CAPITALISM FOR FUN AND PROFIT
How a firm turned US freedom of information laws into a massive money-spinner and got involved in some major espionage scandals along the way. Is it time we went after the enablers and errand-runners of fossil fuel corporations? Music festivals, despite greenwashing and big promises, are climate bombs. How capitalism and the logic of labour are killing sex. 1960s spy shows are calling and want their cliché back: silicon masks are proving a handy tool in identity theft. And why Chinese factories are once again closing down. CNN’s owners decide a Trump and Murdoch critic no longer has a place examining the media. Digital number plates, anyone? (What happens when, inevitably, they’re hacked?)
WEALTH AND HELLBEING
The power of silence for mental health. Being on reality television, but not like you might think. Image filters, “Instagram face” and the mental health damage caused by social media, particularly on girls. “Unchurched” evangelicals in the American South are even more extreme and mistrustful of government than their church-going brethren. But Methodists in the US are organising against guns. Germany’s much-vaunted childcare system has profound flaws and deters women from working. A fine riposte to the garbage tech bro pseudo-philosophy “longtermism”. Not so much shock treatment as zap treatment, perhaps?
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
How would Japan respond to Chinese aggression toward Taiwan? Or is the more accurate question whether it could respond at all? No compromise and no surrender: Russian identity and the imperial view of Ukraine. We need to know who owns some of the most destructive and damaging fishing fleets. Liz Cheney — where to from here? Her loss is another defeat for Trump opponents within the GOP — the latest of many, as Trump has crushed them one by one. A long time ago, Wyoming was a leader in women’s rights. And the impacts of a likely Cheney presidential run. How a Truss prime ministership could take the UK even further into a Brexiteer depression. And the Tories must avoid getting sucked into Thatcherism again, a Spectator columnist warns.
CULTURAL STUDIES
More Americans are now watching streaming services than cable TV. How some of the most iconic movies of the 1980s pushed a Christian anti-choice message. A great piece on decolonisation and Indigenous representation: two Indigenous academics celebrate and extend Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s seminal work Decolonizing Methodologies. An era of unnerving British film and television and the allure of the adult rating. The British Museum persists in its arrogant refusal to return stolen property and the fruits of imperialism.
FINALLY
“Brother, you would think animals live for free, but they also have problems.” The lives of stray dogs in the ancient Turkish city of Kars. And When Dogs Cry.
