The Weekly Town Crier (01/15/21)

All the week’s news that’s fit to cry about (01/15/21).

We’ll Miss You:

Read “Hall of Fame Los Angeles Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda dies at 93” at ESPN.

Read “Joanne Rogers, Widow of Fred Rogers and Classical Pianist, Dies at 92” at People.

Religion and Stuff:

Read “A Christian Insurrection” at The Atlantic. “Many of those who mobbed the Capitol on Wednesday claimed to be enacting God’s will.”

• Read “Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States” at Dallas Seminary.

• Read “Truth over power: It is past time for the church to speak plainly about the election” at Religion News Service.

• Read “Taking the white Christian nationalist symbols at the Capitol riot seriously” at Religion News Service. “The attack exposed the comfortable juxtaposition of Christianity and white supremacy.”

• Read “About 60 the 138 House members who objected to the Electoral College count were evangelical Christians” at The Way of Improvement.

• Read “SBC leader Russell Moore to Trump: Time to leave. ‘People are dead’” at Religion News Service.

• Read “How White Evangelical Christians Fused With Trump Extremism” at New York Times. “A potent mix of grievance and religious fervor has turbocharged the support among Trump loyalists, many of whom describe themselves as participants in a kind of holy war.”

• Read “Statement signed by 223 faculty and staff at evangelical Wheaton College condemns the "vicious lies, deplorable violence, white supremacy" and "blasphemous abuses of Christian symbols" on display in Washington last week” (via Ruth Graham).

• Read “The Roman Road from Insurrection” by Russell Moore. ‘You cannot stand for “law and order” while waving away lawlessness. You cannot champion the pro-life cause while waving away murder. You cannot support police by the murder of police officers. You cannot support religious liberty by trashing the United States Constitution.”

• Read “For insurrectionists, a violent faith brewed from nationalism, conspiracies and Jesus” at Religion News Service.

• Read “Political and religious violence at the US Capitol” at KCRW.

• Read “Scholars of Religion and Politics Respond to the Capitol Insurrection” at Religion and Politics.

• Read “Christian Nationalism Is Worse Than You Think” at Christianity Today. “Millions of Americans believe in this political ideology. What church leaders need to know—and how they can help those under its influence.”

• Read “'How Did We Get Here?' A Call For An Evangelical Reckoning On Trump” at NPR.

• Read “QAnon is the Perfect Evangelical Conspiracy” at Christian Socialism.

Read “Southern Baptist leaders meet after critical race theory document caused controversy” at Religion News Service.

Read “Evangelicals face a reckoning: Donald Trump and the future of our faith” at USA Today.

Read

“Capitol Hill Trump rally organizer Ali Alexander goes into hiding, raises $20k on Christian crowdfunding site” at Occupy Democrats.

Read “Only the Church Can Truly Defeat a Christian Insurrection” by David French. “It’s time to combat the right’s enabling lies.”

Read “Life or Debt Dave Ramsey's Capitalist Theology” at Christian Socialism.

Legal/Justice and Social Justice and Race or Gender//Sexism-Related Stuff:

Read “Domestic Terrorism: A More Urgent Threat, but Weaker Laws” at Pro Publica. “Authorities dissuaded some extremists from traveling to Washington, and shared intelligence with Capitol Police, but could not stop the mob that stormed the Capitol, a senior FBI official says.”

• Read “Proud Boys member arrested after allegedly threatening to kill Warnock” at The Hill.

Read “For Black Americans, The White Terror In D.C. Looks Familiar” at Huff Post.

Read “Illinois GOP Rep. Mary Miller apologizes for Hitler remark at pro-Trump rally: Calls remain for her to resign” at Chicago Sun Times.

Read “The US economy lost 140,000 jobs in December. All of them were held by women” at CNN. (EDITOR’S NOTE: “ALL OF THEM were held by women.” This is not OK.)

Read “Woman who accused Black teen of stealing her phone charged with attempted assault” at The HIll.

Read “Michigan Capitol Commission bans open carry of guns inside state Capitol” at Detroit Free Press.

Read “FBI bulletin warns of nationwide armed protests” at The Hill.

Read ‘Credit card companies need to help stop the spread of untraceable 'ghost guns'“ at Business Insider.

Read “The Lies We Tell Ourselves About Race” at NPR. “Pro-Trump extremists breached the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday. The insurrection was just the latest chapter in America's ongoing battle over race, writes NPR host Sam Sanders.”

Read “New York State Bar Association Weighs Stripping Giuliani of Membership” at Wall Street Journal.

• Read “Nearly 6,000 lawyers and law students call for disbarment proceedings against Cruz and Hawley” at The Hill.

• Read “New York State Bar Association moves to oust Rudy Giuliani” at NBC News.

Read “Democrats Unveil Legislation To Abolish The Federal Death Penalty” at NPR.

Read “Rittenhouse seen out on bail drinking with members of Proud Boys, prosecutors say” at The Hill.

This week in traitorous, white-supremacist Confederate monuments (and/or Columbus monuments // and/or other “American monuments” // and/or weird Confederacy stuff // and or Sedition, Treason and That Kind of Stuff):

Read “US Capitol police officer is dead after injured during pro-Trump riots” at Yahoo.

• Read “Experts: Arizona's far-right extremism "getting worse," DC rioters on-the-run” at ABC15.

• Read “‘Senate Being Locked Down’: Inside a Harrowing Day at the Capitol” at New York Times. “Three New York Times journalists were at the Capitol when it was breached. Here’s how they experienced it.”

• Read “If the mob’s attack on the Capitol surprised you, you weren’t paying attention” at Religion News Service. “The truth is, this is precisely who we are. White supremacy is at the foundation of this country.”

• Read “Donald Trump's Ex-AG Bill Barr Calls President's Conduct During Capitol Mob a 'Betrayal'“ at Newsweek.

• Read “Capitol Rioters Planned for Weeks in Plain Sight. The Police Weren’t Ready” at Pro Publica.

• Read ‘NAE Denounces Insurrection at the U.S. Capitol” at National Association of Evangelicals.

• Read “LeBron James on Capitol riots: 'We live in two Americas'“ at The Hill.

• Read “Pro-Trump rioters smeared poop in U.S. Capitol hallways during belligerent attack” at Orlando Sentinel.

• Read “Sen. Mark Warner Says FBI Assured Him Prior to Rioting Situation Would Be Under Control” at Wall Street Journal.

• Read “The Police’s Tepid Response To The Capitol Breach Wasn’t An Aberration” at Five Thirty Eight.

• Read ‘Will the riot in Washington deter foreign investment in the U.S.?” at MarketPlace.

• Read “Some state legislators face calls for resignation after taking part in Capitol turmoil” at MSN.

  • Read “Video surfaces of Oregon GOP Rep holding state Capitol door open, allowing protestors to enter” at The Hill.

  • Read “Republican lawmakers caught helping pro-Trump mobs at U.S. Capitol, Oregon statehouse” at Salon.

  • Read “Republican AGs group sent robocalls urging march to the Capitol” at NBC News. ““At 1 p.m., we will march to the Capitol building and call on Congress to stop the steal,” said the voice on the recording, which was obtained by NBC News.”

  • Read “Mikie Sherrill claims Congress members gave 'reconnaissance' tours day before Capitol raid” at North Jersey.

  • Read “Law enforcement and the military probing whether members took part in Capitol riot” at NBC.

  • Read “Rep. Jim Clyburn Says Mob Knew Where His Unmarked Office Was Suggesting A Coordinated Attack” at PoliticusUSA.

• Read “U.S. Diplomats Draft Dissent Cable Following Storming of Capitol by Pro-Trump Mob” at Foreign Policy.

• Read “Alabama man had 11 Molotov cocktails 'ready to go' at U.S. Capitol riot” at Montgomery Advertiser.

• Read “Fallout intensifies over Trump's response to Capitol riot” at CNN.

• Read “An 18-Year-Old Saw Her Mom, Aunt, And Uncle In DC In A Video — So She Named Them” at Buzzfeed.

  • Read “Capitol Rioter Seen in Horned Hat, Carrying Spear Arrested: US Attorney” at NBC Washington.

    • Read “Arizona man wearing horns during U.S. Capitol riots, 'Q Shaman,' now faces felony indictment” at ABC 15.

  • Read “Capitol Rioter Spotted in Chamber with Zip Ties Is Arrested After Ex-Wife Calls FBI” at People.

  • Read “Man in 'Camp Auschwitz' sweatshirt during Capitol riot identified” at CNN.

• Read “Georgia attorney among those who broke into U.S. Capitol” at AJC.

  • Read “West Virginia lawmaker, charged after filming himself storming U.S. Capitol, resigns” at CBS News.

  • Read “Republican lawmaker resigns after arrest for storming US Capitol” at Ars Technica.

  • Read “Oregon state lawmaker who opened door for armed protesters kicked off committees, billed for damages” at The Hill.

• Read “It Was No Accident’ Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal on surviving the siege” at The Cut.

  • Read “Capitol Police Officers Said They Wouldn’t Be Surprised If Members Of Congress Helped Plan The Attack” at Buzzfeed.

• Read “The Inaction of Capitol Police Was by Design” at The Atlantic. “The spectacle of Wednesday’s tepid police response to riotous mobs shocked many. But the passivity is not some surprising anomaly—it is the status quo.”

  • Read “Seattle police investigating officers who were in DC amid Capitol riot” at The Hill.

  • Read “An Air Force Combat Veteran Breached the Senate” at The New Yorker.

• Read “Members of Several Well-Known Hate Groups Identified at Capitol Riot” at Pro Publica.

  • Read “For Black Americans, The White Terror In D.C. Looks Familiar” at Huff Post.

• Read “Ivanka Calls Mob of Trump Supporters 'American Patriots' in Now Deleted Tweet and People Are Calling Her Out” at Second Nexus.

• Read “Gold medalist Olympic swimmer recognized amid Capitol mob” at The Hill.

• Read “Now it's sinking in: Wednesday's Capitol Hill riot was even more violent than it first appeared” at CNN.

• Read “These Black Capitol Police Officers Describe Fighting Off "Racist Ass Terrorists"“ at Buzzfeed. “Two Black officers told BuzzFeed News that their chief and other upper management left them totally unprepared and were nowhere to be found on the day.”

• Read “Fox News Host Dragged for Calling Siege on the Capitol 'a Huge Victory for These Protesters'“ at Second Nexus.

• Read “A Christian Insurrection” at The Atlantic. “Many of those who mobbed the Capitol on Wednesday claimed to be enacting God’s will.”

  • Read “Read “For insurrectionists, a violent faith brewed from nationalism, conspiracies and Jesus” at Religion News Service” at Religion News Service.

• Read “‘The storm is here’: Ashli Babbitt’s journey from capital ‘guardian’ to invad” at Washington Post.

• Read “Arizona Reps. Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar implicated by activist in Capitol insurrection” at AZ Central.

• Read “One Trump Fan’s Descent Into the U.S. Capitol Mob” at Wall Street Journal. “Doug Sweet joined rioters who breached the Capitol, where he was eventually arrested.”

• Read “GOP Congressman Who Investigated Benghazi Calls Trump Inciting Riot ‘A Misstep’” at Huff Post.

• Read “Rep. Meijer: I experienced the heinous assault on Capitol; now, time to face reality” at Detroit News.

• Read “The FBI Says There's No Evidence Of Antifa Involvement In The Capitol Mob” at Buzzfeed.

• Read “Ex-Capitol Police Chief Says Requests For National Guard Denied 6 Times In Riots” at NPR.

• Read “Six hours of paralysis: Inside Trump’s failure to act after a mob stormed the Capitol” at Washington Post.

• Read “'Hate in their heart': Lawmakers fear more violence after Capitol attacks” at Politico.

• Read “Before Capitol Riot, Republican Lawmakers Fanned the Flames” at New York Times. “A “1776 moment”: Several of the president’s closest allies in Congress used bellicose language to urge their supporters to attend the Jan. 6 rally that turned into a deadly riot.”

• Read “A Federalist Society Star Helped Foment the Capitol Riot” at Slate. “The Federalist Society has no comment.”

Read “Trump Rallies Were a Preview of the Capitol Attack” at The Atlantic. “Those following the president’s events around the country for the past four years were not surprised by the mob violence that unfolded in Washington.”

• Read “Pro-Trump Rally Organizer Name-Checks Theory Pushed by Violent Extremists” at Vice. “Ali Alexander denies that he was agreeing with advocates for violent social collapse, saying the statement was made in the "context of technology."
  

This Week In Protest-Related News:

Read ‘NAE Denounces Insurrection at the U.S. Capitol” at National Association of Evangelicals.

Read “Protesters, many armed, gather for a 'patriot rally' outside Kentucky state Capitol” at Courier-Journal.

Read “Police three times more likely to use force against left-wing protests” at The Hill.

This Week With The Police:

Read “The Inaction of Capitol Police Was by Design” at The Atlantic. “The spectacle of Wednesday’s tepid police response to riotous mobs shocked many. But the passivity is not some surprising anomaly—it is the status quo.”

• Read “Seattle police investigating officers who were in DC amid Capitol riot” at The Hill.

• Read “Capitol Police Chief Sund has stepped down, leaving earlier than expected” at Washington Post.
  
  

Your Weekly Coronavirus Roundup:

Read ‘Pandemic Pricetag: U.S. Employers Cut 140,000 Jobs In December” at NPR.

Read “State Farm Stadium To Operate As 24/7 Vaccine Site As Maricopa County Enters Phase 1B” at KJZZ.

Read “Arizona again ranks No. 1 for weekly COVID-19 case rate as state reports nearly 9K new cases, rising hospitalizations” at AZ Central.

Read “Idaho Lawmakers Sue Saying Returning To State Capitol Amid COVID-19 Violates ADA” at NPR.

Read “Disneyland Resort in Anaheim to house COVID-19 vaccination ‘super’ site” at KTLA.

Miscellany Cultural Items (and some Technology):

Read “Letter to Jack Dorsey from Twitter employees asking to permanently suspend Donald Trump's account” at Washington Post.

• Read “Twitter bans President Trump permanently” at CNN.

Read “Google Pulls Parler as Apple Threatens the Same in Wake of Capitol Riot” at Wall Street Journal.

• Read “Pro-Trump Lawyer Lin Wood Calls For Pence to Be Executed, Parler Removed Posts” at Media-ite.

• Read “Amazon Is Booting Parler Off Of Its Web Hosting Service” at Buzzfeed.

• Read Parler CEO Says Service Dropped By “Every Vendor” And Could End His Business” at Deadline.

• Read “PGA pulls 2022 tournament from Trump's Bedminster after Capitol riot” at MSNBC.

• Read “Conspiracy theories collide online as Parler goes dark” at CNET.

Read “Platforms Must Pay for Their Role in the Insurrection” at Wired. “Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube have spent years fomenting and enabling yesterday’s violence at the Capitol. Policymakers need to do something about it.”

Read “A Truth Reckoning: Why We’re Holding Those Who Lied For Trump Accountable” at Forbes.

Read ‘American Airlines pilot says he'll divert plane and strand Trump supporters in Kansas if they don't 'behave'“ at Business Insider.

Read “4 in 5 say US is falling apart” at The Hill.

Internationalities:

Read “Treasury Department sanctions inner circle of Russian agent Derkach for election interference” at The Hill.

Read “China plans further Hong Kong crackdown after mass arrest” at Reuters.

Politics And Sucheries:

Read “Lawmakers, governor condemn Rep. Mary Miller’s ‘Hitler was right on one thing’ comment” at WCIA.

Read “Sidney Powell Sued by Dominion for $1.3 Billion Over Vote-Fraud Claims” at Bloomberg.

Read “Senior Trump Official: We Were Wrong, He’s a ‘Fascist’” at New York Magazine.

Read “Multiple Democratic senators call for Cruz and Hawley to resign” at The Hill.

Read “Blue Cross Blue Shield Association suspends donations to lawmakers who opposed Electoral College count” at The Hill.

• Read “Marriott Suspends Donations to Senators Who Opposed Vote Result” at Bloomberg.

• Read “Stripe Stops Processing Payments for Trump Campaign Website” at Wall Street Journal.

• Read ‘Major corporations say they will stop donating to members of Congress who tried to overturn the election” at Popular Info.

Read “Mayor Demands Tighter Security in D.C. for Biden Inauguration” at Bloomberg.

