Oath Keepers website.... About two-thirds had a background in the military or law enforcement."

  • Read “Right-Wing Domestic Terrorism Is On The Rise. Did The Warning Signs Evade Us?” at WBUR (from 07/2020).

  • Read “Retailers Are Already Pulling 'Stand Back and Stand By' Merch From Online Shelves” at Vice.

Read "H. R. McMaster: ‘Condemning White Supremacists Should Be a Layup’” at The Atlantic.

This Week In Protest-Related News:

Read “US teen charged in Kenosha shootings fights extradition” at Al Jazeera.

Read “How The Protests Upended Portland’s Mayoral Race” at The Intercept.

This Week With The Police:

Read “Breonna Taylor’s death shocked the nation. In Louisville, many Black people are far from surprised” at Los Angeles Times.

  • Read “AG Cameron to release Breonna Taylor grand jury records after juror complains he misled” at Louisville Courier-Journal.

Education and The Learnings // School Re-Openings

Read "Parents Knowingly Sent Kids With Coronavirus to School, Wisconsin Officials Say” at NBC New York. “Never in a million years did we imagine or think to account for parents deliberately sending their sick or symptomatic child to school," one health official said.”

Read “The Federal Government Promised Native American Students Computers and Internet. Many Are Still Waiting” at Pro Publica.

  • Read “The federal government gives Native students an inadequate education” at AZ Central.

Read “60% of Portland State University students face housing, food instability” at Oregon Public Broadcasting.

Your Weekly Coronavirus Roundup:

Read “President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump test positive for Covid-19” at CNN.

Read ‘Pope to UN: Use COVID crisis to come out better, not worse” at 12 News. “Pope Francis said the world has a choice to make as it emerges from the COVID-19 crisis and addresses the grave economic impact it has had on the most vulnerable.”

Read “Over 50 Million People Dually Affected by COVID-19 and Climate Disasters” at Global Citizen.

Read “No Job, Loads of Debt: Covid Upends Middle-Class Family Finances” at Wall Street Journal. “The pandemic is wreaking havoc in loan-laden white-collar workers’ households; ‘I will never claw my way out of this situation’.

Read “Democrats Unveil $2.2 Trillion Pandemic Relief Bill” at Wall Street Journal.

Read “The Coronavirus Mostly Spares Younger Children. Teens Aren’t So Lucky.” at The New York Times.

Read “Titans-Steelers NFL game postponed after positive COVID-19 tests: report” at The Hill.

Read “Trump’s Family Didn’t Wear Masks During Presidential Debate — Except On Social Media” at Huff Post.

Miscellany Cultural Items:

Read “Everybody Vs. the App Store: Why Companies Are Taking Issue With Apple’s Growing Revenue Engine” at Wall Street Journal.

Read “Judge Rules Tucker Carlson Is Not a Credible Source of News” at Slate.

Read “Tracking the Major Wildfires Spreading Across Northern California” at Bloomberg.

Read “Brené Brown, Vulnerability, and The Trump Voter” at Book Riot.

Read “Military Suicides Up As Much As 20% During Coronavirus Era” at Huff Post.

Read “The Legacy of ‘Going Postal’” at Vice. “In the late 80s and early 90s, a spate of shootings by disgruntled postal workers became the primary way most Americans thought of the post office. They also shed light on an agency with a profoundly unhealthy work environment.”

Read “Thousands of Airline Jobs Hang in the Balance as Lawmakers Debate Aid” at Wall Street Journal.

Read “Disney cuts: What is life like after 'magic' job?” at BBC.

Internationalities:

Read “Ai Weiwei: 'Too late' to curb China's global influence” at BBC.

Politics And Sucheries:

Read “Guest Commentary: I served under six presidents — four Republicans, two Democrats — only one has failed to serve U.S. national security interests” at Denver Post.

Read “Why Arizona Is Tilting Blue: ‘The State’s Clearly in Motion’ at New York Times.

Read “57 percent of Americans think next president, Senate should fill Ginsburg vacancy” at The Hill.

Read “Sen. Cory Booker: This president is menacing our democracy” at MSNBC.

Read “Voter registration spiked in days immediately following Ruth Bader Ginsburg death” at The Hill.

