COVID-19 Pandemic
Doctors and charlatans
There is a new blog post entitled, “Anti-intellectualism and the need for independent scholarship.”
Mindy Fullilove et al., “The CDC is beholden to corporations and lost our trust. We need to start our own The People’s CDC,” Guardian, April 3, 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/apr/03/peoples-cdc-covid-guidelines
Reuters, “U.S. poor died at much higher rate from COVID than rich – report,” April 4, 2022, https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-poor-died-much-higher-rate-covid-than-rich-report-2022-04-04/
Lena H. Sun, “CDC, under fire for covid response, announces plans to revamp agency,” Washington Post, April 4, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/04/04/walensky-cdc-revamp-pandemic/
Police White supremacist gangs
Kevin Rector, “Help or handcuff? LAPD officers often delay providing medical aid after shooting people,” Los Angeles Times, April 5, 2022, https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-04-05/lapd-officers-medical-aid-shootings
Hate
Zsuzsanna Szelényi, “How Viktor Orbán Built His Illiberal State,” New Republic, April 5, 2022, https://newrepublic.com/article/165953/viktor-orban-built-illiberal-state
Abortion
In past years, three states — Alabama, Arkansas and Oklahoma — have passed near total abortion bans, all of which have been blocked by the courts because of the challenge they pose to Roe v. Wade. But this latest bill, passed within months or perhaps weeks of the Supreme Court’s action in the Mississippi case, could stand a greater chance of taking effect.[1]
Caroline Kitchener, “Okla. lawmakers approve bill to make performing an abortion illegal,” Washington Post, April 5, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/04/05/okla-lawmakers-approve-bill-make-performing-an-abortion-illegal/
Student loans
This was ridiculous in March.[2] It’s still ridiculous. If, indeed, restarting student loan payments is such a hardship for borrowers,[3] then we need to admit that and to accept that they aren’t going to stop being a hardship.
Full disclosure: I owe something over $360,000 in student loans. I am on income-based repayment, which means I pay zero, or close to it, anyway. Since my job hunt is futile,[4] I’m basically counting down until the loans are forgiven at the end of a twenty-year term, probably somewhere around 2036. I will be about 77 years old. Folks who don’t like that should make it possible for me to get a real job. Or just cancel the debts. Or at least shut the fuck up.
Gabriel T. Rubin and Andrew Restuccia, “Biden Administration to Extend Student-Loan Payment Pause Through End of August,” Wall Street Journal, April 5, 2022, https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-administration-to-extend-student-loan-payment-moratorium-until-end-of-august-11649181610
Ukraine
Those who hope Vladimir Putin will be brought to trial[5] for war crimes might wish to consider the case of Henry Kissinger.
Jon Henley, Pjotr Sauer, and Shaun Walker, “‘Ukrainians are not naive’: Zelenskiy voices doubt on Russian military withdrawals,” Guardian, March 29, 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/29/ukraine-russia-peace-talks-istanbul-war-kyiv
Samantha Lock and Léonie Chao-Fong, “Russia-Ukraine war: what we know on day 35 of the Russian invasion,” Guardian, March 29, 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/30/russia-ukraine-war-what-we-know-on-day-35-of-the-russian-invasion
Adam Taylor and William Neff, “Why the world is so worried about Russia’s ‘tactical’ nuclear weapons,” Washington Post, March 29, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/03/29/why-world-is-so-worried-about-russias-tactical-nuclear-weapons/
Joshua Yaffa, “Why Do So Many Russians Say They Support the War in Ukraine?” New Yorker, March 29, 2022, https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/why-do-so-many-russians-say-they-support-the-war-in-ukraine
Michael Birnbaum et al., “U.S. says Putin being misled, as Ukraine refugee tally hits 4 million,” Washington Post, March 30, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/03/30/ukraine-putin-misled-russia/
Nebi Qena and Yuras Karmanau, “Russia shells areas in Ukraine where it vowed to scale back,” Associated Press, March 30, 2022, https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-zelenskyy-roman-abramovich-kyiv-europe-ef9c28c44f94b34262fe6b7c296d58a6
Tom Ball, “Cancer surgeon ‘visited Putin 35 times in four years,’” Times, April 1, 2022, https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/cancer-surgeon-visited-putin-35-times-in-four-years-gkflcsvfg