Read “House GOP leader tells members to quit spreading lies on riot, antifa” at The Hill.

Read “Pence letter to Pelosi rejecting calls to invoke 25th Amendment” at The Hill.

Read “John McCain movie in the works with support from family” at The Hill.

This Week In Political Corruption:

Read “The Republicans Have an Insurrectionist Caucus” at Slate.

Read “Amash's Successor Peter Meijer: Trump's Deceptions Are 'Rankly Unfit'“ at Reason. The rookie GOP congressman describes Capitol Hill chaos, says that some Republicans who knew better voted against election certification out of physical fear, and explains how serving in Iraq and Afghanistan made him want to "end the endless wars."

Read “Bankrolling the Disenfranchisers” at Citizen.Org. “Since 2016, Corporate and Trade Association PACs Have Given $170 Million to Lawmakers Who Voted to Challenge the Presidential Election.”

Read “Marjorie Taylor Greene says she will introduce impeachment articles against Biden” at The Hill.

Music-Related News and Such:

Read “Why So Many Pop Stars Are Trying to Be Working-Class Heroes Now” at Pitchfork. “Artists including Justin Bieber, Drake, and Travis Scott are making clumsy plays at humble relatability during an era of deepening economic inequality.”

Read ‘Nicki Minaj to Pay Tracy Chapman $450,000 in Copyright Infringement Lawsuit” at Pitchfork.

Read “R.E.M. For The People” at Oxford American.

Browse “Rare and Stunning Photographs of Iggy Pop Taken by His Girlfriend Esther Friedman” at The Mind Circle.

Read “See Devo Perform Live for the Very First Time (Kent State University, 1973)” at Open Culture.

Read “Sex Pistols biopic series from ‘Trainspotting’ director Danny Boyle coming to FX” at Brooklyn Vegan.

Read “Ariel Pink Dropped by Record Label Mexican Summer After Attending Pro-Trump White House Rally” at Pitchfork.

Read “Dr. Fauci Believes Venues Could Reopen For Live Music This Fall” at Jambase.

Read “When Punk Got the Funk” at Pop Matters. “As punks were looking for some potential pathways out of the cul-de-sacs of their limited soundscapes, they saw in funk a way to expand the punk palette without sacrificing either their ethos or idea(l)s.”

Read “New Billie Holiday Film Gets First Trailer: Watch” at Pitchfork.

Read “Why Are the Backstreet Boys Tweeting About QAnon?” at Vulture.

Read “Joan Baez to Receive Kennedy Center Honor” at Pitchfork.

Read ‘Hiss Golden Messenger’s First New Song In Over A Year Is The Breezy ‘Sanctuary’” at Uproxx.

Read “Donald Trump Reportedly Presents Toby Keith & Ricky Skaggs With National Medal of the Arts” at Billboard.

Movies/TV/Video Games/Etc.:

Read “The Evolution of Ted Danson, Mr. Mayor of Television” at Consequence of Sound.

Read “Katie Couric, Aaron Rodgers, Bill Whitaker and Mayim Bialik to Guest Host ‘Jeopardy!’” at Variety.

Read “Chris Evans Reportedly In Talks to Reprise Role as Captain America in the MCU” at IGN.

Design/Artsy Things:

Read “The Painter Subverting Art-World Economics, $100 at a Time” at New York Times.

Science/Health/Animals/Nature/Environment/Etc.:

Read “Study identifies first potential treatment for meth addiction” at The Hill.

Read “A Guy Tried Mainlining Shrooms. Then They Grew in His Blood” at Vice.

Local:

Read ‘Arizona State Senators Prepping Another 'Skinny' Budget Option Amid The Pandemic” at KJZZ.

Read “U.S. Supreme Court REJECTS Efforts to Expedite Remaining AZGOP/Ward's Election Appeals” at Arizona Politics.

Read “Arizona state GOP moves to censure Cindy McCain, Jeff Flake” at The Hill.

The Weekly Town Crier (11/06/20)

All the week’s news that’s fit to cry about (11/06/20).

We’ll Miss You:

Read “Sean Connery Has Died. Friends, Fans, and the Other James Bonds Are Saluting Him on Social Media” at Slate.

Read “Bob Biggs, Los Angeles Punk-Rock Entrepreneur, Dies at 74” at New York Times.

Read “Gospel legend Bishop Rance Allen dies at age 71” at CNN.

Read “Comedian and actor John Sessions has died” at NME.

Read ‘Jamie Coots, co-star of ‘Snake Salvation,’ dies of a snakebite” at Religion News Service. “Coots, whose father is also a serpent-handling preacher, was a legendary figure among a small group of Pentecostal believers who practiced the so-called “signs of the gospel” found in Mark 16; among them taking up serpents.”

Read “Baron Wolman, Rolling Stone Photographer Who Captured Rock Gods, Dead at 83” at Rolling Stone.

Religion and Stuff:

Read “Waking the Witch: The Feminist History of Spiritualism” at Ms. Magazine.

Read “For a growing number of evangelical Christians, Trump is no longer the lesser of two evils” at The Conversation.

Read “Scholars call out Putin and the ‘escalation’ of persecution against Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia” at Religion News Service.

Read “The First Church of Equivocation” at Christian Socialism. “One obvious reason is simply that well-connected people protect other well-connected people. However, another reason is bound up in the story “moderate” evangelicals tend to tell each other: a guy like Metaxas might be going a bit far, but hey, what about those softly totalitarian authors of picture books that humanize gay couples? Aren’t they just as bad?”

Read “They All Got Careless’: How Falwell Kept His Grip on Liberty Amid Sexual ‘Games,’ Self-Dealing” at Politico. “The deposed university president secured backing by ousting critics and hiring the family members and businesses of loyalists.”

Read “It’s time to rescue the ‘pro-life’ label from anti-abortion activists” at Religion News Service.

Read Black faith leaders call for nonviolent resistance, strikes if Trump refuses election results” at Religion News Service.

Read “John Piper’s Liberty Convocation Pulled After Election Post” at Christianity Today.

Read ‘Trump’s refugee policy is a miserable moral failure” at Christian Century. “So is our nation’s long history of choosing economic success over global equity, safety, and wellbeing.”

Read “It’s time to rescue the ‘pro-life’ label from anti-abortion activists” at Religion News Service.

Read “Yep, There’s a Second QAnon Supporter Heading To Congress” at Vice.

Read “Latino Evangelicals Boost Trump in Florida and Texas” at Christianity Today.

• Read “Hispanics’ Support For Trump Tied To Faith” at NPR.

Read “A cemetery is desecrated, shaking Michigan’s Jewish community on Election Day” at Religion News Service.

Read “Carl Lentz, pastor of Hillsong East Coast and Justin Bieber, terminated for ‘moral failures’ says church” at Religion News Service.

Read “Election Civility Is Not Enough” at Christianity Today.

Legal/Justice and Social Justice and Race or Gender or Sexism-Related Stuff:

Read “2 Former Black Comics Editors Allege Years of Racial Discrimination at DC Comics” at The Root.

Read “Illinois authorities extradite Kyle Rittenhouse to Wisconsin” at USA Today.

Read “Study warns five states at high risk for election-related armed violence by militia groups” at The Hill.

Read “In 1868, Black suffrage was on the ballot” at American History.

Read “MLK's children fire back after McConnell invokes their father in victory speech” at The Hill.

Read “MSNBC’s Joy Reid Calls Clarence Thomas ‘Uncle Clarence’” at Free Beacon.

Read “Steve Bannon and his co-host discuss beheading Dr. Anthony Fauci and FBI Director Christopher Wray” at Media Matters.

This week in traitorous, white-supremacist Confederate monuments (and/or Columbus monuments // and/or other “American monuments” // and/or weird Confederacy stuff):

Read “Mississippi Votes To Replace Confederate-Themed State Flag” at NPR.

This Week In Protest-Related News:

Read “Thai pro-democracy leader taken to hospital after ‘chokehold’” at Al Jazeera.

Read “Supreme Court sides with activist DeRay McKesson in lawsuit over officer injured at protest” at CNBC.

This Week With The Police:

Read “N.Y.P.D. Anti-Harassment Official Accused of Racist Rants” at New York Times. “The official was relieved of his command after City Council investigators amassed evidence that he posted vitriolic messages online under the name “Clouseau.”

Your Weekly Coronavirus Roundup:

Read “Trump Claims Doctors Make ‘More Money’ When They Lie About COVID-19 Deaths” at Huff Post.

• Read “American Medical Association Blasts Trump’s Claim Doctors Inflate COVID Numbers for Cash” at Slate.

Read “Utah Department of Health Utah Department of Health building in Millcreek glass door shot out with pellet gun” at KSL.

Read “Idaho Republicans, including Lt. Gov. McGeachin, decry pandemic measures in new video” at Idaho Statesman.

Read “Trump said not to fear COVID-19. These people beg to differ” USA Today.

Read “German Study Finds Covid-19 Risk Is Low at Indoor Concerts With Safety Precautions” at Rolling Stone.

Read “Dubai Ruler Gets Covid Vaccine, Joining Other Top UAE Officials” at Bloomberg.

Read “Sweden’s Health-Care Workers Get $620 Bonus for Covid-19 Work” at Bloomberg.

Miscellany Cultural Items:

Read “Halloween in the pandemic: Costumes and candy, at a distance” at KTAR.

Read “What Happened to All Those 'Vote for Pedro' Shirts?” at Vice. “Just in time for the election, we tracked down owners of the 'Napoleon Dynamite' relic and asked them: Why? And then it got deep.”

Read “No One Fights QAnon Like the Global Army of K-Pop Superfans” at Bloomberg.

Read “Yes, nuclear war could still happen” at The Hill.

Read “Why Ivanka Trump Is Coming Out Against Abortion Now” at Slate. “The first daughter has realized that her self-presentation as a “moderating force” no longer makes sense.”

Read “Johnny Depp Loses Libel Case Against British Tabloid The Sun” at Vulture.

Read “Whale sculpture stops Dutch train crashing into water” at The Guardian.

Read “‘Freak Power’: what Hunter S. Thompson’s fight to fix America can teach us in 2020” at NME.

Read “Buying a Gun Ahead of the Election Won't Make You More Powerful. Here's What Americans Should Do to Deal With Crisis Instead” at Time.

Read “Jack Ma’s Fortune Slumps $3 Billion After Ant Group IPO Freeze” at Bloomberg.

Read “Fascism, Then and Now” at Bias Magazine.

Read “Oregon Decriminalizes All Drugs, While D.C. Decriminalizes Psychedelics” at Rolling Stone.

Internationalities:

Read “Russian oligarch nicknamed the 'Sausage King' killed in sauna with crossbow” at BBC News.

Politics And Sucheries:

Read “Woman in labor stops to vote on her way to the hospital” at The Hill.

Read “Federal Judge Rejects Bid to Toss Texas Drive-Through Votes” at Bloomberg.

Read “How Conservatism Failed Its Women” at Slate.

Read “So How Wrong Were the Polls This Year, Really?” at Wired. “Pollsters spent four years preparing to better capture Trump support and avoid a repeat of 2016. Somehow, they missed it again.”

Read “Kanye West Concedes Presidential Race, Looks Toward 2024” at Los Angeles CBS Local.

Read “Twitter and Facebook slap warning labels on Trump’s baseless claims of voter fraud” at Salon.

• Read “Wisconsin official scoffs at idea of voting irregularities: ‘There are no dark corners or locked doors’” at Washington Post.

Read “Networks pulled away from President Trump’s shocking press conference” at Poynter. “Then, even normally reserved news anchors responded swiftly and strongly to Trump’s false claims about the election.”

This Week In Political Corruption:

Read “Judges Are Already Testing How Far Amy Coney Barrett Will Go for Republicans” at Slate. “In a shocking opinion, two judges tried to hijack Minnesota’s election law to throw out mail ballots.”

Read “Biden camp cancels multiple Texas events after a "Trump Train" surrounded a campaign bus” at Texas Tribune.

• Read “Trump Writes ‘I Love Texas!’ Over Video Of MAGA Truck Attack On Biden Caravan” at Huff Post.

Read “Special interest groups likely spent more than $13 million at Trump properties. They got what they paid for” at Citizens For Ethics.

Read “Attorney General Bill Barr Meets With Radical Right-Wing Activist Dave Daubenmire” at Right Wing Watch.

Read “Arizona elections official sees uptick in calls after Trump spreads false information to voters” at 12 News.

Read “MAGA Fanatics Descend on Detroit Vote-Counting Site As Biden Wins Michigan” at Daily Beast.

Read “AP FACT CHECK: Trump’s big distortions on mail-in voting” at Associated Press.

Music-Related News and Such:

Browse “100 essential Arizona records: The 1920s to 1950s” at AZ Central.

Read “When Music Becomes Political Protest” at Pitchfork. “A conversation about the long and complex relationship between music and social justice movements, on our podcast The Pitchfork Review.”

Read “The Deeply Meditative Electronic Music of Avant-Garde Composer Eliane Radigue” at Open Culture.

Read “Maynard James Keenan on “Arrogant” Pandemic Behavior: “There’s Logic Attached to Just Looking Out for Each Other” at Consequence of Sound.

Read “Spotify to offer artists and labels the option to promote their music in your recommendations” at Fader. “In exchange for a lowered “promotional recording royalty rate.”

Browse “Treble Roundtable: Comfort Albums at Treble.

Read “The Rock Hall Figured 2020 Induction Performances Would Be Too ‘Boring,’ So There Aren’t Any” at Vulture.

Read “Musicians’ Union calls for government not to “abandon” self-employed artists” at NME.

Read “Grammys Rename World Music Category Over “Connotations of Colonialism” at Pitchfork. “The Recording Academy sought to name the award with a “more relevant, modern, and inclusive term”

Read “South Carolina Amphitheater to Be Renamed in Honor of Sharon Jones” at Rolling Stone.

Read “The Eyes of Shannon Hoon: Danny Clinch on Using Found Footage to Craft a Documentary” at Relix.

Read “Stevie Nicks On TikTok, Tom Petty And Claiming What's Yours” at NPR.

Read “Why Is ‘Saturday Night Live’ Suddenly Booking So Many Older Rock Bands?” at Variety.

Read “Justin Bieber & Chance the Rapper Are Dropping the Acoustic Version of 'Holy'“ at Billboard.

Movies/TV/Video Games/Etc.:

Read “Marilyn Manson joins anthology series ‘Creepshow’ for second season” at NME.

Science/Animals/Technology/Environment/Etc.:

Read “Rare bright yellow turtle spotted for only second time” at CNet.

Read “Did You Know That Some People Can Create a Rumbling Sound in Their Ears?” at My Modern Net.

Food Cultures:

Read “Reviving America’s Forgotten Boozy, Fruity Election Cake” at Gastro Obscura.

Read “BevMo acquired in $350-million deal as booze deliveries surge” at Los Angeles Times.

Misc. Oddities:

Read “Why There’s a Columbo Statue in the Middle of Budapest” at Atlas Obscura. “The American television character is memorialized in an unlikely locale.”

The Weekly Town Crier (10/30/20)

All the week’s news that’s fit to cry about (10/30/20).

We’ll Miss You:

Read “Jerry Jeff Walker (1942 – 2020), “Mr. Bojangles” singer and songwriter” at Legacy.

Read “Diane di Prima 1934–2020” at Poets.Org.

Read “Billy Joe Shaver, Seminal Outlaw Country Songwriter, Dead at 81” at Rolling Stone.

Religion and Stuff:

Read “Meet the TikTok Generation of Televangelists” at Christianity Today.

Read “A Photographer's Journey Through the Dangerous New Age of Conspiracies in America” at Time.

Read “New England Churches Buy Up, Forgive $26.2 Million In Medical Debt” at Boston Globe.

Read “AOC credits her Catholic faith for positions on health care, environment” at National Catholic Reporter.

Read “Peeing pastor’ hunt comes to an end” at Religion News Service. “The wife of a North Carolina pastor accused of disorderly conduct during a flight from Las Vegas to Detroit says he had a bad reaction to sleeping medication.”

• Read “Well-Known” N.C. Pastor accused of urinating on Michigan woman during flight identified” at NC Beat.

Read “The Anti-Abortion-Rights Movement Prepares to Build a Post-Roe World” at The Atlantic. “As activists move closer to their goal of making abortion illegal, they have started planning for the infrastructure needed for a world with more babies—and recruiting major CEOs to bankroll their cause.”