Read “Cindy McCain ups support of Joe Biden, joins Democrat’s transition team” at KTAR.

Read “A debate that will live in infamy: That sweaty, red-faced liar is actually our president” at Salon.

This Week In Political Corruption:

Read “Tillis says he has ‘grave concerns’ about voting by mail in NC after board settlement” at News Observer.

Read “The question of how Donald Trump’s Scottish resorts are financed just became even more urgent” at Slate.

Read “IRS: Sorry, but It’s Just Easier and Cheaper to Audit the Poor” at Pro Publica. “Congress asked the IRS to report on why it audits the poor more than the affluent. Its response is that it doesn’t have enough money and people to audit the wealthy properly. So it’s not going to.”

Read “Trump tax records show duplicity. That's devastating for his campaign.” at NBC News.

Read “Detainees at California’s for-profit ICE detention centers will soon be able to sue over abuse, harm” at Los Angeles Times.

Read “Police took 10 guns from Trump associate’s Florida home after wife showed them bruises” at Miami Herald.

Read “DeJoy Says Mail Sorting Machines Were Stripped For Parts And Can't Be Reinstalled” at Yahoo.

  • Read “Postal service ordered to stop cuts, federal judge says” at 12 News.

  • Read “In NC, consequences of Postal Service slowdown extend beyond the mailbox” at WECT.

Read “Foreign Hackers Cripple Texas County’s Email System, Raising Election Security Concerns” at Pro Publica.

Read “Census Cuts All Counting Efforts Short By A Month” at NPR.

Read “Judge orders Georgia officials to provide backup paper poll books ahead of election” at The Hill.

Read “Weissmann: WH didn't fully cooperate with our investigation” at MSNBC. “Andrew Weissmann, former lead prosecutor for Special Counsel Robert Mueller, discusses how Trump manipulated the findings in the Mueller Report and why he says the findings from the NYT report are 'potentially indictable'.”

Read “Secretive group who bankrolled Brett Kavanaugh confirmation is now backing Amy Coney Barrett” at Salon.

Read “Money For Misinformation? Experts Say The First Domestic 'Troll Farms' Are Here” at WBUR.

Read “Trump’s ex-national security adviser says president is ‘aiding and abetting’ Putin” at Politico.

Music-Related News and Such:

Read “The Quiet Return of Fleet Foxes and Sufjan Stevens” at Pitchfork.

  • Read “Sufjan Stevens’s Cry of Despair and Prayer for Redemption” at New York Times.

  • Read “'I have a sense of urgency': Sufjan Stevens wakes from the American dream” at The Guardian.

Read “Stone Roses’ Ian Brown Says COVID Was “Planned,” Releases Anti-Lockdown Song” at Stereogum.

Read “Bonnaroo Shares The Beastie Boys Final Concert” at Jambase.

Read “I Was Bullied for Being Arab. Nine Inch Nails Threw Me a Lifeline.” at New York Times.

Read “It's a bunch of clowns you voted in': Willie Nelson urges fans to 'Vote 'Em Out' in video” at AZ Central.

Movies/TV/Video Games/Etc.:

Read “‘Black Panther’ Mural With Chadwick Boseman Unveiled at Disneyland” at Variety.

  • Read “Sienna Miller says Chadwick Boseman took a pay cut on 21 Bridges so she could make more money” (EDITOR’S NOTE: Now let’s lament a system in which this was necessary in the first place).

Read “Watch Trailer for New Doc on Nickelodeon’s Glory Days, ‘The Orange Years’” at Rolling Stone.

Design/Artsy Things:

Read “Studio Ghibli Puts Online 400 Images from Eight Classic Films, and Lets You Download Them for Free” at Open Culture.

Food Cultures:

Read “Why Are So Dang Many Potato Chip Brands From Pennsylvania?” at Gastro Obscura.

Read “Ireland’s Supreme Court rules Subway sandwiches have too much sugar to meet legal definition of bread” at Market Watch.

Misc. Oddities:

Read “The Rise and Fall of North Carolina’s National Hollerin’ Contest” at Atlas Obscura.

Local:

Read “Pedestrians in Arizona are more likely to be hit and killed than nearly any other state. Why?” at AZ Central.