The Weekly Town Crier (07/02/21)
All the week’s news that’s fit to cry about (07/02/21).
We’ll Miss You:
Read “Blackalicious Rapper Gift of Gab Dead at 50” at Rolling Stone.
Read “Richard Altuna, Who Redesigned What Retail Looks Like, Dies At 70” at NPR.
Read “Jon Hassell, pioneering electronic musician, RIP” at Boing Boing.
Read “‘Cops’ Creator John Langley Dead at 78” at Rolling Stone.
Read “Former Skid Row Singer Johnny Solinger Dead at 55” at Rolling Stone.
Read “Donald Rumsfeld, former secretary of defense, dies at 88” at CNN.
Religion and Stuff:
Read “The American church needs to reckon with its legacy in Indigenous boarding schools” at Religion News Service. “The American church will not be able to hide from its history of complicity in the treatment of Indigenous peoples — and the ongoing colonization Indigenous peoples continue to face today.”
Read ‘Are We Attempting to Serve Two Masters, Jesus and Gun Rights?” at Christianity Today. “Reflections from a school shooting survivor.”
Read “White hysteria, Critical Race Theory, and eyes that dare not see” by David Gushee at Baptist News.
Read “Where Did White Evangelicalism’s Hatred of Critical Race Theory Really Begin?” at Religion Dispatches.
Read “Critical race theory is a gift to Christians” at Christian Century. “The good news about collective and institutional sin is that, like individual sin, it can be redeemed.”
Read “Who are the Catholic bishops drafting the controversial Communion document?” at Religion News Service. “A look at the clerics tasked with penning a document many see as a rebuke of President Joe Biden.”
Read “More churches burn down on Canada indigenous land” at BBC.
Read “How the Southern Baptist Convention Rejected Populist Fundamentalism” at The Bulwark.
Read “As Southern Baptists Begin to Grapple with Sexual Abuse, Looming Challenges Remain” at Roys Report.
Read “Indian priest’s wife chops off his penis after he wanted to marry again” at New York Post.
Meet “the Theobros, who want you to know they’re right about everything” at Baptist News.
Read “Pope to meet with delegation of Indigenous People of Canada” at Vatican News.
Read “Behind Biden’s 2020 Victory” at Pew Research. “Trump’s support among white evangelicals rose from 77% in 2016 to 84% in 2020.”
Read “Catholic bishop of Syracuse decries Doctrine of Discovery, suggests pope do the same” at Religion News Service.
Read “UK Methodist Church Votes to Allow Same-Sex Marriages, While US Methodists Anticipate Split” at Roys Report.
Read “How Philadelphia’s reform DA is teaming with clergy to tackle rising gun violence” at Religion News Service.
Legal/Justice and Social Justice and Race or Gender or Sexism-Related Stuff:
Read “In Suing Georgia, Justice Department Says State's New Voting Law Targets Black Voters” at NPR.
Read “An Iowa County Chooses to Be Named for a Black Professor, Not a Slaveowner” at New York Times. “Johnson County selected Lulu Merle Johnson, a Black educator and historian, as its official eponym, replacing Richard Mentor Johnson, the ninth U.S. vice president.”
Read “How Did This Anti-Labor Lawyer Become One of Joe Biden’s First Judicial Nominees?” at Slate.
Read “Clarence Thomas says federal laws against marijuana may no longer be necessary” at NBC News. “The federal government's current approach is a half-in, half-out regime that simultaneously tolerates and forbids local use of marijuana,” the conservative Supreme Court justice wrote.”
Read “US Supreme Court rejects Virginia school board’s trans bathroom ban appeal” at AL.com.
Read “Supreme Court lets lawsuit continue in death of man detained in prone position” at NBC News.
Read “Bill Cosby to Be Freed as Court Overturns His Sex Assault Conviction” at New York Times.
Read ‘James Franco Agrees to Pay $2.2 Million in Sexual-Misconduct Lawsuit Settlement” at Vulture.