Read the Opinion piece “Don’t Vote Trump For Religious Liberty” at Religion Unplugged.

Read “NXIVM sex cult leader Keith Raniere sentenced to 120 years in prison” at Salon. “At the sentencing, one victim said she was treated like a “piece of meat” and a “brainwashed sex slave"

Read “He’s a former QAnon believer. He doesn’t want to tell his story, but thinks it might help” at Washington Post.

• Read “Christian QAnon’ers Want To #Savethechildren. They’re Making Things Worse” at Sojourners.

Read “Mysterious Orb Caught On Camera In Florida Pastor’s Home” at Miami CBS Local.

Read “Trump Becomes the First President Since Eisenhower to Change Faiths in Office” at Christianity Today. “Like many Christians switching churches, he now identifies as nondenominational.”

Read ‘The Alpha-Male Style in American Evangelicalism” at Christianity Today. “A historian asks whether a warped view of masculine authority has corrupted our faith and political witness.”

Read “Jerry Falwell Jr. Sues Liberty University for Defamation” at Julie Roys.

Legal/Justice and Social Justice and Race or Gender or Sexism-Related Stuff:

Read “'A flat-out lie': Breonna Taylor attorneys seek new prosecutor after jurors speak out” at Yahoo.

Read “US Ice officers 'used torture to make Africans sign own deportation orders'“ at The Guardian.

Read “Kushner questions if Black Americans "want to be successful" in widely criticized Fox News interview” at Salon.

Read “Ida B. Wells was driven out of Memphis in 1892. She might soon have her own statue there” at USA Today.

Read “Neo-Nazi Ex-Marine And Porn Actor Arrested In Conspiracy To Hide Weapons From Government” at Huff Post. “The cases, involving three men, appear linked to threats against Alicia Garza, a Black Lives Matter movement co-founder.”

Read “Number of Women Alleging Misconduct by ICE Gynecologist Nearly Triples” at The Intercept. “Advocates briefed senators on allegations that a doctor working with with an ICE detention center performed unnecessary or overly aggressive procedures.”

Read “Judge blocks DOJ's gambit in Trump's E. Jean Carroll case” at MSNBC. “After a woman accused Trump of sexual assault, he lashed out at his accuser, prompting a defamation case. The DOJ wants to intervene; a judge won't let it.”

Read “Militia leader Stewart Rhodes says that his group will be at polling locations and is ready to kill Democrats” at Media Matters.

• Read “'It's performance art': Lawyer for Alex Jones says InfoWars founder is 'playing a character'“ at Business Insider from 2017).

Read “Unlocking the Vote in Jails” at Slate. “The majority of the 745,000 people held in local jails can vote, but few do. Advocates say it’s voter suppression on a national scale.”

Read “42% of Young Australian Men Don’t Think Punching a Partner Is Domestic Violence” at Global Citizen.

Read “ICE moves to quickly deport more immigrants without court hearings” at CBS News.

Read “Susan Collins: 'I do not believe systemic racism is a problem in the state of Maine' at CNN.

Read “Lil Wayne Voices Support For Trump’s Platinum Plan: “He Listened To What We Had To Say” at Okay Player.

This Week In Protest-Related News:

Read “'Boogaloo Bois' member charged in attack on Minneapolis police precinct during George Floyd protests” at ABC News.

Read “A Look Back at the People's Plaza Protest” at Nashville Scene. “With the process to remove the Nathan Bedford Forrest bust underway, we look back on the summer's longest-running protest.”

Read “A White House Adviser Was Involved in Surveillance of Protesters” at The Nation. “Formerly a Middle East adviser to Mike Pence, an intelligence official central to DHS’s Portland operation has not been made available for congressional testimony.”

This Week With The Police:

Read “Protests in Philadelphia After Police Fatally Shoot Black Man” at New York Times.

Read “Phoenix police officer accused of threatening Mayor Kate Gallego” at KTAR. “A Phoenix police officer allegedly made a “credible threat” against Mayor Kate Gallego, the mayor’s office said.”

Read “Cops Do a Big Lie About Philly Protests, Immediately Get Caught” at Discourse Blog.

Education and The Learnings // School Re-Openings

Read “Guidelines for keeping classrooms open during COVID-19 revised by ADHS” at 12 New AZ.

Read “Montgomery faith leaders urge voters to approve property tax increase for schools” at Montgomery Advisor.

Read “State leaders in Arizona have quietly changed school metrics as COVID-19 cases rise” at ABC 15.

Your Weekly Coronavirus Roundup:

Read “Health Agency Halts Coronavirus Ad Campaign, Leaving Santa Claus in the Cold” at Wall Street Journal.

Read “Certified safe labels coming for face masks” at Boing Boing.

Miscellany Cultural Items:

Read “Small-business owners say national paid sick leave wouldn’t hurt their bottom line” at Fast Company.

Read “BuzzFeed Expects to Break Even This Year, Thanks to Heavy Cost Cuts” at Wall Street Journal.

Read “Facebook’s Top Public Policy Executive in India Steps Down” at Wall Street Journal. “Ankhi Das drew criticism in India over social-media giant’s enforcement of its policy on anti-Muslim hate speech.”

Read “Marilynne Robinson: 'America still has a democratic soul' at The Guardian. “The author of Gilead on the Black Lives Matter protests, the dangers of social media, and her latest novel, Jack.”

Read “A liberal daughter discusses White privilege with her conservative dad” at Christian Century. “What would happen if we listened to each other in love?”

Read “City Pages is closing, ending the era of alternative weeklies in Twin Cities” at Star Tribune.

Read “Sarah Cooper Jokingly Calls Out Stephen Colbert For Creating Trump” at Huff Post. “The “Late Show” host’s fictional “Colbert Report” character has become a reality.”

Read ‘One in Five Holiday Dollars Will Be Spent Online” at Bloomberg.

Read “Trump Has Weaponized Masculinity As President. Here's Why It Matters” at NPR.

Read “The Co-Opting of Rap Criticism Is About More Than Just Music” at Vice. “The strongest reporting on the LA riots of 1992 came from Black writers at a hip-hop magazine. In 2020, the infrastructure for a robust Black press doesn't exist.”

Internationalities:

Read “Putin rejects Donald Trump's criticism of Biden family business” at Reuters.

Read “Kazakhstan’s Tourism Board Embraces Borat’s “Very Nice!” as New Slogan” at Consequence of Sound.

Browse “Photographer Shows Differences Between North and South Korea” at Clever Classic.

Politics And Sucheries:

Read “To defend taking immigrant kids from their parents, Trump blamed Biden” at Washington Post.

Read “Trump Told Donors That It Will Be ‘Very Tough’ For Republicans To Hold Senate” at Huff Post.

Read “Texas Supreme Court temporarily reinstates governor's ban on additional ballot drop boxes in state” at The Hill.

Read “Senate Confirms Amy Coney Barrett To The Supreme Court” by NPR.

Read “Boston man charged with setting fire to ballot drop box” at The Hill.

Read “Cruz: Hunter Biden attacks don't move 'a single voter'“ at The Hill.

Read “Ex-Postal Service worker charged with tossing absentee ballots in dumpster in Kentucky” at NBC News.

Read “Murkowski predicts Barrett won't overturn Roe v. Wade” at The Hill.

Read “Middle-finger voting is driving the entire country mad” at The Week. "The animating principle of our public life is the performance of certain rituals that set us apart (or so we fondly imagine) from persons utterly unlike ourselves whom we despise."

Read “Scaramucci: ‘I applaud the President for unifying the country. It just happens to be against him’” at MSNBC.

Read “Miles Taylor, a Former Homeland Security Official, Reveals He Was ‘Anonymous’” at New York Times.

This Week In Political Corruption:

Read “Five Lessons for Fighting Back After a Disputed Election” at Slate.

Read “Trump Basically Just Encouraged Voters To Commit Election Fraud By Changing Their Already-Cast Votes To Him” at Comic Sands.

Read “Thousands of mail ballots may be lost, Pittsburgh-area official says” at The Hill.

Music-Related News and Such:

Read “When David Byrne Got Together With Spike Lee” at New York Times.

Read “The Spiritual Power of Pharoah Sanders” at Vinyl Factory.

Read “Jah Wobble on his 5 essential bass albums” at Guitar World. “Jah Wobble on his 5 essential bass albums.”

Read as Cameron Crowe interviews Joni Mitchell for The Guardian. “Joni Mitchell: 'I'm a fool for love. I make the same mistake over and over'“.

Read “Trent Reznor, Billy Corgan, More to Play Virtual David Bowie Tribute Festival” at Pitchfork.

Read “Earth Couldn’t Contain Sun Ra’s Ideas. His Arkestra Is Still Exploring Them” at New York Times.

Read “Lamb of God’s John Campbell: Donald Trump Is “Murdering People” at Consequence of Sound.

Listen/Read “Lambchop Cover Stevie Wonder’s ‘Golden Lady’” at Spin.

Read “Stevie Nicks Can’t Wait for the Magic to Come Back” at Rolling Stone. “Nicks discusses her ’24 Karat Gold Concert Film’ and returning to live shows in new interview.”

Browse PopMatters’ picks for “The Top 10 Definitive Breakup Albums”. What are your picks?

Browse Paste’s picks for “14 Creepy Songs From 2020 to Add to Your Halloween Playlist.”

Browse Rolling Stone’s picks for “Bob Dylan’s Greatest Collaborations”.

Browse Consequence of Sound’s picks for “Every Bruce Springsteen Album from Worst to Best”.

Read/Listen to “What Bruce Springsteen Lost And Found” at NPR.

Read “Garcia Peoples :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview”.

Browse PopMatters’ picks for “15 Overlooked and Underrated Albums of the 1990s.”

Browse “Throwing Muses’ Kristin Hersh on the Music That Made Her” at Pitchfork.

Read “Can’t get enough K-pop? Check out these 6 reality shows to feed your fandom” at Los Angeles Times.

Read “‘Stardust’: Young David Bowie Hits the Road to Fame, Self-Discovery in New Trailer” at Rolling Stone.

Read “He Helped Create Lollapalooza. Now He Wants to Save Live Music” at New York Times.

Watch “The Flaming Lips bring their socially distanced bubbles to ‘Assassins Of Youth’ video” at NME.

Read “Chill Vibes, Minus the Wind Chimes: It’s a New Day for New Age Music” at New York Times.

Read “13 Songs for Halloween: "Red Right Hand" + "Song of Joy" by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds” at KEXP.

Read “How Jamaica shaped the creative spirit and evolution of music production” at Vinyl Factory.

Read “Outkast’s Stankonia Presented An Eclectic Hip-Hop Utopia” at Treble.

Movies/TV/Video Games/Etc.:

Read “Stacey Abrams’ Voter-Suppression Documentary ‘All In’ Will Be Free on YouTube” at Variety.

Books/Reading/Authors

Read “Lemonheads’ Evan Dando Pens Memoir ‘Rumors of My Demise’" at Rolling Stone.

Browse “10 Recent Books By Asian American Poets” at Book Riot.

Browse “Ten Poets Every Pastor Should Read” at Anglican Compass.

Science/Animals/Technology/Environment/Etc.:

Read “NASA discovered evidence of hidden water on a sunlit surface of the Moon for the first time” at Today News Post.

Read “Scientists discover coral reef taller than the Empire State Building” at CNet.

Read “Alphabet's Loon sets record for stratospheric flight by a balloon” at CNet.

Misc. Oddities:

Read “The Myth of the Werehyena and the Fear of the Other in the Horn of Africa” at Astro Obscura.

See “A Glass Floor in a Dublin Grocery Store Lets Shoppers Look Down & Explore Medieval Ruins” at Open Culture.

Local:

Read “How Arizona Wilderness DTPHX Became a Bird-Friendly Beer Garden” at Phoenix New Times.

The Weekly Town Crier (10/23/20)

All the week’s news that’s fit to cry about (10/23/20).

We’ll Miss You:

Religion and Stuff:

Read “Evangelicals opposed to Trump step out of the shadows with new groups and ads” at Yahoo.

Read “Stacey Abrams’ passion for voting began with her preacher parents” at Religion News Service.

Read ‘Collins PAC donated hundreds of dollars to two candidates who support QAnon” at The Hill.

Read “Christian Witness Demands That We Defend Truth—and Reject Donald Trump” at The Public Discourse.

Read “Pat Robertson Prophesies That Trump Will Win Reelection, Then the End Times Will Begin” at Right Wing Watch.

Read “Pope Francis, in Shift for Church, Voices Support for Same-Sex Civil Unions” at New York Times.

Read “Policies, Persons, and Paths to Ruin” by John Piper at Desiring God. “When a leader models self-absorbed, self-exalting boastfulness, he models the most deadly behavior in the world. He points his nation to destruction. Destruction of more kinds than we can imagine.”

Legal/Justice and Social Justice and Race or Gender or Sexism-Related Stuff:

Read “Black man serving life sentence for stealing hedge clippers granted parole” at NBC News. “Fair Wayne Bryant was sentenced in 1997 under the state's habitual offender law. On Thursday, a parole committee voted for his release.”

Read “Texas social workers can now turn away LGBTQ, disabled clients” at NBC News. “A state regulatory board removed the discrimination protections following a recommendation from Gov. Greg Abbott.”

This Week In Protest-Related News:

Read “SF archbishop performs exorcism to cleanse protest site” at SF Gate.

Your Weekly Coronavirus Roundup:

Read “Swiss yodellers blamed for worst supercluster of coronavirus cases in Europe” at Telegraph.

Read/Watch “Fact-checking Trump's false claims on virus” at MSNBC.

Read “Covid-19 Patients Put Remote Care to the Test” at Wall Street Journal. “Doctors and hospitals have strived to replace some in-person care with telemedicine during the pandemic.”

Miscellany Cultural Items:

Browse “24 spooky places to visit around the world” at National Geographic.

Read “The future of public transportation in the US depends on who wins the election” at CNN.

Read “Helping Hands Need A Break, Too: How To Lend Support Without Burning Out” at NPR. “If you're feeling numb or overburdened these days in response to another's pain or request for help, that doesn't make you unkind. You could be experiencing compassion fatigue.”

Politics And Sucheries:

Read “Americans Are Voting Early At A Record Rate” at Huff Post.

Read “Trump's closing pitch to voters admits that America has to be made 'great again' all over again” at Yahoo.

Read “After GOP Sen. Ben Sasse was recorded unloading on Trump, Woodward said other Republican senators “feel exactly the same way” at MSNBC.

Read “Progressive group: Feinstein must step down as top Democrat on Judiciary panel” at The Hill.

Read “Bob Woodward, Wolf Blitzer Claim GOP Senators Privately Criticize Donald Trump” at Huff Post. “After GOP Sen. Ben Sasse was recorded unloading on Trump, Woodward said other Republican senators “feel exactly the same way.”

Read “U.S. Budget Gap Tripled to Record $3.1 Trillion in Fiscal 2020, Treasury Says” at Wall Street Journal. “Spending soared 47% in year ended Sept. 30 as government rolled out programs to battle coronavirus and recession.”

Read “Inside the Fall of the CDC” at Pro Publica. “How the world’s greatest public health organization was brought to its knees by a virus, the president and the capitulation of its own leaders, causing damage that could last much longer than the coronavirus.”

Read “John Kerry Is Mad as Hell” at Rolling Stone. “The former senator, presidential nominee, and Secretary of State on the “nincompoop” in the White House, the decimation of America’s reputation abroad, and what needs to be done to restore it.”

Read “Court rejects bid to extend vote counting on Navajo Nation in Arizona” at KTAR.

Read ‘Cruz, other Senate Republicans to release plan barring ‘court-packing’” at Washington Post.

Read “Perdue’s mocking of Kamala Harris yields nearly $2M haul for his rival” at AJC.

Read “Trump's Twitter hacked after Dutch researcher guessed password” at The Guardian.

This Week In Political Corruption:

Read “Joe Kennedy III campaign says it improperly spent $1.5 million in Senate primary” at Boston Globe.

Read ‘Rudy: Only ‘50/50’ Chance I Worked With a ‘Russian Spy’ to Dig Dirt on Bidens” at The Daily Beast. “In a wild interview, the president’s personal attorney made clear he believes he’s on a mission to torpedo the Bidens. And he doesn’t care who supplied the ammunition.”

