On this Patreon News Brief we discuss the psychology of the Iowa caucus, at what point skepticism becomes "conspiracy theory", and how only Evil Foreigners can be "oligarchs".
2020-02-05 00:57:36 +0000 UTC View PostDearest Patrons,
What a week! An absurd DNC debacle in Iowa, a State of Union no one should watch, and - most importantly - the 100th Episode of Citations Needed to be released on Wednesday!
In the meantime, check out some choice articles from recent days, which we've compiled below. And stay tuned for the new show tomorrow! Thanks again (and again and again) for your ongoing support. We seriously couldn't do any of this without you.
- Marco, Florence, Adam, Nima, and Julian...
2020-02-04 21:24:46 +0000 UTC View Post
Over the last 20 years, the topics of substance use and treatment have become the stuff of televised entertainment: heart-wrenching stories of desperation and redemption, of suffering and survival. Shows like A&E’s Intervention and VH1’s Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew, which depict people with substance use disorders and their experiences navigating recovery in rehab, have gone a long way to shape our common narratives about what addiction is and how it should be addr...
2020-01-29 16:19:21 +0000 UTC View Post
From its inception as agriculture trade paper in 1843 to the present day, The Economist has provided a gateway into the mind of the banking class. Something of an anomaly in the publishing industry, The Economist is not quite a magazine, not quite a newspaper; aspirational in its branding but bleakly limited in political ambitions; brazenly transparent in its capitalist ideology, yet inscrutable in its favorably spinning for American and British imperialism and racism.
Happy New...sletter and New Year, everyone!
Below are some choice cuts and smart takes from good folks, so we hope you make the smart choice and check them out.
We're back with new episodes, of course, so look out for the latest coming your way tomorrow.
Thanks again for all your support!
- Marco, Nima, Adam, Florence, and Julianne.
*****
In this Patreon News Brief we recap the lowlights of CNN's recent Democratic Party primary debate.
2020-01-17 15:35:59 +0000 UTC View Post
Everywhere we turn, local media — TV, digital, radio — is constantly telling us about the scourge of crime lurking around every corner. This, of course, is not new. It’s been the basis of the local news business model since the 1970s.
But what is new is the rise of surveillance and snitch apps like Amazon’s Ring doorbell systems and geo-local social media like Nextdoor. They are funded by real estate and other gentrifying interests working hand in glove with police to prov...
2020-01-15 15:45:31 +0000 UTC View Post
President Trump killed an Official Bad Guy so, on cue, the range of the debate in US media is "Hell yes that was bad ass" to "Hell yes it was bad ass but next time he needs to let Congressional leadership know in advance."
2020-01-04 21:46:55 +0000 UTC View PostHi all, hope you are well.
Here's the final newsletter of the year. We, once again, appreciate all your support and hope you all have a happy holidays.
-- Nima, Florence, Marco, Julianne, Adam
------------------------------
Uber Is Offering Scab Rides to Help Break France’s General Strike Julianne Tveten, In The...
2019-12-17 19:08:50 +0000 UTC View Post
The last two decades have seen the release of a number of explicitly Christian movies which tell stories of believers navigating the trials and tribulations - both literal and figurative - of a perceived non-Christian world. In this universe, followers of Christ are constantly under siege by secularists, swarthy Muslims, gay and trans agenda-pushers, feminists and a hostile, out-of control federal government.
While the media usually lumps these movies into a generalized “faith...
2019-12-11 15:29:55 +0000 UTC View Post
“'Right-to-work' means freedom and choice,” a Boston Globe op-ed explains. “As housing costs rise, some people are choosing to live on the road instead,” a Fox Business headline states. “If your insurance company isn’t doing right by you, you should have another, better choice,” reads Joe Biden’s campaign platform.
We’re told repeatedly that “freedom of choice” is essential to a robust economy and human happiness. Economists, executives, poli...
2019-12-04 15:33:05 +0000 UTC View PostHello everyone!
We've supercharged this week's newsletter with a whole lot of articles we've been reading.
Thanks again for all your support; there is truly no way to thank you enough. Another new episode drops tomorrow, so watch out!
-- Marco, Nima, Florence and Adam
***
The My Favorite Murder Problem 2019-12-03 22:01:09 +0000 UTC View Post
Since the early 2000s, a spate of forensics-focused TV shows and films have emerged on the pop culture scene. Years after Law & Order premiered in the '90s, shows like CSI, NCIS, and The Mentalist followed, trumpeting the scientific merit of analyzing blood-spatter patterns, reading facial and bodily cues, and using the latest fingerprint-matching technology to catch the bad guy.
Yet what these procedurals neglect to acknowledge is that many of these popular forensic techniques are ...
2019-11-27 14:45:38 +0000 UTC View Post
In Ep. 90, "How Western Media's False Binary Between 'Science' & Indigenous Rights Erases Native People," we explored the ways capital-S "Science" has been wielded by those in power to erase Native people and culture around the world. Our discussion of the Thirty Meter Telescope "controversy" at Mauna Kea in Hawai'i drew much online debate, but instead of talking about the activists there, we thought we'd talk to them–...
2019-11-20 17:01:59 +0000 UTC View Post
In this Patreon News Brief, we review Amazon's big budget CIA recruitment video "Jack Ryan."
(Apologies for previous version's sound errors.)
2019-11-19 00:00:18 +0000 UTC View Post
In this News Brief, we discuss the battle over whether or not to call what happened in Bolivia a "coup," and the problem with the always popular, slippery evocation of "agency."