Read “Supreme Court Invalidates Key Part of Voting Rights Act” at New York Times.
Read “Adding to Trump's woes, grand jury indicts his core business” at MSBNC.
Read “NFL Levies $10 Million Fine, Biggest in League History, Against Washington Football Team for Workplace Culture” at Wall Street Journal.
Read “City sells former police academy to become a marijuana grow facility” at Boing Boing.
Read “Woman who falsely accused Black teen of stealing phone charged with hate crime” at The Hill.
This week in traitorous, white-supremacist Confederate monuments (and/or Columbus monuments // and/or other “American monuments” // Insurrectionists // and/or weird Confederacy stuff):
Read “A Florida man admitted storming the Capitol, feds say. Then he told the FBI his pastor had come with him” at Washington Post.
Read ‘‘Castrate, kill, remove voting rights’: Ex-Marine, Georgia deputy was in extremist cell, feds say” at Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Read ‘Spurred By The Capitol Riot, Thousands Of Republicans Drop Out Of GOP” at NPR.
Read “California’s yoga, wellness and spirituality community has a QAnon problem” at Los Angeles Times.
Read “Toyota under fire for giving $55K to 37 Republicans who objected to certifying election” at MSNBC News.
Read “Marine Corps officer pleads not guilty in Capitol riot” at The Hill.
Read “House Votes to Remove Confederate Statues from the Capitol” at Democracy Now.
Read “House Approves Creation of Select Committee to Probe Jan. 6 Attack” at Wall Street Journal.
Watch “Day of Rage: An In-Depth Look at How a Mob Stormed the Capitol” at New York Times.
Read “GOP Rep. Paul Gosar appears to ally with white nationalists — again” at Washington Post.
Read “Former cop who allegedly attacked police with flagpole during Capitol riots to be released from jail, placed on house arrest” at The Hill.
This Week With The Police:
Read “Ex-Cop Chauvin Gets 22 1/2 Years in Prison for Floyd Murder” at Bloomberg.
Read “How Former Police Officers Are Treated in Prison” at Vice. “We spoke to some experts to find out what life is like for ex-cops behind bars.”
Read “Oakland to divert $17M from police budget” at The Hill.
Read “US Border Patrol launches new marine unit amid rise in maritime smuggling” at PRI.
Read ‘Proposed law making cell phone video of cops a crime moves forward by Ohio legislators” at News 5 Cleveland.
Read “Family demands justice after teen fatally shot by Lonoke County sheriff's deputy” at KATV.
Read “Fox News Sunday host asks GOP congressman why it's "the Republicans who are defunding the police"“ at Salon.
Read “Budget bill provision allows DPS to block release of all video records” at AZ Mirror.
Read “UN calls for US, others to end 'impunity' for police violence against Black people” at The Hill.
Read “Watch a police officer admit to playing Taylor Swift to keep a video off YouTube” at The Verge.
Read “Police group says ambush attacks on officers up 91 percent over past year” at The Hill.
Read “Ex-Nashville officer Andrew Delke takes plea deal in deadly shooting of Daniel Hambrick” at Fox17.
Education and The Learnings // School Re-Openings
Read “The hypocrisy of cancel culture means young people can never learn anything” at The Telegraph.
Read “The Death of Gratitude in the American Classroom” at Public Discourse. “Encouraging people to be gracious, and to recognize what others have provided them through no merit of their own, is not about “guilt tripping” them. It is to encourage a particular way of existing in the world. Gratitude acknowledges the plenitude of goodness that surrounds us every moment of every day in millions of small acts of people we do not know.”
Read “Spanking can worsen a child’s behavior and do real harm, study finds” at CNN.
Read “UNC trustees approve tenure for journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones after students removed from meeting area” at CBS News.
Your Weekly Coronavirus Roundup:
Read “Hundreds of PPP Loans Went to Fake Farms in Absurd Places” at Pro Publica.
Read “WHO Urges Vaccinated People to Keep Taking COVID Precautions as Delta Variant Spreads Across Globe” at Democracy Now.