• Read “Giuliani's 'October Surprise' already shows signs of backfiring” at MSNBC News. “This week's revelations were supposed to make Joe Biden look bad. Instead, they're proving to be a far bigger problem for his GOP accusers.”

Read “Inside the Republican Plot for Permanent Minority Rule” at The New Republic.

Read “Kanye West defends his candidacy after 'SNL' joke” at The Hill.

Read “Nicolas Cage and Marilyn Manson in Conversation” at Interview.

Read “Rudy Giuliani faces questions after compromising scene in new Borat film” at The Guardian. “Trump’s personal attorney has indiscreet encounter with actor playing Borat’s daughter in hotel room during pandemic.”

Read “The US Eliminated Nearly 21,000 Election Day Polling Locations for 2020” at Vice.

Music-Related News and Such:

Read “First Posthumous Ennio Morricone Collection Will Feature Seven Unreleased Tracks” at Rolling Stone.

Read “Brian Wilson Disavows Mike Love’s Beach Boys Playing Trump Fundraiser” at Pitchfork.

Read “Keith Jarrett Confronts a Future Without the Piano” at New York Times.

Movies/TV/Video Games/Etc.:

Read “Boston news anchor fired for appearing in Hubie Halloween” at AV Club.

Design/Artsy Things:

Read ‘From Miles Davis to Jon Hassell: the psychedelic covert artwork of Mati Klarwein” at Vinyl Factory.

Science/Animals/Technology/Environment/Etc.:

Read “This Scientist Is Fighting to Save Coral Reefs—and Recruiting Other Women to Join Her” at Time.

Read “2,000-Year-Old Cat Etching Found at Nazca Lines Site in Peru” at New York Times.

Food Cultures:

Read “A Historical Dig Sheds Light on the Food of the Underground Railroad” at Gastro Obscura. “Archaeologists found muskrat, turtle, and other edible remains in Harriet Tubman Country.”

Read “Remembering When Americans Picnicked in Cemeteries” at Gastro Obscura.

Misc. Oddities:

Read “Rancher reports another mutilated cow in E. Oregon” at Capital Press.

Local:

The Weekly Town Crier (09/25/20)

All the week’s news that’s fit to cry about (09/25/20).

We’ll Miss You:

Read “Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dead at 87” at CNN.

Read “Robert Graetz, minister who helped organize Montgomery Bus Boycott, dies at 92” at Montgomery Advertiser.

Read “Juliette Gréco, French chanteuse, dies at 93” at Boing Boing.

Religion and Stuff:

Read “Prominent Southern Baptists are dropping ‘Southern’ name amid racial unrest” at Washington Post.

Read “Liberal congregations more politically active than conservative ones” at Religion News Service. “new study of 1,262 congregations across the United States shows it is liberal congregations, and particularly Black churches, that have become substantially more engaged in political activity compared to their conservative counterparts.”

Read “Critiquing the Church’s Beliefs about Sex and Gender (Aimee Byrd)” at Hebraic Thought.

Read “Pope Francis will take his Message on Climate Change to the UN General Assembly” at Open PR.

Read “Political Divides, Conspiracy Theories and Divergent News Sources Heading Into 2020 Election” at Journalism. “43% of Republicans identify fraud as a major problem with voting by mail versus 11% of Democrats. 41% of Republicans who have heard about QAnon say it's a good thing for the country, per new Pew poll.”

• Read “Who is behind QAnon? The Reply All podcast investigates” at Boing Boing.

Read “ICE apprehension on church grounds violated federal policy, say faith leaders” at Religion News Service.

Read “Cult leader who claims to be reincarnation of Jesus arrested in Russia” at The Guardian. “Former traffic officer Sergei Torop, AKA Vissarion, arrested in special operation in Siberia.”

Read “The Black Church Is Atlanta’s Original Community Organizer” at Christianity Today.

Read “U.S. bishops urge immediate halt to federal executions” at American Magazine.

Read “AG Barr To Receive “Catholic” Award Hours After Authorizing Execution” at Catholic Mobilizing Newtork.

Read “‘That’s No Accident’: Robert Henderson Credits His Prayer for Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Death” at Right Wing Watch.

Read “People who are highly spiritual tend to be more civic-minded” at Religion News Service.

Read “Pandemic Denial Sows Division and Endangers Others” at Christianity Today.

Read “Prominent evangelical church is the first to sue D.C. over covid-19 worship limits” at Washington Post. “The complaint filed by the 850-member Capitol Hill Baptist Church is the first legal challenge by a religious organization to the capital’s coronavirus restrictions. There have been two others in the region — one in Virginia and one in Maryland — since quarantine measures began, and final decisions are pending in both.”

Read “The Market Made Me Do It: The Scandal of the Evangelical College” at Mere Orthodoxy.

Read “How a Sean Feucht worship service convinced me I am no longer an evangelical” at Religion News Service. “I can no longer call myself an evangelical, because what defines a white evangelical in the United States has become a longing for an authoritarian state where Christianity is prioritized and privileged.”

Legal/Justice and Social Justice and Race or Gender or Sexism-Related Stuff:

Read “NBC News contributor Hugh Hewitt: “The lockdown ... is other than slavery the most numerous imposition on people's individual liberty” at Media Matters.

Read “McConnell Warns D.C. and Puerto Rico Statehood Part of Democrats' 'Radical' Agenda” at Newsweek.

Read “White Supremacists Are a Threat to Elections, Says the DHS” at The Nation. According to this report, right wing extremists have been encouraging followers to intentionally spread covid in minority neighborhoods and at political rallies.

Read “Nike jerseys commemorating four years since Kaepernick took a knee sold out in under a minute” at The Hill.

Read “What Is Critical Race Theory and Why Is Trump Afraid of It?” at The Nation. “His attacks are an attempt to reach those who repudiate the symbols and premises of white supremacy but worry that anti-racist advocacy can go “too far.”

Read “Whiteness as Property” at Harvard Law Review (originally from 1993).

Read “Satchuel Cole, leader in the fight for racial equality in Indianapolis, lied about own race” at Indy Star.

Read “Female graduates earn less than their male counterparts just one year after university - here's why” at The Telegraph.

Read “A racial slur remains in hundreds of place names throughout North America” at Public Radio International. “Clashes throughout North America about the racial slur "squaw" is starting to lead to place name changes.”

Read “The Top Contender for RBG’s Seat Has a Fundamentally Cruel Vision of the Law” at Slate. “Here’s what we can expect if Trump fills the late justice’s seat.”

Read ‘A Neighborhood’s Race Affects Home Values More Now Than in 1980” at Bloomberg.

Read “He fought wildfires while imprisoned. California reported him to Ice for deportation” at The Guardian. “Kao Saelee worked as an incarcerated firefighter in California. But when his release date came, the state partnered with ICE and transferred him to detention. He now faces deportation to Laos, a country his family fled when he was two years old.”

Read “Wells Fargo CEO ruffles feathers with comments about diverse talent” at Reuters. "[T]he unfortunate reality is that there is a very limited pool of black talent to recruit from." - Wells Fargo CEO Charles Scharf.

Read “Fight to protect Joshua trees faces stiff local opposition in California” at The Guardian.

Read “GOP will ask Supreme Court to limit mail voting in Pennsylvania in first post-RBG test” at The Hill.

Read “Almost half of NFL fans have changed their mind about Colin Kaepernick” at The Hill.

Read “Program to house homeless people in hotels is ending after falling short of goal” at Los Angeles Times.

Read “In North Carolina, Black Voters’ Mail-In Ballots Much More Likely to Be Rejected Than Those From Any Other Race” at Pro Publica.

Read “Biracial Couple Gets Lower House Appraisal With Black Family Member Present” at WBUR.

Read “The Secret History Of The Word 'Cracker' at NPR. “A 1783 pejorative - "crackers" specifies people who descended from convicts that were transported from Great Britain to Virginia at different times, and inherit so much profligacy from their ancestors, that they are ostracized.”

Read “Until Black Women Are Free, None of Us Will Be Free” at New Yorker.

Read “The Truth About ‘The Truth About’ Memes” at New York Times.

Read “Extremists Pose a Violent Threat, FBI and DHS Officials Say” at Wall Street Journal. “Christopher Wray, Ken Cuccinelli warned a Senate committee of white supremacists, anarchists and militia-style groups.”

This Week In Protest-Related News:

Read “Portland protests resume, demonstrators remain resolute in push for racial justice” at Oregon Public Media.

Read “DOJ Designates New York City as an “Anarchist Jurisdiction” at NBC New York.

• Read “Trump's DOJ Threatens To Strip Funds From NYC And Other "Anarchist Cities," Prompting Cheers From NYPD Unions” at Gothamist.

Read “Tohono O'odham protest at border wall site ends in standoff, scuffle” at AZ Central.

Read “Luxury cars, MAGA flags and Facebook invites: How an unknown Idaho family organized the Portland rally that turned deadly’ at Washington Post.

Read “Video refutes trooper who denied unmasking protester” at Associated Press.

Read “The Problem With Militias and the Constitution” at U.S. News and World Report. “The presence of illegal militia groups at recent racial justice protests increases the chance of violence and has already proved deadly.”

• Read “pro-Trump activists plotted violence ahead of Portland rallies” at The Guardian. “Patriots Coalition members suggested political assassinations and said ‘laws will be broken, people will get hurt’, leaked chats show.”

Read “Jailed Denver anti-racist leaders subjected to dangerous and degrading conditions in custody” at Liberation News.

Read “A fake protest led to armed resistance in Prescott” at AZ Central. “Posts spread on social media in the Prescott area, claiming buses of protesters were coming on Sept. 11. They claimed local police needed help. There was no protest planned, and the police didn't request help, but armed counterprotesters still turned out.”

Read “Suspect charged in connection to shooting of 2 Louisville officers” at 12 News.

This Week With The Police:

Read “Salt Lake City police officer charged after body cam video shows K9 ordered to bite suspect” at NBC News.

Read “Man in MCSO custody dies after being found unresponsive in Cave Creek substation” at AZ Central.

Read “Trooper who shot Dion Johnson will not face criminal charges, county attorney says” at AZ Central.

Read “NYPD Officer Spied on Tibetan New Yorkers for Chinese Government: Feds” at Daily Beast.

Read “Bodycam shows Salt Lake City police shooting 13-year-old boy with autism” at Salt Lake Tribune.

Read “Six Louisville cops under internal investigation for roles in fatal Breonna Taylor search” at Louisville Courier-Journal.

• Read “Kentucky Grand Jury Indicts 1 Of 3 Officers Over Breonna Taylor Killing” at NPR.

• Read “Q&A: Why was no one charged in Breonna Taylor's shooting?” at Los Angeles Times.

Read “Is Black Lives Matter Causing a Police Shortage?” at Slate. “Probably not.”

Read “Maricopa County Attorney Calls For Body Cameras For All Arizona Officers” at KJZZ.

Education and The Learnings // School Re-Openings

Read ‘This company says it's 'not a school' and has no teachers. But it gets millions meant for charter, private schools” at AZ Central.

Read "New Zealand Schools Have Been Advised to Use Students’ Preferred Names, Genders, and Pronouns” at Global Citizen.

Read “Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow and family hope 'Bald Beagle' will teach kids 'God and country' American history” at Religion News Service. “President Donald Trump believes American history is under attack. His lawyer — and his lawyer’s kids — want to do something about it. Enter Bald Beagle.”

Read “Telling the Truth About Slavery Is Not ‘Indoctrination’” at The Atlantic. “Our country is made better, not worse, by young people reckoning with the full legacy of the institution.”

Read “University of California wrongly admitted well-connected students, state auditor finds” at ABC 7.

Read “'Where Are the Kids?' School Is Back in Session, but Many Kindergarteners Are Missing” at Time.

Read “Jeff Bezos Announces The First Bezos Academy, A Free Preschool For Students From Low-Income Families” at Forbes.

Your Weekly Coronavirus Roundup:

Read “Fresh curbs in Europe as global coronavirus cases top 30m” at Al Jazeera.

Read “Police Haul Man Out of Library for Not Wearing Mask During Meeting About Wearing Masks” at Herman Cain’s website, saying: “It's time for the obsessive mask-wearing to wear off.” . (EDITOR’S NOTE: Herman Cain died of Coronavirus).

Read “Boris Johnson warns second coronavirus wave has arrived in the UK” at Daily Record.

Read “2-month-old dies from COVID-19 in Michigan: 'Children are not spared' at The Hill.

Read “Anti-maskers in Indonesia are being forced to dig graves for COVID-19 victims” at KXAN.

Read “Boris Johnson says self isolate or face £10,000 fine as tough new virus law imposed” at Daily Record.

Read “CNN's medical expert says 'source' told him '80-90%' of COVID deaths could have been saved by scrapped WH mask plan” at Fox News.

Read “Top US health official says coronavirus vaccine not likely until mid-2021: 'That's just a fact'“ at The Hill.

Read “Scotland Restricts People From Visiting Other People’s Homes” at Bloomberg.

Read “Jorma Kaukonen Honored By The State of New Jersey for Providing “Respite and Entertainment” Through COVID-19 Pandemic” at Jambands.

Read “Officiant At Superspreader Maine Wedding Is An Anti-Mask Evangelical” at Huff Post.

Read “Dr. William Schaffner: CDC's removal of virus transmission guidance 'very distressing'“ at MSNBC.

Read “Despite early, strict quarantine measures, Peru has worst COVID-19 death rate in the world” at Miami Herald.

Read “The media needs to do more to show real Americans' pain during the pandemic” at CNN. “29 million Americans are on unemployment aid, 5% of renters (8 million people) are behind on rent, and 1 in 10 families with kids didn't have enough to eat in August.”

Read “Why SF has the lowest COVID-19 death rate of any other major city” at SF Gate.

Read “Fauci testifies on coronavirus response” at CNN. “You’ve misconstrued that, senator, and you’ve done that repeatedly in the past.” Dr. Fauci pushes back against Sen. Rand Paul’s claims on the coronavirus.

Miscellany Cultural Items:

Read “Trump Administration to Ban TikTok App Downloads Starting Sunday” at Pitchfork.

Read “I Have Blood on My Hands”: A Whistleblower Says Facebook Ignored Global Political Manipulation” at Buzzfeed News. “I’ve found multiple blatant attempts by foreign national governments to abuse our platform on vast scales to mislead their own citizenry, and caused international news on multiple occasions. I have personally made decisions that affected national presidents without oversight, and taken action to enforce against so many prominent politicians globally that I’ve lost count.”

Read “Kanye West Calls Puma ‘Trash’ and Says He Is the ‘Head of Adidas’ on Twitter” at Footwear News.

Read “The West’s Wildfires Collide With its Housing” at Bloomberg. “Oregon was already short 155,000 homes before fires destroyed thousands more, including a huge share of one county’s most affordable options. Where do people go now?”

Read ‘Wired Magazine: Amazon Takes Down Controversial Job Postings” at KJZZ. “Amazon recently removed job postings for Phoenix that went viral with descriptions that included "collecting information about labor organizing threats against the company."

Read “Facebook says it may quit Europe over ban on sharing data with US” at The Guardian.

Read “California to Ban Sales of New Gas-Powered Cars Starting in 2035” at at Wall Street Journal.

Read “Nikola founder Trevor Milton forfeits $166 million in stock he would have lost anyway and gets to keep $3.1 billion under separation deal” at CNBC. “Electric truck company Nikola is under investigation by the Justice Dept and SEC for fraud. Two-thirds of its value was wiped out in the scandal. The company has sold 0 trucks. The founder just resigned with $3.1 billion exit package.”

Read “If You Live in Illinois, Facebook Probably Owes You $400” at Vice.

Read “Harley-Davidson to exit world's biggest bike market” at BBC.

Internationalities:

Read “Erdogan willing to meet Greek PM over east Med tensions” at Al Jazeera.

Politics And Sucheries:

Read “He arrived in NC with big donations, but the money traces to a business with QAnon link” at News Observer. “Four voter support groups suspect someone tried to infiltrate their operations as part of an undercover campaign to discredit them.”

Read “Democratic senator calls for eliminating filibuster, expanding Supreme Court if GOP fills vacancy” at The Hill.

Read Court-packing, Democrats’ nuclear option for the Supreme Court, explained” at Vox.

Read “51 percent of voters want to abolish the electoral college” at The Hill.

Read “Arnold Schwarzenegger Offers Grants to Reopen Polling Places” at Variety.