The Bolivian Coup Is Not a Coup—Because US Wanted It to Happen
Alan MacLeod | November 11, 2019 | FAIR
"A preponderance of foreign elements destroys the most precious thing [a nation] possesses - its own soul,” wrote the politically-influential Immigration Restriction League in early 1919. "The great hotbeds of radicalism lie in the various colonies of alien workmen," declared The New York Times on January 5, 1921. Warning of the "menace" posed by "millions of intending immigrants of the poorest and most refractory sort," The Saturday Evening Post insisted days later that "the character of t...
2019-11-13 16:54:49 +0000 UTC View PostHi all!
Here's this week's newsletter. Thanks to anyone who came out for our live show last week, we will be posting that soon.
--Adam, Marco, Nima, and Florence
-------------------------------------------
Ben Rhodes’ False Atonement for the Yemen War Sarah Lazare,
"As technology shifts more layoffs loom at tech companies," Reuters tells us. "PepsiCo is laying off corporate employees as the company commits to millions of dollars in severance pay, restructuring, and 'relentlessly automating'," notes Business Insider. "Apple’s dismissal of 200 self-driving car employees points to a shift in its AI strategy," CNBC declares.
For decades, mass layoffs, factory closures, and industry shifts––from the auto industry to journalism to banking–...
2019-10-30 15:02:25 +0000 UTC View Post
“Building a wall won't save America's crumbling middle class,” Elizabeth Warren tells us. “Sanders healthcare will raise taxes on the middle class,” a CNN headline reads. “There’ war on the middle class,” a Boston Globe editorial laments.
The term “middle class” is used so much by pundits and politicians, it could easily be the Free Space in any political rhetoric Bingo card. After all, who’s opposed to strengthening, widening, and protecting th...
2019-10-23 15:07:29 +0000 UTC View PostHi all,
Hope your fall is going well. Here is this week's newsletter. As always, thanks for the support!
-- Nima, Florence, Adam, and Marco
-------
What’s at Stake in Chicago Teachers’ Strike: Whether Unions Can Bargain for the Entire Working Class, Rebecca Burns, In These Times (October 14, 201...
2019-10-22 19:10:40 +0000 UTC View Post
“Science and religion fight over Hawaii's highest point,” one CNN headline puts it. “Desecrating sacred land or finding new frontiers?” BBC asks. "Science, Interrupted: Mauna Kea Observatories ‘caught in the middle,’” Pacific Business News writes.
When tensions arise between native communities and the so-called “pursuit of science,” more often than not Western media presents this point of conflict as a symmetrical and simplistic case of “science vs. superstitio...
2019-10-16 16:15:45 +0000 UTC View Post
Come join us for a live show at Cornell University's Johnson Museum 10/26 at 4:30pm! The show is free and part of their 'how the light gets in' exhibit. We will discuss US media's role in stirring up anti-immigrant fervor from the early 20th century to today.
2019-10-09 17:52:10 +0000 UTC View Post
“Israel says EU's response on Iran recalls Nazi appeasement,” reported Reuters. “The Biden Plan for Appeasement,” spat a recent editorial in The New York Sun. An editorial in The Washington Examiner pleaded, “President Trump, stop the appeasement of North Korea."
New York Magazine tells us, “U.S. Scraps Military Exercise to Appease North Korea,” and The National Review’s Jonah Goldberg has denounced both Obama and Trump's respective "appeasements". This past June, Fox Ne...
2019-10-09 14:49:41 +0000 UTC View PostHi all, thanks as always for supporting the show. Here is this fortnight's newsletter. Enjoy!
-- Florence, Marco, Adam, and Nima
-----------------------------
Trump Attacked the Women of Color Who Led the Push for Impeachment. Then CNN Erased Them Natasha Lennard, The Intercept (October 1, 2019)
Donald Trump’s reelection campaign reacted to t...
2019-10-08 19:41:28 +0000 UTC View Post
In this Patreon News Brief, we discuss San Francisco media's credulous reporting on anti-Drug Dealer rocks in California.
2019-10-02 16:30:43 +0000 UTC View Post
We are often warned by conservatives, liberals and even some on the Left that we live in a time where “free speech” is under threat from far-left forces. “Political correctness” and “snowflakes” have shut down free inquiry, specifically on college campuses, and led to a crisis threatening the very foundation of our democracy.
But the origins of the label “free speech” — as it’s currently practiced — paint a much messier picture. Rather than appealing to the...
2019-09-25 15:07:42 +0000 UTC View PostHi all, the return of the Newsletter is here!
Hope you are well, look out for our new episode tomorrow.
-- Adam, Marco, Florence, and Nima
---------------------------------
Hospital Plans to “Use the Transferring of Critically-Ill Premature Infants” to Paint Nurses Union as “Shameless,” Secret Strategy Memo Reveals, Aída Chávez, T...
2019-09-24 17:31:07 +0000 UTC View Post
Friend of the show and writer at The Intercept Jon Schwarz joins us to review Samantha Power's self-serving memoir.
2019-09-23 17:15:42 +0000 UTC View Post
Nate Silver tells us Joe Biden’s inconsistent political beliefs are, in fact, a benefit. They’re “his calling card” and evidence he “reads the room pretty well.” Venality, we are told, is “a normal and often successful [mode] for a politician.” Insurgent progressive groups like Justice Democrats shouldn’t call Biden out of touch with the base because, Silver tells us, “only 26 of the 79 candidates it endorsed last year won their primaries, and only 7 of those went on to wi...
2019-09-18 14:48:46 +0000 UTC View Post