The Weekly Town Crier (04/02/21)
All the week’s news that’s fit to cry about and more (04/02/21).
We’ll Miss You:
Read “Pioneering Synth Designer and Stevie Wonder Producer, Malcolm Cecil, Dead at 84” at Okay Player.
Religion and Stuff:
Read “Church membership in the U.S. has fallen below the majority for the first time in nearly a century” at Washington Post.
Read “LIL' NAS X Satanic Panic Publicity Makes Me Long For When Conservative Christians Got Mad At Metal” at Metal Injection. “The rapper's limited release Satanic sneakers and new music video are causing an uproar that used to be reserved for metal acts.”
Read “Lil Nas X's 'Satan' shoes that contain drop of human blood sold out in less than a minute” at The Hill.
Read “'Scolded us for being female': Woman says fishing trip prize taken away because she is a woman” at KETV. ““Living in the days of sexual scandals & accusations many pastors including myself, take the personal position that we will not put ourselves in a position that could bring about a false accusation.”
Read “Dozens of Christian students sue the U.S. Education Dept., hoping to pressure Equality Act negotiations.” “Students from across the country allege being ejected, punished and harmed by policies barring LGBTQ relationships and advocacy, and they are fighting back.”
Read “Celebrating Easter on the anniversary of MLK’s death” at Christian Century.
Legal/Justice and Social Justice and Race or Gender or Sexism-Related Stuff:
Read “Biden blasts new Georgia voting laws as civil rights group sue” at Al Jazeera.
Read “In the latest debate on guns, a hobbled NRA takes a backseat” at CNN.
Read “Carmichael Man Facing 19 Felony Weapons Charges After Discovery of Massive Gun Cache, Fake Explosives” at Sacramento CBS Local.
Read “A history of “wokeness” at Vox. “Stay woke: How a Black activist watchword got co-opted in the culture war.”
Read “Derek Chauvin Trial Live Updates: Lawyers Present Case in George Floyd’s Death” at New York Times.
Read “Supreme Court reinstates Tennessee inmate's death sentence” at The Hill.
Read “Arkansas becomes first state to pass bill prohibiting doctors from providing gender-affirming medical care to trans youth” at Business Insider.
Read “George Floyd news: Witness says Derek Chauvin used ‘blood choke’ as Floyd ‘pleaded for his life’” at Independent.
Read “Officers didn't let me into the scene': Witness, Off-duty firefighter says she would have given Floyd medical attention” at MSNBC.
Read “Asian woman brutally beaten in suspected hate crime as security guard does nothing to help” at New York Post.
Read “YouTube employees upset at company's refusal to remove song considered anti-Asian” at The Hill.
Read “Minnesota High Schoolers Stage Walkout After Asian Teen Receives Racist Texts From Classmates” at Comic Sands.
Read “Amazon Security Staff Reported Its Own Hostile Tweets as ‘Suspicious,’ Fearing They’d Been Hacked” at The Intercept. “These tweets are unnecessarily antagonistic (risking Amazon’s brand), and may be a result of unauthorized access,” read an employee help ticket.” Instead, in reality, the order for the bad tweets came directly from big man Bezos.
Read “‘She-Wees’ and Plastic Bags: Amazon’s Pee Scandal Is Much Worse for Women” at Vice.
Read “NRA Board Member Upends Bankruptcy With Demand to Probe LaPierre” at Bloomberg.
Read “The Myth of the ‘Underage Woman” at The Atlantic.
Read “Matt Gaetz Is Said to Face Justice Dept. Inquiry Over Sex With an Underage Girl” at New York Times.
Read “Gaetz showed lawmakers nude photos of women he claimed to have slept with: report” at The Hill.
Read “Justice Dept. Inquiry Into Matt Gaetz Said to Be Focused on Cash Paid to Women” at New York Times.
Read “500 Migrant Kids Crammed Into Plastic ‘Pods’ Meant for 32 People” at Daily Beast.
Read “Revisiting the Black power dream of North Carolina's Soul City” at Facing South.
This week in traitorous, white-supremacist Confederate monuments (and/or Columbus monuments // and/or other “American monuments” // and/or weird Confederacy stuff):
Read “Capitol riot suspect arrested while wearing 'I Was There' T-shirt” at The Hill.
Read “Charlottesville Can Remove Statues Of Confederate Generals, High Court Rules” at Huff Post.
Read “How Do You Solve A Problem Like The Proud Boys?” at Rantt Media. “Given the challenges law enforcement faces when trying to tackle extremist groups, it's clear that other counter-extremism measures have to be on the table.”
Education and The Learnings // School Re-Openings
Read “Biden’s First Big Break With His Allies Is Over School Reopenings” at New York Mag : Intelligencer.
Your Weekly Coronavirus Roundup:
Read “Dr. Deborah Birx says thousands of U.S. Covid deaths were preventable” at MSNBC.