Read “What The SCOTUS Vacancy Means for Abortion — And The 2020 Election” at NPR.

Read “Democrats Prepare New Coronavirus Aid Proposal” at Wall Street Journal.

Read “Mary Trump sues President Trump, family members over fraud allegations” at The Hill.

Read “Democrats prepare bill limiting U.S. Supreme Court justice terms to 18 years” at Reuters.

This Week In Political Corruption:

Read “U.S. Admits That Congressman Offered Pardon to Assange If He Covered Up Russia Links” at Daily Beast. “Republican congressman Dana Rohrabacher offered Assange the deal in 2017, a year after the emails that damaged Hillary Clinton had been published.”

Read “Federal Prosecutors Have Steve Bannon’s Murky Nonprofit in Their Sights” at Pro Publica. “Tucked at the bottom of the long indictment against Bannon, prosecutors say they want to seize the assets of his nonprofit Citizens of the American Republic, shedding more light on the secretive political group’s finances.”

Watch: “The Daily Show Hilariously Cut Together Clips of Trump Doing Exactly the Things He Accuses Biden of Doing” at Second Nexus.

Read “Virginians wait up to four hours to cast early voting ballots” at The Hill.

Read “What GOP Leaders Said About Merrick Garland Back In 2016” at Huff Post.

• Read “Lindsey Graham, Chuck Grassley, and Susan Collins Have Said They Won’t Vote For SCOTUS Nominee During An Election” at Politics USA.

• Read “Lindsey Graham Goes Back on His Word, Vows to Vote for Ginsburg Replacement Before Election” at Slate.

• Read “Sen. Lisa Murkowski Reiterates Opposition To Confirmation Vote Before The Election” at NPR.

• Read “Democrats say 2016 should be the standard for high court nominees in election year” at NBC News. ““They made a new precedent," Hillary Clinton said Sunday about Senate Republicans, "and that new precedent, which they all defended incredibly passionately, is to wait for the next president.”

• Read “Most Americans think winner of election should pick next Supreme Court justice” at The Hill.

• Read “McConnell locks down key GOP votes in Supreme Court fight” (EDITOR’S NOTE: Why is this a “fight” if we’re all just trying to do the right thing?).

Read “DeJoy Didn't Bother to Check Whether His Policies Would Kneecap the USPS” at Vice. “USPS collected the data they needed to know running trucks on time would destroy service, but they didn't look at it.”

Read “ICE Hysterectomy Doctor Wasn’t Even a Board-Certified OB-GYN” at Daily Beast.

Read “Trump, Orbán, and Putin Are Forming an Authoritarian Alliance” at The Intelligencer.

Read ‘The Pentagon funneled nearly $1,000,000,000 of taxpayer money meant for masks and medical equipment to defense contractors building jet engines and body armor” at Washington Post.

Read “DHS awarded $6 million in contracts to firm where Acting Secretary Wolf's wife is executive” at NBC News.

Read “Texas Republicans sue to stop Gov. Greg Abbott's extension of early voting period during the pandemic” at Texas Tribune.

Read “Trump's threat: 'Get rid of the ballots' — 'there won't be a transfer, frankly, there will be a continuation'“ at Boing Boing.

Read “Judge orders Eric Trump to sit for NY Attorney General deposition before the election” at NBC News. “Eric Trump had tried to delay answering questions in the A.G.'s Trump Organization investigation.”

Read “Mary Trump: Take It Seriously That Trump May Not Hand Over Power” at Huff Post. “How far is he willing to go to remain in office if he loses? “Farther than you can possibly imagine,” warned the president’s niece.”

Music-Related News and Such:

Read “How South Africa’s Blue Notes Helped Invent European Free Jazz” at Bandcamp.

Read “Three Years After Tom Petty’s Death, His Dream Project Finally Emerges” at Rolling Stone.

Browse “A Beginner’s Guide To The Interstellar Music of Sun Ra” at Treble.

Read “Final Recordings of the Tragically Hip’s Gord Downie Set for New Album” at Pitchfork. “Listen to a pair of songs from Away Is Mine, a double album featuring tracks recorded months before he died.”

Browse (if you must) Rolling Stone’s picks for “The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.”

Read “Sun Ra: ‘I’m Everything and Nothing’” at New York Review of Books.

Read “Punks Unite in Trailer for Rock Against Racism Doc ‘White Riot’” at Rolling Stone. “British punks unite in the trailer for Rock Against Racism documentary 'White Riot,' a new film chronicling the movement against racist rhetoric in the U.K. in the late Seventies.”

Read “Channeling alienation into a cosmic passion project” at Xtra. “John Shepherd dreamed of contacting aliens through music he beamed into space.”

Read “We’ve Got A File On You: Thurston Moore” at Stereogum. “The Sonic Youth legend on Bernie Sanders, black metal, Steve Albini, 'Gilmore Girls,' & more.”

Read “Michael Kiwanuka Wins Hyundai Mercury Prize 2020” at Clash.

Read “‘Wonderwall’ at 25: How Oasis’ Unlikely Ballad Became One of the Last Rock Standards” at Rolling Stone. “A quarter-century ago, the British band broke into America with an uncharacteristically sensitive hit. The song remains shockingly popular — even if the guy who wrote it isn’t really a fan.”

Watch “From The Edge of America :: Lonnie Holley and Richard Swift” at Aquarium Drunkard.

Read “Terms Of Service” at NCart. “Cory Rayborn had an unlikely bonus task to complete in the midst of his law school orientation, in the summer of 2000: package and ship the debut release from his fledgling record label, Three Lobed.”

Watch “Kraftwerk’s “The Robots” Performed by German First Graders in Adorable Cardboard Robot Outfits” at Open Culture.

Movies/TV/Video Games/Etc.:

Read “See All the Winners of the 2020 Emmys” at Time.

Read “Microsoft buys Bethesda, publisher of Skyrim, Doom, and Fallout, for $7.5 billion” at AV Club.

Read “‘Family Guy,’ ‘Bob’s Burgers’ Score Two-Season Renewals at Fox” at Variety.

Read “Some monster is tweeting out the entire Shrek 2 script, one line at a time” at AV Club.

Read “Dan Levy On Schitt’s Creek’s Fulsome, Splendrous Emmys Night” at Vulture.

Books/Reading/Authors

Read “We're Booked: Join NPR At This Year's Virtual National Book Festival” at NPR.

Design/Artsy Things:

See “Type lovers, over 30,000 old cigarette boxes.”

Science/Animals/Technology/Environment/Etc.:

Read “Scientists Race Against Time To Save Coral Off Florida Keys” at WBUR.

Read “The Internet Archive Will Digitize & Preserve Millions of Academic Articles with Its New Database, "Internet Archive Scholar" at Open Culture.

Food Cultures:

Read “Minnesota’s ‘Root Beer Lady’ Lived Alone in a Million-Acre Wilderness” at Gastro Obscura. “The “loneliest woman in America” brewed root beer for thousands of visitors.”

Local:

Read “Ducey signs law adding 2 justices to Arizona Supreme Court” at Tucson.com.

Read “Everything you need to know before voting on Proposition 207 in Arizona” at 12 News.

Read “Live events workers marched with empty road cases to a rally in Tempe to save jobs” at AZ Central.

The Weekly Town Crier (09/18/20)

All the week’s news that’s fit to cry about (09/18/20).

We’ll Miss You:

Read “Diana Rigg, star of 'Game of Thrones' and 'The Avengers,' dies at 82” at NBC.

Read “Hal Singer, Saxophonist and Tulsa Massacre Survivor, Dies at 100” at New York Times.

Read “R.I.P. Toots Hibbert, Reggae Pioneer and Frontman of Toots & The Maytals Dies at 77” at Consequence of Sound.

Read “Original Bad Brains singer Sid McCray, RIP” at Brooklyn Vegan.

Religion and Stuff:

Read “No Pearl-Clutching Allowed” by Diana Butler Bass.

Read “Former Avalon Singer Michael Passons Says He Was Kicked Out of Christian Band for Being Gay” at People.

Read “It’s Out Of Control’: How QAnon Undermines Legitimate Anti-Trafficking Efforts” at Huff Post. “The child sex trade is a global crisis. Far-right conspiracy theorists are harassing, distracting and intimidating the organizations fighting to end it.”

Read “Black Lives Matter co-founder denounces Pat Robertson for saying the movement is 'anti-God' at Religion News Service.

Read “'God Has a Mission for Me': Roger Stone Tells CBN News He's Not Out for Revenge but on a New Path” at CBN News.

Read “On the Use and Abuse of Critical Race Theory in American Christianity” at The Dispatch.

Read “Christian Apologist Ravi Zacharias A Serial Liar And Molester? Brothers In Faith Blame “Demonic” Hindu Yoga In His Spa” at Swarajya Mag.

• Read “Betrayed Trust, Part One: New Testimony, Emails & Other Documents Portray Ravi Zacharias as Predator in Sexting Scandal” at Roys Report.

• Read “Betrayed Trust, Part Two: Woman Accused in Sexting Scandal Claims Ravi Zacharias Groomed & Exploited Her” at Roys Report.

• Read “Betrayed Trust, Part Three: Ravi Zacharias Claimed Accusers in Sexting Scandal Were Extortionists, But Evidence Indicates Otherwise” at Roys Report.

Read “How Did Martin Luther Become So Popular?” at Sojourners.

Read “Former Christianity Today Editor Mark Galli to be Confirmed a Catholic” at Roys Report.

Read “Baptist Calvinists defend slavery of Southern Seminary founders” at Baptist News.

Read “Catholic group launches $9.7M campaign against Biden targeting swing-state voters” at The Hill.

Read “White Christians Have Become Even Less Motivated to Address Racial Injustice” at Barna.

• Read “No race problem here: Despite summer of protests, many practicing Christians remain ambivalent” at Religion News Service.

Read “Evangelical Pastor Urges Christians to 'Mobilize' to Fight Civil War Against Left-Wing Activists” at Newsweek.

Read “An evangelical activist could draw big crowds to Milwaukee, Madison and Kenosha as Wisconsin reaches record COVID-19 cases” at Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Read “The Complicated Importance Of Abortion To Trump Voters” at NPR (EDITOR’S NOTE: Abortion would not be legal nor exist as it currently does without Republican support).

Legal/Justice/Human Rights and Social Justice and Race or Gender or Sexism-Related Stuff:

Read “Conor McGregor arrested for alleged attempted sexual assault in Corsica” at Mirror.

Read “Former Judge Gleeson's response to Justice Department efforts to drop Michael Flynn's prosecution” at CNN.

Read “The IRS offers a $625,000 bounty to anyone who can break Monero and Lightning” at Coin Telegraph.

Read “Naomi Osaka Says She Wore 7 Masks About Black Lives During This Year's U.S. Open to 'Make People Start Talking' at Time.

Read “A Coded Word From the Far Right Roils France’s Political Mainstream” at New York Times.

Read “Young US Latinos are at the forefront of a climate revolution” at PRI.

Read “19 families buy nearly 97 acres of land in Georgia to create a city safe for Black people” at CNN.

Read “Judges halt plan to exclude unauthorized immigrants from count used to award seats in Congress” at CBS News.

Read “Oregon prisoners report ‘inhumane’ conditions following fire evacuations, transfers” at Oregonian Live.

Read “How Big Oil Misled The Public Into Believing Plastic Would Be Recycled” at NPR.

Read “California Woman Goes Off On Racist Rant At Man During Dispute About His Kids’ Sidewalk Art” at Percolately.

Read “‘Like an Experimental Concentration Camp’: Whistleblower Complaint Alleges Mass Hysterectomies at ICE Detention Center” at Law and Crime.

• Read “Whistleblower Alleges 'Medical Neglect,' Questionable Hysterectomies Of ICE Detainees” at KCRW.

Read “A Civil War Political Movement Reawakens — Complete With Capes” at New York Times.

Read “The Top 1% of Americans Have Taken $50 Trillion From the Bottom 90%—And That's Made the U.S. Less Secure” at Time.

Read “ICE deported a key witness in investigation of sexual assault and harassment at El Paso detention center” at Texas Tribune.

Read “Donald Trump accused of sexual assault by former model Amy Dorris” at The Guardian.

This Week In Protest-Related News:

Read “George Floyd family attorney slams defense claim he died from drug overdose” at NBC News.

Read “City of Louisville agrees to 'substantial' settlement in Breonna Taylor shooting” at Louisville Courier-Journal.

Read “Portland slaps new $20K daily fine on fed courthouse fence” at Pamplin Media.

Read “Portland Protesters Say Their Lives Were Upended by the Posting of Their Mug Shots on a Conservative Twitter Account” at Willamette Weekly. “What Andy Ngo is doing is legal. The mug shots are public records. And Ngo told WW that it is his “duty” to report on protesters who have been arrested.”

Read ‘KPCC Journalist Tackled, Arrested While Trying To Cover L.A. Protest” at NPR.

Read “Violent protests erupt in Colombia after the death of a man repeatedly tasered by police” at CBS News.

Read “Massive Protests Continue In Belarus As Demonstrators Demand Lukashenko Resign” at NPR.

Read “Attacks on journalists during protests risen sharply: UNESCO” at Al Jazeera. “Journalists attacked, arrested or killed in 21 protests between January and June of this year, UNESCO said.”

Read “Whistleblower says officials considered using "heat ray" on D.C. protester” at Axios. “Federal officials stockpiled ammunition at the D.C Armory and sought crowd control devices before law enforcement forcibly cleared protesters from Lafayette Square in June, a whistleblower said in written submissions to Congress.”

This Week With The Police:

Read “4 Texas police officers fired after fatally shooting man 'having a mental breakdown' in April” at USA Today.

Read “NLVPD officer accused of kneeing handcuffed suspect, asking others to turn off bodycams” at Las Vegas 3.

Read “Salt Lake police chief, former chief address shooting of teen with autism” at KSL.

Read “Flagstaff police officer dead after reportedly taking his own life” at 12 News.

Read “2 L.A. deputies shot in ‘ambush’ attack recovering after surgery” at Los Angeles Times.

• Read “Shooting of L.A. deputies new flashpoint in a 'tinderbox moment'" at Yahoo.

Read “Policing in Arizona is at a crossroads as long-simmering issues involving race and use-of-force come to a head” at KJZZ.

Read ‘Roderick Walker: Georgia Police Tackle & Pin Cab Rider in Viral Video” at Heavy.

Read ‘Maryland Police Officer Indicted After Man Left Partially Paralyzed” at NBC Washington.

Read “Officer-involved shooting leaves one person injured in North City” at KMOV.

Read “Openly-Gay Congressional Candidate Hits Back After Police Union Calls Him A 'First Class Wh*re'“ at Comic Sands.

Read “A Newark Officer Was Filmed Punching Someone. Jelani Cobb Asked a Police Union Head If It Was Justified” at PBS’ Frontline.

Read “8 Times Cops Let People Go as Personal Favors (And One When They Didn’t)” at Vice.

Read “Documents Reveal How the Police Kept Daniel Prude’s Death Quiet” at New York Times.

Education and The Learnings // School Re-Openings

Read “Nearly two-thirds of US young adults unaware 6m Jews killed in the Holocaust” at The Guardian.

Read “Trump announces commission to further 'patriotic education' at The Hill.

Your Weekly Coronavirus Roundup:

Read “Canada reports zero COVID-19 deaths for first time since March” at Reuters.

Read “U.S. closes in on grim pandemic milestone: the 200,000th COVID-19 death” at NBC News.

• Read Trump told Bob Woodward he knew in February that COVID-19 was 'deadly stuff' but wanted to 'play it down' at NBC News.

• See “32 times Trump said the coronavirus would go away” at Washington Post.

• Read “RNC chairwoman says history will vindicate Trump's coronavirus handling” at NBC News.

• Read “Joy Reid on Trump downplaying coronavirus dangers: Your President lied to you” at MSNBC.

• Read “Trump’s coronavirus death toll estimate exposes his failure” at Vox. “Trump had a chance to avert the unfolding coronavirus disaster. He blew it.”

• Read “Trump’s COVID-19 Culpability” at Niskassen Center.

Read “CDC Director Says COVID-19 Vaccine Likely Won't Be Widely Available Until Next Year” at NPR.

• Read “Trump says CDC director "made a mistake" when he said vaccine won't be widely available until at least summer 2021” at CBS News.