Read “American carnage: What we are now learning about Trump's nightmarish mishandling of COVID” at Salon.
Miscellany Cultural Items (and some Technology):
Read “The Meet-Cute That Made WrestleMania How a ponderous wrestler and a pop star from Queens formed an unlikely friendship that started it all” at Vulture.
Read “Kanye West sues Walmart for allegedly copying his foam runner shoes” at NME.
Read “The Teamsters Announce Coordinated Nationwide Project to Unionize Amazon” at Vice.
Read “Grief Is Another Word For Love” at Guernica Magazine.
Read “Well, now we know what happens when you swallow an AirPod” at AV Club.
Read “Leaving Conservatism Behind” at Dissent Magazine. “How I renounced the God-and-guns conservatism of my blue-collar roots and embraced class politics.”
Read “Nurse suspended for TikTok videos about mistreating her patients claims they were comedy skits” at The Independent.
Read “NCAA Votes To Let Athletes Earn Money Based On Their Names And Images” at NPR.
Read “Amazon Delivery Companies Revolt Against Amazon, Shut Down” at Vice.
Internationalities:
Read “The Dominican Republic Is Building a Wall to Keep Haitian Migrant Kids Out” at Vice. “Close to half a million Haitians are living undocumented in the Dominican Republic, and many of them are children.”
Read “Roughly 650 troops to stay in Afghanistan after withdrawal” at The Hill.
Read “Classified UK military documents found at bus stop” at The Hill.
Politics And Sucheries:
Read “Pence says it would have been 'un-American' to not certify results of 2020 election” at ABC 15.
Read “Ron Johnson calls for Republicans to run for local office and 'take back our culture'“ at The Hill.
Read “Milwaukee newspaper blasts Ron Johnson as 'irresponsible representative of Wisconsin citizens'“ at The Hill.
This Week In Political Corruption:
Read “In Arizona, GOP Lawmakers Strip Power From a Democrat” at Yahoo.
Read “Audit leader Doug Logan appears in conspiracy theorist election film” at AZ Mirror.
Read “Trump Sought Justice Department Intervention to Stop SNL from Making Fun of Him” at Second Nexus.
Read “Documents Show Ivanka Trump Didn’t Testify Accurately in Inauguration Scandal Case” at Mother Jones.
Music-Related News and Such:
Browse “2021.5 : Our Favorite Albums + Songs From The First Half Of The Year” at Gorilla vs. Bear.
Browse “Alt.Latino's Best Music of 2021 (So Far)” at NPR.
Browse “The Best Of 2021 – Halftime Report” at Uncut.
Read “How Black People Created All Your Favorite Music” at HighSnobiety.
Read “Ed Sheeran turned to Bono for fatherhood advice: “We had a three-hour chat”” at NME.
Read “One Day the Music Goes Away” at Passion Weiss. “After Myspace lost over 50 million song uploads, Will Hagle ponders the fleeting shelf-life of digital music and the impermanence of a life lived online.”
Read “New Hawkwind book to be published in October” at Louder Sound.
Watch “The Ramones on Regis and Kathy Lee (1988)” at Boing Boing.
Read “Rich Robinson Rehashes Black Crowes Split, Calling Drummer Steve Gorman “Extremely Negative” and “Manipulative” at Jambands.com.
Read “Britney Spears’s Courtroom Plea Spurs Questions for Her Lawyer” at New York Times. “The singer said she had not known she needed to petition the court to be released from her conservatorship, placing a focus on the court-appointed counsel who has represented her for 13 years.”
Read “Is It Legal to Prevent Britney Spears From Having a Baby and Removing Her IUD?” at Variety.
Read “Britney Spears: ‘I Just Want My Life Back’” at New York Times.
Read “Management Firm Pulls Out of Britney Spears Conservatorship” at Variety.
Read “Review: Hiss Golden Messenger’s ‘Quietly Blowing It’ Belies Its Title” at American Songwriter.