Read “The Pandemic Ignited a Housing Boom—but It’s Different From the Last One” at Wall Street Journal.
Read “The Stunning Art That’s Waging War On COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy And Disinformation” at Huff Post.
Read “I just can't face another surge': Premature reopenings threaten vaccine successes” at MSNBC.
Read “U.K. Government Distributes $553 Million More From Culture Recovery Fund to Arts Organizations” at Variety.
Miscellany Cultural Items (and some Technology):
Read “Annie's Mac and Cheese is based in the Bay Area, but Annie is not. Here's her story” at SF Gate.
Read ‘Miss me yet?’ Donald Trump tears into Biden and border crisis at Mar-a-Lago wedding” at The Express.
Read “Detroit restaurant warns people who smell like marijuana to not 'even think of stepping inside'“ at The Hill.
Read “A Q&A With the Real Estate Agent Selling This Sexy Funeral Goth House in Baltimore” at Slate.
Read “Can a scammer hypnotize you over the phone? Let’s ask professional hypnotists” at Los Angeles Times.
Read “National Building Museum to reopen with exhibit on gun violence” at The Hill.
Read “Were Rampage’s Monsters Really Based on King Kong, Godzilla, and The Wolf Man?” at Den of Geek. “Before Godzilla vs. King Kong, we spent years pretending Rampage put those legendary monsters on the same screen. However, the true origins of Rampage's monsters are stranger than you think...”
Read “How One of the World’s Largest Container Ships Can Get Stuck in the Suez Canal” at Wall Street Journal.
Politics And Sucheries:
Read “Fox News sued by Dominion Voting Systems over election fraud claims” at NBC News.
This Week In Political Corruption:
Read “Georgia Lawmaker Arrested As Governor Signs Law Overhauling Elections” at NPR.
Read “Graham cites Hurricane Katrina as reason to own AR-15” at The Hill.
Music-Related News and Such:
Read “Rick Nielsen Of Cheap Trick Reviews Cheap Trick’s Biggest Albums” at Uproxx.
Watch “the Weather Station Perform on CBS This Morning” at Pitchfork.
Read “Bob Weir: Saint of Circumstance” at Relix.
Read “Dead & Company Confirm Dates for Playing in the Sand 2022” at Relix.
Read “Phil Lesh to Perform Socially Distanced Show at Terrapin Crossroads” at Jambands.
Read “The Many Lives of Judee Sill” at Rolling Stone.
Read “Officially Sanctioned ‘Jerry Garcia, Artist’ Documentary To Focus On 1987 Interview” at Live For Live Music.
Read “BTS Discuss Facing Discrimination, Condemn Racism in #StopAsianHate Statement” at Pitchfork.
Read “Sons of Kemet Announce New Album Black to the Future, Share “Hustle” at Consequence of Sound.
Browse Pitchfork’s picks for “30 Great Records You May Have Missed: Winter 2021.”
Read “Benevento/Russo Duo Confirm Relix Studio Full Acoustic Livestream Concert” at Jambase.
Read “Nils Frahm: ‘NFTs are the most disgusting thing on the planet’” at Independent.
Read “Kevin Shields on My Bloody Valentine’s Return: Time Is ‘More Precious’” at New York Times.
Read “Celebrating 15 Years of Musical Eclecticism with Aquarium Drunkard’s Justin Gage” at In Sheep’s Clothing Hi Fi.
Read “Archie Shepp :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview”.
Read “Janis Joplin’s Last TV Performance & Interview: The Dick Cavett Show (1970)” at Open Culture.
Read “Grammy Museum To Honor Blue Note Records For Jazz Appreciation Month” at U Discover Music.
Read “Matt Sweeney Loves “Guitar Playing That You Don’t Understand” at Premier Guitar.
Read “A Quiet Revolution” at Spin. “Indigo Girls' Amy Ray and Emily Saliers on their life in music, activism and friendship.”
Read “Learning to Be OK With the Word ‘Vinyls’” at Variety.
Read “Ryley Walker Explains How He Made His Best Album, ‘Course In Fable’” at Uproxx.
Read “Soundgarden Accuse Vicky Cornell of Locking Band Out of Social Media Accounts” at Consequence of Sound.
Movies/TV/Video Games/Etc.:
Read “Did you spot them? 'Coming 2 America's best throwbacks to the classic comedy original (Spoilers!)” at USA Today.
Books/Reading/Authors
Read “Howl: illuminating draft of Allen Ginsberg's seminal poem found” at The Guardian. “Early draft of Howl is on sale for $425,000 and ‘allows a look into the mind’ of the influential Beat poet.”
Misc. Oddities:
Read “Who Built the Egyptian Pyramids & How Did They Do It?: New Archeological Evidence Busts Ancient Myths” at Open Culture.