Read “Political Appointees Meddled in C.D.C.’s ‘Holiest of the Holy’ Health Reports” at New York Times. “Trump loyalists at the Health and Human Services Department have been exerting influence on the Centers for Disease Control’s weekly reports on all disease outbreaks, the coronavirus and beyond.”

Read “Trump Pressed for Plasma Therapy. Officials Worry, Is an Unvetted Vaccine Next?” at New York Times.

Read “Adults with Covid-19 about 'twice as likely' to say they have dined at a restaurant, CDC study suggests” at CNN.

Read “COVID creeps into a sprawling Syrian refugee camp in Jordan” at CBS News.

Read “Bullfighting has reached a crisis point in Spain” at PRI. “Spain has just become the first country in Europe to register half a million coronavirus cases, leaving bullrings empty and bullfighters out of work.”

Read “Florida bars to reopen even as state battles coronavirus” at CBS News.

Read “Coronavirus pandemic taking much bigger mental health toll on young adults compared to older adults, survey finds” at CBS News.

Read “Tom Hanks' Blood Will be Used To Develop COVID-19 Vaccine” at Today.

Read “A top disease expert is warning of 'another 12 to 14 months of a really hard road ahead of us,' and says the US has no national plan to stop it” at Yahoo.

Read “Israel to Enter Second Virus Lockdown After Bungled Reopen” at Bloomberg.

Read “Utah County behind ‘clear’ spike in coronavirus cases, state health officials say” at Salt Lake Tribune.

Read “UArizona recommending 14-day shelter-in-place for students to curb spread of COVID-19” at KGUN9.

Read “Coronavirus cases are growing in 11 U.S. states as Fauci warns of 'disturbing' data” at CNBC.

Read “The Sturgis Biker Rally Did Not Cause 266,796 Cases of COVID-19” at Slate.

Read “Bill Gates: CDC being 'written out of the picture' on coronavirus” at The Hill. “The CDC is largely being written out of the picture because you have people at the White house who aren’t epidemiologists, saying what a great job they’ve done, and so it’s no longer a set of experts.”

Read “Coronavirus: Ukraine accuses Belarus over stranded Jewish pilgrims” at BBC.

Read “Hungary Tightens Rules With Virus Wave Expected to Last Months” at Bloomberg.

Read “Iran’s Daily Coronavirus Cases Surge to Three-Month High” at Bloomberg.

Read “West Coast Fires Are Raising Covid-19 Risks” at Wall Street Journal.

Miscellany Cultural Items:

Read “In Oregon, a New Climate Menace: Fires Raging Where They Don’t Usually Burn” at New York Times.

• Read “As the West Coast Burns, Communities Unravel With Each Death” at New York Times.

• Read “West Coast Fires: Climate, Forest Management, Lax Rules, Plenty Of Blame To Go Around” at NPR.

• Read “Trump Bucks Climate Science in Wildfire Briefing” Fact Check.

Read “Former Daily Caller Editor Reveals He Was Forced To Publish Oleg Deripaska” at Empty Wheel.

Read “Alicia Keys interview: ‘I despise the word celebrity – it’s such an empty word’” at The Telegraph.

Read “‘World’s Loneliest Elephant’ Is Finally Free After 35 Years in Confinement” at Global Citizen.

Read “Bush’s Empty Words on Post-9/11 Tolerance Were Good, Actually” at Slate.

Read “In Oregon, a Year of Political Tumult Extends to Devastating Wildfires” at New York Times.

Read “13-year-old dies from brain-eating amoeba after vacation in Florida, family says” at CBS.

Read “Facebook deleting posts linking activist groups to Oregon fires” at CNet.

Read “Oracle Picked as Winning Bid for TikTok U.S. Over Microsoft” at Bloomberg.

Read “What I Learned From Writing Letters To Strangers Across America” at NPR.

Read “David Lynch Tries to Make a List of the Good Things Happening in the World … and Comes Up Blank” at Open Culture.

Read “Bill Gates: “Our values do change what gets funded in this economy” at MarketPlace.

Internationalities:

Read “Liberia declares rape a national emergency after spike in cases” at Al Jazeera.

Read “Iran: Secret execution of wrestler Navid Afkari a ‘travesty of justice’” at Amnesty International.

Read “India-China dispute: China returns five missing Indian nationals” at BBC.

Read “Afghan-Taliban talks: Government calls for ceasefire” at BBC.

Read “Officials: Iran weighs plot to kill U.S. ambassador to South Africa” at Politico.

Read “Sweden and France Confirm Aleksei Navalny Was Poisoned With Novichok, Germany Says” at Vice.

Read “Yemen: Aid Obstruction Puts Millions at Risk” at Human Rights Watch.

Read “US ambassador to China stepping down” at The Hill.

Read “Trump says he wanted to kill Assad, but Mattis opposed” at France 24.

Politics And Sucheries:

Read “The Trump campaign played a song about rich kids dodging the Vietnam War draft — which the president did 5 times — at a Michigan rally” at Business Insider.

Read “Ohio high court says no to Kanye West’s ballot request” at Fox 8.

Read “Trump Campaign Staffer Slammed After He Tried Mocking Joe Biden as He Visited His Son's Grave” at Second Nexus.

Read “Top Aide in Review of Russia Inquiry Resigns From Justice Dept.” at New York Times.

Read “A major American city may soon allow 16-year-olds to vote — and others could follow suit” at NBC News.

Read “Years after 9/11, the political use of fear continues on” at Chicago Tribune.

Read “Republicans Are Knocking On Doors. Democrats Aren't. Biden's Campaign Says That's OK” at NPR.

Read “Mary Trump says reporters 'continue to pull these punches' at CNN.

Read “NRA's political influence dwindling ahead of the election” at Axios. “The National Rifle Association has spent $9.2 million on political expenditures this cycle, about one-sixth of the $54.4 million reported in 2016, according to Federal Election Commission data tracked by Open Secrets.”

Read “Biden Creates Legal War Room, Preparing for a Big Fight Over Voting” at Yahoo.

Read “Scientific American Endorses Joe Biden” at Scientific American. “We’ve never backed a presidential candidate in our 175-year history—until now.”

Read “400,000 people have registered to vote through Snapchat” at The Verge.

Read “At Least Someone's Trying to Pass a Stimulus Package” at Vice. “The House Problem Solvers Caucus — a bipartisan group of 50 lawmakers — is trying to broker a compromise between Democrats and Republicans before benefits completely run dry.”

Read “Pelosi: House to stay in session until COVID-19 rescue pact” at KTAR.

Read “Schumer, Sanders call for Senate panel to address election security” at The Hill.

Read “Pelosi: We're supposed to be crushing the virus; Trump is crushing the ACA” at MSNBC.

This Week In Political Corruption:

Read “The CARES Act Sent You a $1,200 Check but Gave Millionaires and Billionaires Far More” at Pro Publica.

Read “Twitter And Facebook Flag Trump's Mail-In Voting Post for Platform Violations” at NPR.

Read “As Energy Secretary, Rick Perry Mixed Money and Politics in Ukraine. The Deals Could Be Worth Billions” at Time.

Read “Longtime Climate Science Denier Hired At NOAA” at NPR.

Read “Fact-checking William Barr: Is your vote no longer secret with mail-in ballots?” at CNN.

Read “Trump Says He Will ‘Negotiate’ Third Term Because He’s ‘Entitled’ To It” at Forbes.

Read “Pompeo’s wife assigned State Dept. work on secretary’s behalf using private email” at The Olympian.

Read “Companies Owned by This Billionaire Governor Received up to $24 Million in Bailout Loans” at Pro Publica.

Read “South Dakota AG Involved in Fatal Car Accident Kept Driving, Thinking He Hit Deer: Cops” at Daily Beast.

Read “Jacob Wohl Staged Fake FBI Raid on Business Partner, Actor Hired for Production Says” at The Daily Beast.

Read “Judge rules Chad Wolf likely unlawfully serving as Homeland Security secretary and temporarily blocks some asylum restrictions” at CNN.

Read “Democratic lawmakers call for an investigation into allegations of medical neglect at Georgia ICE facility” at The Hill.

Read “Wray says Russia engaged in 'very active efforts' to interfere in election, damage Biden” at Politico.

Read “Judge blocks 'politically motivated' changes to U.S. Postal Service ahead of election” at Reuters.

Music-Related News and Such:

Read “Jazz Lives in Clubs. The Pandemic Is Threatening Its Future.” at New York Times.

Read “Cocteau Twins’ vast influence lives on :: 24 great artists they’ve inspired” at Brooklyn Vegan.

Read “Pearl Jam Announce ‘Take-Three Pledge’ Vote By Mail Initiative” at Jambands.

Read “Bob Dylan Is Bringing Back His “Theme Time” Radio Show” at Pitchfork. “His first installment in over a decade airs September 21 in honor of Bourbon Heritage Month.”

Read “John Fogerty on Trump’s ‘Confounding’ Use of a Creedence Classic About Draft Dodgers: ‘He IS the Fortunate Son’ at Variety.

Read “‘American Utopia’ Review: One of the Best Concert Docs Since ‘Stop Making Sense’” at Indie Wire.

Read “The Cure Finished Their New Album While in Lockdown” at Consequence of Sound.

Read “Blues singer Lady A sues the band fka Lady Antebellum” at Brooklyn Vegan.

Read “Amoeba Music plans to open San Francisco store for first time in 6 months” at Date Book.

Read “A New Prescription: A Dose of Live Music for Hospital Patients” at Wall Street Journal.

Read “Bill Callahan: Tiny Desk (Home) Concert” at NPR’s Tiny Desk.

Read “Biggie’s Plastic Crown Sells for Nearly $600,000 in Sotheby’s Hip-Hop Auction” at Pitchfork.

Read “The Psychedelic Sound of Rüstəm Quliyev, King of Azerbaijani Guitar” at Bandcamp.

Read “Kanye West tweets video of himself pissing on a Grammy” at Brooklyn Vegan.

Read “Van Morrison to release lockdown protest songs” at BBC.

Movies/TV/Video Games/Etc.:

Read “49 Years Ago, Harry Belafonte Hosted the Tonight Show—and It Was Amazing” at The Nation.

Read “Warner Bros. Won’t Share ‘Tenet’ Box Office Data, Angering Rival Studios” at Variety.

Read “How the Kardashians turned celebrity into something monstrous” at The Telegraph.

Read “How Cuties, a French movie on Netflix, became part of America’s culture war” at Vox.

Read “Jeremy Tardy Parts Ways With ‘Dear White People,’ Cites Racial Discrimination” at Okay Player.

Books/Reading/Authors

Read “The Novel and the Secret Police” at Boston Review. “In Vineland, his underappreciated 1990 novel, the author of Gravity’s Rainbow anticipated a United States in which security would become the greatest good.”

Read “Bookstore Sales Fell 24.6% in July” at Publisher’s Weekly.

Science/Animals/Technology/Environment/Etc.:

Read “A ball python laid 7 eggs at the Saint Louis Zoo, even though she hasn't been around a male in years” at CNN.

Read “NASA sets out to buy moon resources mined by private companies” at Reuters.

Read “13 mysterious mummies discovered in Egyptian well” at CNN.

Read “Scientists baffled by orcas ramming sailing boats near Spain and Portugal” at The Guardian.

Read “Scientists find gas linked to life in atmosphere of Venus” at The Guardian.

Read “A perfectly preserved Ice Age cave bear has been found in Russia -- even its nose is intact” at CNN.

Read “'We Really Don't Know' If Bird Die-Off In New Mexico Is Related To Climate Change, Expert Says” at WBUR.

Food Cultures:

Read “To Save Madagascar’s Wildlife, an Entomologist Is Helping Revive a Bug-Based Cuisine” at Gastro Obscura.

Read “Japan Is Combating Rural Decline With a National Network of Ice Cream” at Gastro Obscura.

Misc. Oddities:

Read “Where Did the Monk’s Haircut Come From? A Look at the Rich and Contentious History of the Tonsure” at Open Culture.

The Weekly Town Crier (06/19/20)

All the week’s news that’s fit to cry about (06/19/20)

Read “Legendary Batman writer, Denny O'Neil dies at age 81” at Games Radar.

Read “Evangelicals perfected cancel culture. Now it’s coming for them” at Religion News Service.

Read “Jesus Was Divisive: A Black Pastor's Message To White Christians” at NPR’s Code-Switch. “Of course, they are willing to sacrifice black and brown bodies to hear a full-throated hymn.”

Read “Apartheid’s Roots Nourished By Religion” from January 1985’s Chicago Tribune.

Read and Sign an “Open Letter to Our Nations’ Lawmakers on Systemic Racism” from The Poor People’s Campaign. "The question before us is whether America can be what it has promised to be." We will not stop until we can all breathe.

Read “Most US Pastors Speak Out in Response to George Floyd’s Death Survey finds many still worry discussing race is “too political” at Christianity Today.

Read “Before protests, black Americans said religious sermons should address race relations” at Pew Research.

Read “A Brief History of People Using Romans 13 to Justify White Supremacy” at The Root (originally published 2018).

Read ‘In landmark case, Supreme Court rules LGBTQ workers are protected from job discrimination” at NBC News. “The decision said Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which makes it illegal for employers to discriminate because of a person's sex, also covers sexual orientation and transgender status”

Read “Supreme Court blocks Trump’s bid to end DACA, a win for undocumented ‘Dreamers’” at Washington Post.

Read “Number of Refugees World-Wide Has Doubled in Past Decade Nearly 80 million people were displaced from their homes at the end of 2019, according to the U.N.’s refugee agency” at Wall Street Journal.

Read “Colonialism’s Cages: When Indigenous People Were Placed In Human Zoos” at All That’s Interesting.

HAPPY JUNETEENTH!

• Read “The meaning of Juneteenth and how we should commemorate it today” at MPR News.

• Learn about Juneteenth at Teen Vogue.

• Read “Trump claims he made Juneteenth "very famous" at Axios. “I did something good: I made Juneteenth very famous." The president claimed that "nobody had ever heard" of the June 19 celebration before he planned a rally in Tulsa on that day.”

• Read “Juneteenth: A Truer Independence Day The official end of slavery in America more fully embraces the self-evident truth of all people as created equal” at Christianity Today.

• Read “Juneteenth – 7 Books for Kids!” at Englewood Review of Books.

• Read “Amid Calls for a General Strike, Labor Will Shut Down 29 Ports on Juneteenth” at Truthout

Learn about Medgar Evers.

Learn about Ruby Bridges.

Learn about “The Trail Of Tears: Government-Approved Ethnic Cleansing That Removed 100,000 Native Americans From Their Ancestral Lands” at All That’s Interesting.

Read “Top Military Leaders Acknowledge Black and Hispanic Service Members Get Treated Unfairly in Its Justice System” at Newsweek.

Read “Top State Department official resigns in protest of Trump’s response to racial tensions in the country” at Washington Post.

Listen to “'Lean Into Discomfort' When Talking About Race” at WBUR.

Read “The Unmistakable Black Roots of 'Sesame Street' at Smithsonian.

Read “Aunt Jemima brand to change name, remove image that Quaker says is 'based on a racial stereotype' at NBC News.

• Read “Aunt Jemima's logo has changed 6 times, and its history is rooted in racial stereotypes and slavery — check out how the brand started and evolved over 130 years” at Business Insider.

Read “Is Genocide Happening In Nigeria As The World Turns A Blind Eye?” at Forbes.

Read “Beyond Berets: The Black Panthers as Health Activists” at US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health.

Learn about the “Boogaloo movement” at CNN.

• Read “The 29-Year-Old Bodybuilder Behind the Armed Effort to Reopen Texas A month ago Philip Archibald was stuck inside his Dallas home, unable to work. Now he commands a heavily armed network of anti-lockdown vigilantes, some with extremist leanings” at Texas Monthly.

• Read “Members of armed civilian group arrested, suspected gunman identified after man is shot at Albuquerque protest” at Washington Post.

This week in traitorous, white-supremacist Confederate monuments (and/or Columbus monuments):

• Read “George Floyd's uncle calls on South Dakota police department in his hometown to remove Confederate flag from their logo” at Daily Mail.

• Read “Trump's history of defending Confederate 'heritage' despite political risk” at ABC News. (EDITOR’S NOTE: You don't get to call yourself "The Party of Lincoln" while defending Confederate symbols.

• Read “Taylor Swift Speaks Out Against Tennessee’s Confederate Monuments” at Stereogum.