British Broadcasting Corporation, “Ukraine war: Gruesome evidence points to war crimes on road outside Kyiv,” April 1, 2022, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60949791
Julia Ioffe, “How Putin’s Game Ends,” Puck News, April 1, 2022, https://puck.news/how-putins-game-ends/
Daniel Boffey, “‘It is a war crime’: two young boys among neighbours shot dead during attempted evacuation,” Guardian, April 2, 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/02/i-realised-my-husband-was-dead-ukrainians-tell-of-russian-army-atrocities
Martin Farrer, “Russians booby-trapping homes as they retreat, claims Zelenskiy,” Guardian, April 2, 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/02/russia-ukraine-war-invasion-retreat-zelenskiy-kyiv-us-biden-uk-evacuees-escape-mariupol
Reuters, “Russia to halt cooperation over International Space Station,” Guardian, April 2, 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/02/russia-to-end-cooperation-over-international-space-station
Liz Sly and Max Bearak, “Russia pulls back from battered Kyiv region in major shift of war to east,” Washington Post, April 2, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/04/02/russia-ukraine-east/
Clare Ansberry, “In a Pennsylvania Town, a Ukrainian Church and Its Russian Neighbor Navigate Wartime Tensions,” Wall Street Journal, April 3, 2022, https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-a-pennsylvania-town-a-ukrainian-church-and-its-russian-neighbor-navigate-wartime-tensions-11648920990
Bethan McKernan, “Rape as a weapon: huge scale of sexual violence endured in Ukraine emerges,” Guardian, April 3, 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/03/all-wars-are-like-this-used-as-a-weapon-of-war-in-ukraine
Reuters, “Patriarch urges soldiers to defend ‘peace-loving’ Russia amid Ukraine campaign,” April 3, 2022, https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/patriarch-urges-soldiers-defend-peace-loving-russia-amid-ukraine-campaign-2022-04-03/
Jennifer Rankin and Daniel Boffey, “Killing of civilians in Bucha and Kyiv condemned as ‘terrible war crime,’” Guardian, April 3, 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/03/eu-leaders-condemn-killing-of-unarmed-civilians-in-bucha-and-kyiv
David L. Stern et al., “Russian forces pull back from Kyiv, exposing horrors of war,” Washington Post, April 3, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/04/02/ukraine-russia-bucha/
Nandita Bose, “Biden urges Putin war crimes trial after Bucha killings,” Reuters, April 4, 2022, https://www.reuters.com/world/biden-says-putin-is-war-criminal-calls-war-crimes-trial-2022-04-04/
Malachy Browne, David Botti and Haley Willis, “Satellite images show bodies lay in Bucha for weeks, despite Russian claims,” New York Times, April 4, 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/04/world/europe/bucha-ukraine-bodies.html
Amy Spiro, “Liberman refuses to condemn Russia over Bucha, citing ‘mutual accusations,’” Times of Israel, April 4, 2022, https://www.timesofisrael.com/liberman-refuses-to-condemn-russia-over-bucha-citing-mutual-accusations/
Anton Troianovski and Matina Stevis-Gridneff, “Images of Russian Atrocities Push West Toward Tougher Sanctions,” New York Times, April 4, 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/04/world/europe/biden-putin-ukraine-war.html
Gerry Doyle, “Satellite images show civilian deaths in Ukraine town while it was in Russian hands,” Reuters, April 5, 2022, https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/satellite-images-show-civilian-deaths-ukraine-town-while-it-was-russian-hands-2022-04-05/
- [1]Caroline Kitchener, “Okla. lawmakers approve bill to make performing an abortion illegal,” Washington Post, April 5, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/04/05/okla-lawmakers-approve-bill-make-performing-an-abortion-illegal/↩
- [2]Michael Stratford, “Biden officials signal they might extend student loan payment freeze,” Politico, March 9, 2022, https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/09/biden-student-loan-payment-freeze-00015439↩
- [3]Gabriel T. Rubin and Andrew Restuccia, “Biden Administration to Extend Student-Loan Payment Pause Through End of August,” Wall Street Journal, April 5, 2022, https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-administration-to-extend-student-loan-payment-moratorium-until-end-of-august-11649181610↩
- [4]David Benfell, “About my job hunt,” Not Housebroken, n.d., https://disunitedstates.org/about-my-job-hunt/↩
- [5]Nandita Bose, “Biden urges Putin war crimes trial after Bucha killings,” Reuters, April 4, 2022, https://www.reuters.com/world/biden-says-putin-is-war-criminal-calls-war-crimes-trial-2022-04-04/↩