Read “Hiss Golden Messenger's M.C. Taylor Processes His Pandemic Blues In Latest Album” at NPR.
Read “A Race ‘Report Card’ Measures Whether the Music Industry Changed” at New York Times.
Read “Courtney Love Demands ‘Rude’ Olivia Rodrigo Send Her Flowers For Copying Album Cover” at Huff Post.
Read “Courtney Love and Olivia Rodrigo Spark Debate About Creative Homage vs. Theft” at Flood.
Read “Sharp Ascent: In Conversation with Six Organs Of Admittance’s Ben Chasny” at Sun-13.
Read “Antifa Defeats Mumford & Sons” at Slate.
Read “Avril Lavigne partners with real-life 'Sk8er boi' Tony Hawk in TikTok debut” at CNN.
Read “Add to Your Record Collection With Amazon’s New Monthly Vinyl Subscription Service” at Variety.
Read/Listen to “Talkhouse Weekend Playlist: Inside the World of Jaubi” at Talkhouse. “The bandleader behind Jaubi shares up-and-coming artists and some influences behind the new record, Nafs at Peace.”
Read “Jaubi | Interview | Spiritual Journey from Pakistan” at Psychedelic Baby.
Read “Wanda Jackson Announces Final Album ‘Encore’ With Joan Jett” at Rolling Stone.
Read “How Japanese Breakfast Builds An Album, Sound By Sound” at NPR.
Read “How Sun Ra Taught Us to Believe in the Impossible” at New Yorker. “The visionary jazz artist sketched an “Astro-Black mythology” that aligned ancient Egyptian history with a future human exodus “beyond the stars.”
Browse Americana-UK’s picks for “Essentials: The top ten Howe Gelb albums.”
Read “Supreme Partners with Butthole Surfers for Clothing Collection” at Consequence.
Browse “Ishmael Butler On The 10 Best Shabazz Palaces Songs” at Treble.
Read “Biz Markie Is Still Alive, Manager Confirms Amid Death Rumors on Social Media” at Pitchfork.
Read “Ryley Walker Talks Moving to Vermont and His New Album” at Seven Days VT.
Movies/TV/Video Games/Etc.:
Browse “37 Hitchcock Cameo Appearances Over 50 Years: All in One Video” at Open Culture.
Read “‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame’ at 25: ‘The Most R-Rated G You Will Ever See’” at New York Times.
Read “Apple TV+ Shortening Its Free One-Year Trials” at Pop Culture.
Design/Artsy Things:
Read “David Bowie art from Ontario landfill sets $50K auction record, but some locals aren't happy with the fame” at CBC. “Some from the small community of South River fear an influx of treasure hunters following rare find.”
Read “Picasso Painting Hidden In Maine Closet For 50 Years Sold” at Huff Post.
Science/Animals/Nature/Environment/Etc.:
Read “Discovery of ‘Dragon Man’ Skull in China May Add Species to Human Family Tree” at New York Times.
Read “'Important first step': Highly anticipated UFO report released with no firm conclusions” at AZ Central.
Read “For UFO enthusiasts at Oregon festival, ‘it’s all extraterrestrial’” at Religion News Service.
Read “U.S. Has No Explanation for Unidentified Objects and Stops Short of Ruling Out Aliens” at New York Times.
Read “How the Pentagon learned to start worrying and investigate UFOs” at National Geographic.]
Read “New video shows unidentified glowing objects near US Navy ship” at Mystery Wire.
Read “This Is My Brain on Salvia” at Wired. “I loaned my head to the world’s first fMRI study on the effects of salvinorin A, a potent psychedelic. Here’s what it revealed.”
Read “Does drinking hot tea in summer really cool you down?” at Universal-Sci.
Misc. Oddities:
Read “Uncover the (actually not very mysterious) origins of Massachusetts' toy horse graveyard, Ponyhenge” at AV Club.
Local:
Read “Phoenix firefighters union pushing for change after 2 firefighters hospitalized from back to back trail rescues” at 12 News.