• Read “Tennessee just showed that white supremacy is alive and well; Honoring a former Confederate general and KKK grand wizard in 2019 is outrageous” at Washington Post.

• Read “Is this the end for public monuments to the Confederacy?” at PBS News Hour. "While some argue the monuments honor Southern ancestors, Lecia Brooks of the Southern Poverty Law Center says most went up either early in the 20th century or during the civil rights era, as racist groups like the Ku Klux Klan flexed their muscle.”

• Read "NASCAR’s Bubba Wallace on banning the Confederate flag and a new generation of fans” at PBS News Hour.

• Read “Cities Are Removing Racist & Confederate Statues That Protesters Have Targeted” at Now This!

• In modern-day Confederate news, Read: “Mitch McConnell: We paid for 'sin of slavery' by electing Obama” at USA Today.

• Read “Statue of Josephus Daniels, publisher and white supremacist, removed from Raleigh square” at The News and Observer.

• Read “Columbus To Remove Christopher Columbus Statue At City Hall” at WOSU.

• Read “Letting Go Of The Lost Cause: Confederates Were Racist Traitors The Civil War ended 155 years ago. We need to finally correct the historical record. The Confederates were racist traitors and should not be celebrated” at Rantt Media.

• Read “Kingston Decides to Swap One George Clinton for Another” at Hudson Valley River News.

This Week in Protest News:

• Read “'Riots', 'mobs', 'chaos': the establishment always frames change as dangerous” at The Guardian.

• Read “Tear Gas: An Investigation. What it is, how it is abused and why you should care” at Amnesty.org.

• Read “What the Heck is Going On In Seattle?” at Medium.

• Read “Fox News runs digitally altered images in coverage of Seattle’s protests, Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone” at Seattle Times. (EDITOR’S NOTE: MAYBE, Just Maybe, Fox “News” isn’t news after all but propaganda?”

• Read “Trump draws rebukes for suggesting 75-year-old protester pushed to the ground in Buffalo was part of a ‘set up’ at Washington Post.

• Read “As protests continue, black women activists are leading again” at PBS News Hour.

• Read “The Small-Town Antifa Invasion That Never Came Hundreds of people in Klamath Falls, Oregon, rallied with guns and bulletproof vests in response to a Facebook rumor” at Slate.

• Read “US law enforcement surveilled protests with drones, spy planes” at Al Jazeera.

  • Read “AOC Wants to Know Why the Hell a Predator Drone Was Spying on Protesters The military-grade Predator B drone was far outside the 100-mile operational zone of Customs and Border Protection” at Vice.

• Read “Kneeling Protest, Once a Flashpoint, Now a Widespread Symbol of Solidarity Four years after Colin Kaepernick was shunned, demonstrators, police and lawmakers embrace the gesture” at Wall Street Journal.

• Read “The George Floyd demonstrations turned into a movement when the protesters began to sing It was as if the spirituals of the Civil Rights waited, just below the surface, to surge forth once more” at Dallas News.

• Read “Black Lives Matter is Winning, and They Don’t Need Advice from the Liberal Establishment” at Due Dissidence.

• Read “Cornel West on US protests: The chickens have come home to roost Activist and scholar talks to Middle East Eye about the Black Lives Matter movement and the roots of neoliberalism that need to be dismantled” at Middle East Eye.

George Floyd:

• Read “George Floyd’s Autopsy and the Structural Gaslighting of America” at Scientific American. “The weaponization of medical language emboldened white supremacy with the authority of the white coat. How will we stop it from happening again?”

Breonna Taylor:

Read “Sen. John Cornyn’s distorted interpretation of ‘systemic racism’ displayed what a lot of Americans don’t get about it. A witness at Tuesday’s Senate Judiciary hearing on policing reform offered a lesson on what it means” at Washington Post.

This Week With the Police:

• Read “Unarmed professionals will now respond to non-criminal police calls in San Francisco to reduce 'police confrontations' at Yahoo.

• Read “Atlanta officer who fatally shot Rayshard Brooks has been terminated” at

• Read “Police Have Long History of Responding to Black Movements by Playing the Victim” at Truthout.

• Read “Defunding the Police Will Actually Make Us Safer Policing in this country evolved from slave patrols. It has never been a neutral institution” at ACLU.

• Read “'I can't breathe,' Oklahoma man tells police before dying. 'I don't care,' officer responds. Newly released video of the 2019 incident shows officers restraining Derrick Scott, 42, who is heard asking repeatedly for his medicine and saying he can’t breathe” at NBC News.

• Read “Why Minneapolis Was the Breaking Point Black men and women are still dying across the country. The power that is American policing has conceded nothing” at The Atlantic.

• Read “They Were the Authority and I Didn’t Argue With Authority” In an era before rape kits, Sue Royston decided to fight for justice even though the police doubted her, the prosecution discouraged her, and those around her dismissed her story” at Pro Publica.

• Read “Seattle Council Bans Police Use of Crowd Control Weapons” at New York Times.'

• Read “Lawsuit: Arizona's Use Of Private Prisons Violates The U.S. Constitution” at KJZZ.

• Read “'Hey Siri, I'm getting pulled over' - iPhone shortcut helps record police interactions An iPhone shortcut that allows users to automatically record their interactions with the police is gaining popularity” at ABC 7.

• Read “Defund The Police? Columbus Police Account For More Than A Third Of City's Budget” WOSU.

This Week In Prison Abolition:

• Read “What Is Prison Abolition? The movement that is trying to think beyond prisons as a tool to solve society’s problems” at The Nation.

• Read “Is Prison Necessary? Ruth Wilson Gilmore Might Change Your Mind” at New York Times.

• Read “What Abolitionists Do” at Jacobin Magazine. “Prison abolitionists aren't naive dreamers. They're organizing for concrete reforms, animated by a radical critique of state violence.”

• Read “The Challenge of Prison Abolition: A Conversation” at History Is A Weapon. A conversation between Angela Y. Davis and Dylan Rodriguez.

Read “Autopsy report says Rayshard Brooks was shot twice in the back, lists manner of death as homicide” at CNN.

• Read “Ex-Atlanta Police officer who killed Rayshard Brooks charged with felony murder” at CNN.

Read “A short history of black women and police violence” at The Conversation.

Read “The Sacrifice Black Children Shouldn’t Have to Make This country prizes Black children’s precocity — insists on it, even, much of the time” at The Cut.

Read “Law Professor On Misdemeanor Offenses And Racism In The Criminal System” at NPR.

Read “Loving Day: 53 years after the Supreme Court overturned laws banning interracial marriage Mildred and Richard Loving took their case to the highest court after they were arrested for living together as an interracial married couple in Virginia” at WFAA.

Read “‘A change is gonna come’: Reimagining public safety” by Jim Wallis for Religion News Service.

Read “In U.S., 87% Approve of Black-White Marriage, vs. 4% in 1958 Ninety-six percent of blacks, 84% of whites approve” at The Guardian.

Read “Starbucks to allow baristas to wear Black Lives Matter attire and accessories after social media backlash” at CNBC.

Read “Transgender Health Protections Reversed By Trump Administration” at NPR.

Read “How some researchers are using data science to fight sex trafficking” at America Magazine.

Read “John Cleese Blasts the BBC After 'Fawlty Towers' Episode Gets Removed for Using the N-word "We were not supporting [these] views, we were making fun of them... If people are too stupid to see that, what can one say?" at Exclaim.

Read “'There Is No Neutral': 'Nice White People' Can Still Be Complicit In A Racist Society” at NPR.

Read “Making people aware of their implicit biases doesn’t usually change minds. But here’s what does work” at PBS News Hour.

Read the history of NYPD Challenge Coins at Research and Destroy.

• Read “Stories about people who have the right to remain silent, but choose not to exercise that right—including police officer Adrian Schoolcraft, who secretly recorded his supervisors telling officers to manipulate crime statistics and make illegal arrests” at This American Life.

Read “Federal Executions Set To Resume After Nearly 2-Decade Hiatus” at NPR.

Read “These companies are giving their employees time off for Juneteenth A growing list of companies have decided to make Juneteenth, which commemorates the ending of slavery in America, a paid company holiday” at 5 News Online.

Read/Listen to “A 'Forgotten History' Of How The U.S. Government Segregated America” at NPR.

Read “University of California divests from fossil fuels, puts $1 billion into clean energy” at Cronkite News.

Read “Study: 70% of Facebook users only read the headline of science stories before commenting” at Science Post.

Your Weekly Coronavirus Roundup:

• Read “#TheArizonaWay doesn’t include a plan to stop spiking COVID cases” at Arizona Mirror.

• Read “CDC warns U.S. may reimplement strict coronavirus measures if cases go up ‘dramatically’” at CNBC.

• Read “‘The direct result of racism’: Covid-19 lays bare how discrimination drives health disparities among Black people” at Stat News.

• Read “Our masked future Wearing a mask all the time affects how we interact with each other. But how?” at Vox.

• Read “After six months of coronavirus, how close are we to defeating it?” at The Guardian.

• Read “Argentina pastor turns church into bar in protest at uneven coronavirus restrictions” at The Guardian.

• Read “Florida fired its coronavirus data scientist. Now she’s publishing the statistics on her own” at Washington Post.

• Read “FDA revokes authorization for hydroxychloroquine” at Market Watch.

• Read “How Independent Music Venues Are Fighting for Their Existence” at Pitchfork.

• Read “Pence Tells Governors to Repeat Misleading Claim on Outbreaks” at Washington Post. In other words: “Pence Tells Governors to Lie Like He Does . . . “

• Read “Fauci said US government held off promoting face masks because it knew shortages were so bad that even doctors couldn't get enough” at Business Insider.

• Read “Partygoers have been packing Arizona bars. Now the state is a coronavirus hot spot” at Los Angeles Times.

• Read “Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey: Arizonans Must Learn To Live With The Coronavirus” at KJZZ.

• Read “Record spike in new coronavirus cases reported in six U.S. states as reopening accelerates” at Reuters.

• Read “Judge Orders Trump Administration To Give Tribes Their COVID-19 Relief Funds The Treasury Department was planning to sit on $679 million in emergency aid that was due to go to tribal governments months ago” at Huff Post.

• Read “'It may save your life': Facing virus surge, more U.S. states mandate masks” at Reuters.

Read “There’s No Going Back to ‘Normal’ Once we accept, and grieve, that our old way of life is gone, we can build a better future” at The Atlantic.

Read “When Donald Trump tried to stage a coup: Was June 1 the turning point? Last week our president tried to send the Army into America's streets. Aides pushed back, but it was a close call” at Salon.

Read “Bolton Says Trump Impeachment Inquiry Missed Other Troubling Actions at New York Times. “Mr. Bolton also adds a striking new allegation by saying that Mr. Trump overtly linked trade negotiations to his own political fortunes by asking President Xi Jinping of China to buy a lot of American agricultural products to help him win farm states in this year’s election. Mr. Trump, he writes, was ‘pleading with Xi to ensure he’d win. He stressed the importance of farmers, and increased Chinese purchases of soybeans and wheat in the electoral outcome.’”

• Read “Trump asked China’s Xi to help him win reelection, according to Bolton book” at Washington Post.

Read “Facebook Removes Trump Ads With Symbol Used By Nazis. Campaign Calls It An 'Emoji' at NPR.

Read “Twitter labels Trump video tweet as manipulated media, continuing its cra

Read “Twitter labels Trump video tweet as manipulated media, continuing its crackdown on misinformation The label marks the fourth time Twitter has added labels to the president’s tweets” at Washington Post.

Read “Democrats also gain from the border wall The militarization of the U.S.-Mexico border was always a bipartisan effort, with symbolism that’s useful to both parties” at High Country News.

Read “History says Trump's low approval rating is unlikely to move” at CNN.

Read “Biden running mate search zeroes in on group that includes at least four black women” at Washington Post.

Read “Poland Accidentally Invades Czech Republic In 'Minor Misunderstanding' at NPR.

Read “For Fans Of: Sonic Boom’s “All Things Being Equal” at Bandcamp.

Read “Understanding Blackness to understand Black art” at The Wire. “Does the diversity of your record collection reflect the diversity of your real social life or approach to the world?”

Read “Lady Antebellum Is Now ‘Lady A.’ But So Is a Blues Singer Who’s Used the Name for 20 Years “This is my life. They’re using the name because of a Black Lives Matter incident that, for them, is just a moment in time,” says the original Lady A, a 61-year-old black singer who’s released multiple records under the name” at Rolling Stone.

Read “David Crosby: ‘Trump Is Far More Dangerous Than Nixon’ “My democracy that I love so much is failing and being abused to death,” Crosby says” at Rolling Stone.

Read “Bob Dylan Has a Lot on His Mind” at DNYUZ.

Read “Trouser Press’ entire ’70s/’80s magazine run now available online for free” at Brooklyn Vegan.

Read “The Prescient Power of ‘Jagged Little Pill’ Maybe Alanis Morissette was angry, but mostly she was lucid” at Tidal.

Read “Lemmy Kilmister Biopic in the Works” at Pitchfork.

Read “2020 Americana Music Award Nominations Reflect Roots Music’s Rich Diversity” at No Depression.

Read “GET TO KNOW… SAMMY BRUE” at DIY Magazine.

Watch “David Bowie blast MTV for not playing enough Black artists in 1983” at Brooklyn Vegan. “It occurred to me, having watched MTV over the last few months, that’s it’s a solid enterprise, really. It’s got a lot going for it. I’m just floored by the fact that there are so few black artists featured on it. Why is that?"

Read “The Roots and Michelle Obama to Host Virtual Music Festival” at Pitchfork.

Read “Rose City Band: Summerlong review – a gorgeous record” at The Guardian.

Read “Bob Dylan Has Given Us One of His Most Timely Albums Ever With ‘Rough and Rowdy Ways’” at Rolling Stone.

Read “Michael Stipe, Chad Smith and other rock stars featured in trailer for 'Creem' magazine documentary” at ABC News Radio.

Read "Neal Casal Music Foundation Launches With Tribute Album to Late Guitarist Steve Earle, Lucinda Williams, and Billy Strings cover Casal’s songs on ‘Highway Butterfly’; a book of the musician’s photos is also on tap” at Rolling Stone.

Read “Live Nation Wants Artists to Take Pay Cuts and Cancelation Burdens for Shows in 2021” at Rolling Stone.

Read “Inside Out makes the profound case that sadness is good” at AV Club.

Read “Inside Out makes the profound case that sadness is good” at AV Club.

Read “Meet Hercules, One of America’s Early Celebrity Chefs Heralded for his food, the enslaved cook headed the first presidential kitchen” at Gastro Obscura.

Read “Phoenix artists fighting racial injustice with public murals Around town, murals are starting to appear supporting a message of equality” at 12 News.

Read “Roll The Windows Down And Take A Drive Down Kayenta-Monument Valley Scenic Road In Arizona” at Only In Your State.

Read “There may be more than 36 intelligent alien civilizations in the Milky Way, scientists say” at CBS News.

Read “Surge Letter To Churches - June 2020” at Surge Network.

The Weekly Town Crier (06/12/20)

All the week’s news that’s fit to cry about (06/12/20)

Read “Bonnie Pointer, Pointer Sisters Singer, Dies at 69” at Spin.

Read “When Christians won’t acknowledge racism, protest becomes church” at Religion News Service.

Read “An open letter to my fellow white Americans” at America Magazine.

Read “Why White Evangelicals Won’t Rise To This Moment” at Colorblind Christians. ““It is probably not possible for evangelical leaders to please at once the enthusiastic Trump supporter and the black lives matter protestor. If the past is prologue, white evangelical elites are likely to try to thread the needle anyway. Crucial to their calculations will be the knowledge that there are far more Trump supporters in their midst than black lives matter activists.”

Read “Unliked Likes: Pastor Chris Hodges, Church of the Highlands, and Twitter's Wrath Some social media "likes" gets Church of the Highlands kicked out of some public schools they were renting, but such cancel culture is the wrong answer” at Christianity Today.

Read “A Person You Flee At Parties; Donald And The Devil” by David Bentley Hart at First Things.

Read the opinion piece “Ignore the optics. Trump’s executive order could jump-start the cause of global religious freedom” at America Magazine.

Read “The Christian Martyrdom Movement Ascends to the White House A former professor of Kayleigh McEnany, Trump’s new press secretary, explores her enduring obsession with religious persecution and death” at New Republic.

Read “Is There a Religious Left? Why progressive activism rooted in faith is so often misconstrued” at The New Yorker.

Read “Tim Keller Asks for Prayers for Pancreatic Cancer The New York pastor and author announced his diagnosis Sunday and begins chemo next week” at Christianity Today.

Read “Justice Too Long Delayed It’s time for the church to make restitution for racial sin” at Christianity Today.

Read "A Soul Check for White Christians In the words of MLK, "There comes a time when silence is betrayal” at Christianity Today.

This week in the president’s Bible-Photo-Fiasco:

• Read “What I’d like to say to President Trump about the Bible I’d tell him a secret I learned from Eugene Peterson” at Christian Century.

• Read “Catholic Archbishop Criticizes Trump's Visit To St. John Paul II Shrine” at NPR.

• Read/Watch “The crackdown before Trump’s photo op What video and other records show about the clearing of protesters outside the White House” at Washington Post.

• Read “More than 1,250 former Justice Dept. workers call for internal watchdog to probe Barr role in clearing demonstrators from Lafayette Square” at Washington Post.

• Read “Breaking News: The top U.S. military official, General Mark Milley, apologized for taking part in President Trump’s walk to a church photo op. “I should not have been there.” at New York Times.

Read “African American Alumni Call on Jerry Falwell Jr. to Step Down Thirty-five faith leaders who went to Liberty University released a letter criticizing the college president's rhetoric, including his recent blackface mask tweet” at Christianity Today.

• Read “Liberty’s Jerry Falwell Jr. apologizes for tweet; director of diversity resigns” at Washington Post.

Read “Raise your signs and voices. Then raise your church's race awareness” at Religion News Service.

• Read “Preaching Against Racism Is Not a Distraction from the Gospel The pulpit gives a record of our witness” at Christianity Today.

• Read “White Pastors: Our Decision to Show Up Matters It takes humility to be an ally. Even if we make mistakes, we need to do it” at Christianity Today.

• Consider “When protest becomes prayer” at America Magazine.

Browse “Anti-Racism For Kids 101: Starting To Talk About Race” at Books For Littles.

Read “There Is a Stench’: Soiled Clothes and No Baths for Migrant Children at a Texas Center” at New York Times.

Read “Native Americans Want to be Included in Race Talks” at Voice Of America.

Read “Drake University grad gets Merriam-Webster Dictionary to update 'racism' definition” at Des Moines Register.

Read “An Empirical Analysis of Racial Diiferences in Police Use of Force” by Roland G. Fryer, Jr. at https://scholar.harvard.edu/.

Learn about the Tulsa Race Massacre (1921) at History.

• Meet “The Last Surviving Witness To The Tulsa Race Riot Of 1921” at NPR’s Codeswitch.

Learn about the Rosewood Massacre (1923) at History.

Read “Hundreds of Thousands Sign Petitions Urging the U.S. Government to Declare KKK a Terrorist Group” at Newsweek.

Read “The Familial Language of Black Grief Black people feel the pain and loss of black life as if it were our very own blood that had been brutalized—because it easily could have been” by Jemar Tisby for The Atlantic.

Read “Ohio State Sen. Steve Huffman, a Republican, has been fired from his position as an emergency room doctor after using racist language to question whether people of color are disproportionately affected by the coronavirus because of poor hygiene” at Cleveland.com.

Read “The White House is preparing a speech on race relations written by Stephen Miller, who crafted the Trump Administration’s immigration plan along the southern border with Mexico” at American Urban Radio Networks.

In the “You mean this didn’t exist before” category, read: “Band-Aid launches bandages for different skin tones.

This week in traitorous, white-supremacist Confederate monuments (and/or Columbus monuments):

• Read “U.S. Marine Corps Orders Confederate Flag Ban Including on Bumper Stickers, Mugs And T-Shirts” at Newsweek.

  Read/watch Tennessee "lawmakers vote down removal of Nathan Bedford Forrest bust” at WSMV.

• Read “Protests Are Bringing Down Confederate Monuments Around The South” at NPR.

• Read “NASCAR’s Bubba Wallace wants Confederate flags banned from races” at Fox 59.

• Read “NASCAR bans Confederate flags from all racetracks” at ESPN.

• Ever wonder “Is There a Racist Monument In Your Town? Check This Map to Find Out The Southern Poverty Law Center has tracked Confederate monuments for years, but the map has taken on a new utility now” at Vice.

• Read “What Are We to Do With Cinematic Monuments to the Confederacy?” at Vulture.

• Read “Protesters Topple Jefferson Davis Statue In Richmond, Va.” at NPR.

• Read “J. D. Greear Urges SBC to Retire Historic Gavel from Slaveholding Preacher” at Christianity Today.

• Read “'Homage To Hate': Pelosi Calls For Confederate Statues Removed From U.S. Capitol” at NPR.

• Read “Black Lives Matter Protesters Topple Slave Trader Statue and Dump It in Harbour The much-hated statue of 17th century slave trader Edward Colston now lies at the bottom of Bristol Harbour” at Vice.

• Read “Congress Heads Toward Clash With Trump Over Removal Of Confederate Symbols” at NPR.

• Read “Cuomo declines to call for removal of Christopher Columbus statue” at The Hill.

• Read “Beheaded Christopher Columbus Statue In Boston Will Be Removed From North End Park” at Boston CBS.

• Read “Tennessee Republicans Rally To Preserve Statue And Holiday For KKK Founder” at Forbes.

This Week in Protest News:

• Read “Why these protests are different There have been uprisings against police brutality and racism before, but this is the country at its exasperation point” at Vox.

• Read “Police abolitionists find fuel in the protests As more people lose faith in the state, organizers offer alternatives” at Chicago Reader.

• Read “DC Mayor has “Black Lives Matters” painted in massive letters on street leading to The White House” at Brooklyn Vegan.

• Read “Kanye West joins Chicago protests after donating $2M to families of Floyd, Taylor & Arbery” at Brooklyn Vegan.

• Read “Phoenix Police Chief Marches With Protesters, Faces Criticism” at KJZZ.

• Read “Show Taper/Defense Attorney Represents George Floyd Protesters Pro Bono Dan Lynch, founder of NYCTaper, has been offering pro bono services to arrested demonstrators” at Rolling Stone.

• Read “Iowa City protest leader jailed after unlawful assembly case” at Associated Press.

• Read “Officers slashed tires on vehicles parked amid Minneapolis protests, unrest” at Star Tribune.

• Read “Mitt Romney Joins Evangelical Racial Justice March in DC” at Christianity Today.

• Read “The New White House Fence Is Getting Covered In Protest Art” at DCist.

• Read "Amherst man pushed by police responds after Trump tweet: 'Black Lives Matter' at Democrat and Chronicle.

• Read “Ohio protester dies two days after exposure to tear gas, pepper spray”

• Read “Understanding the LRAD, the “Sound Cannon” Police Are Using at Protests, and How to Protect Yourself From It” at Pitchfork.

• Read “How The Antifa Fantasy Spread In Small Towns Across The U.S. Rumors of roving bands of Antifa have followed small protests all over the United States. Why are people so ready to believe them?” at Buzzfeed News.

• Read “Rev. Al Sharpton criticizes Trump's response to peaceful protesters” at MSNBC.

• Read “White Signs at Black Protests The jovial, jokey messaging I have witnessed at New York protests illustrates my profound discomfort with how I feel white people are approaching this critical moment” at Vanity Fair.

• Read “All Lives Matter protesters re-enacted George Floyd's death as a Black Lives Matter march went by” at CNN.* *(Editor’s Note from Holiday at the Sea: This has nothing to do with asserting that "All Lives Matter" and everything to do with White Supremacy.)

• Read “The 'Concerned Citizen Who Happens To Be Armed' Is Showing Up At Protests” at NPR.

• Read “Amazon pauses police use of its facial recognition tech for a year” at Reuters.

  Read “Microsoft says it won’t sell facial recognition software to police until there’s a national law ‘grounded in human rights’ at CNBC.

George Floyd:

• Read “Trump says he hopes George Floyd ‘looking down’ and seeing today’s jobs numbers as ‘a great day for him’ at The Independent.

• Read “George Floyd protests: Trump says ‘MAGA loves the black people’ after being accused of stoking racial violence” at The Independent.

• Read “Texas GOP chairwoman faces calls to resign after she pushed a conspiracy theory that George Floyd's death was staged to hurt Trump” at Daily Mail.

• Read “Minneapolis Will Ban Chokeholds After The Killing Of George Floyd” at Buzzfeed News.

• Read “Megachurch pastor Joel Osteen joins Black Lives Matter march with the family of George Floyd” at Charity Institute.

• Read “'Stop the pain': George Floyd's brother testifies on policing reform Philonise Floyd appeared before the House Judiciary Committee' at ABC News.

Breonna Taylor:

• Read “FBI opens an investigation into the death of Breonna Taylor” at ABC News.

• Read “Louisville police release the Breonna Taylor incident report. It's virtually blank” Courier-Journal.

• Read “Rand Paul introduces Justice for Breonna Taylor Act to ban "no-knock" warrants” at Axios.

Read “Racial Injustice has Benefited Me - A Confession” by Phil Vischer (Veggie Tales).

Read “A Look At Housing Inequality And Racism In The U.S.” at Forbes.

Read “Dear Companies: Your BLM Posts Are Cute But We Want To See Policy Change” at Forbes.

Read “Starbucks Won't Let Employees Wear Gear That Supports Black Lives Matter Because It Is Political Or Could Incite Violence” at Buzzfeed News.

Read “The Head Of CrossFit Has Stepped Down After Telling Staff On A Zoom Call, “We're Not Mourning For George Floyd” In a recording obtained by BuzzFeed News, Greg Glassman can also be heard sharing wild conspiracy theories about Floyd and the coronavirus” at Buzzfeed News.

Read “NFL players spoke, and Roger Goodell responded. Now what? Here's what we know” at ESPN.

Read “Rex Chapman: If fewer opportunities come from me speaking out about racism, ‘so be it’” at MSNBC. "I've been in cars with black friends on my way to NBA games before, high school games," says fmr. NBA player Rex Chapman. "Been pulled over, guns are drawn. It's a way different experience than being pulled over in a car full of white people."

Read “The Embarrassment of Democrats Wearing Kente-Cloth Stoles” at The New Yorker.

• Read “A Thoughtful Rumination on Lawmakers' Performative Wearing of Kente Stoles to Unveil the Justice in Policing Act of 2020” at Very Smart Brothas.

Read “For Black Americans, Using Social Media Means Risking PTSD” at Slate.

Read “School’s Food Drive to Help Those Affected By Looting in Minneapolis Turns Into Tsunami of Grocery Bags Deliveries” at Good News Network.

Read “White Supremacists Take on Trappings of Religion” at Christianity Today (originally published in 1986).

Read “Reading James Baldwin can help heal the wounds of racial division” at America Magazine.

Read “5 Questions About Reparations: Answered” at Ben and Jerrys'.

Read “Nike to recognize Juneteenth as an annual paid holiday” at Yahoo.

Read “Air Force general confirmed as first black military service chief in American history” at 5 News Online.

Read “Ella Jones To Become The First Black Female Mayor Of Ferguson” at Elle.

Read “Candace ‘Black Karen’ Owens’ GoFundMe Account Suspended Over George Floyd Comments” at The Root.

Read “Michael Jordan's brand donates $100 million to organizations fighting racism against black people" at CNBC.

Read “Walmart CEO in email condemns racial violence and pledges $100 million to address systematic racism” at Business Insider.

This Week With the Police:

• Read “American police shoot, kill and imprison more people than other developed countries. Here's the data” at CNN.

  • Read “Protests spread over police shootings. Police promised reforms. Every year, they still shoot and kill nearly 1,000 people” at Washington Post.

  • Read “Barr Says There Is No Systemic Racism in Policing The attorney general’s remarks, which mirrored those of other administration officials, came as the president was scheduled to meet with law enforcement officials at the White House” at New York Times.

  • Read “San Francisco may stop hiring cops with records of misconduct” at PBS News Hour. (Emphasis mine).

  • Read “Florida police organization offers to hire 'Buffalo 57,' 'Atlanta 6' cops who were fired, resigned over police misconduct” at ABC7 Chicago.

  • Read “Brevard sheriff ‘embarrassed,’ suspends lieutenant who tried to recruit cops from departments accused of brutality” at Orlando Sentinel.

  • Read “Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Jeff Merkley propose creating a national database of cops with a record of misconduct” at Business Insider.

  • Read “Confessions of a Former Bastard Cop” at Medium. “I acted as a violent agent of capitalism and white supremacy. Under the guise of public safety.”

  • Read “Minneapolis Police Chief Takes on Union, Promises Reform” at New York Times.

• Read/Watch “Minneapolis City Council members intend to defund and dismantle the city's police department” at CNN.

  • Read “Defund the police? Here’s what that really means” at Washington Post.

  • Read “Confessions of a Former Bastard Cop” at Medium.

  • Read as Joe Biden argues for more ineffective incrementalism: “Biden: We must urgently root out systemic racism, from policing to housing to opportunity Federal dollars should not go to departments that violate people’s rights or turn to violence as a first resort, but I don't support defunding police” at USA Today.

  • Consider this Tweet from Johnathan Wilson-Hartgrove: “If you’re uncomfortable w/ calls to “defund the police,” consider that calls for smaller government over the past 40 yrs have meant defunding education, public health & anti-poverty programs.”

• Read “New York passes bill to unveil police disciplinary records” at PBS News Hour.

• Read “Democrats Unveil Police Reform Legislation Amid Protests Nationwide” at NPR.

• Read “Police unions dig in as calls for reform grow” at CNN.

• Read “Jami Resch steps down as Portland police chief, asks African American lieutenant to fill the job” at Oregon Live.

• Read “All 57 members of Buffalo's Emergency Response Team RESIGN in 'disgust' over the suspension and criminal probe of two cops for shoving a peace activist, 75, to the floor during protests” at Daily Mail.

• Read "Former Chief Of Reformed Camden, N.J., Force: Police Need 'Consent Of The People' at NPR.

• Read “This city disbanded its police department 7 years ago. Here's what happened next” at CNN.

• Read “‘Cops’ Canceled By Paramount Network, ‘Live PD’ Return Evaluated By A&E” at Deadline.

• Read “Oakland school board and superintendent back elimination of district police” at San Francisco Chronicle.

Read “America is changing, and so is the media The media has gone through painful periods of change before. But this time is different” at Vox.

Your Weekly Coronavirus Roundup:

• Read “U.S. Hits 2 Million Coronavirus Cases As Many States See A Surge Of Patients” at NPR.

• Browse “Average Daily New Cases per 100,000 people.”

• Read “Arizona's Largest Hospital System Nearing ICU Bed Capacity” at KJZZ.

• Read “Survey: Many Arizonans Still Reluctant To Resume Normal Activity After Coronavirus” at KJZZ.

• Read “Former Arizona health director: State could need new stay-at-home order” at KTAR.

• Read “Covid-free New Zealand: There are now ZERO active Covid-19 cases in the country” at The Spin Off.

• Read “14 states and Puerto Rico hit highest seven-day average of new coronavirus infections” at Washington Post.

• Read as Slate wonders “How Much Should You Be Worried About a COVID-19 Spike From the Protests?”

• Read “Alarm grows as Arizona continues with days of high case increases, deaths and hospitalizations: 28,296 cases, 1,070 known deaths” at AZ Central.

• Read “NYT Poll: Most Epidemiologists Wouldn’t Attend A Concert For A Year Or More” at Stereogum.

• Read “Lollapalooza Canceled Due to COVID-19 The Chicago festival will instead offer a weekend-long livestream” at Consequence of Sound.

• Read “Maricopa County urges masks and individual precautions to slow the increasing spread of COVID-19” at AZ Central.

• Read “U.S. Hits 2 Million Coronavirus Cases As Many States See A Surge Of Patients” at NPR.

• Read “Harvard health expert anticipates 200,000 US coronavirus deaths by September” at The Hill.

Read “Colin Powell announces he'll vote for Biden, saying Trump "lies all the time" at CBS News.

Read “George W. Bush and Mitt Romney won't support Trump in 2020, while some GOP officials consider voting for Biden” at Yahoo.

Read “Trump to restart MAGA rallies this month despite coronavirus The president and his team believe the massive protests in recent weeks will make it harder for critics to single him out” at Politico.

Read “That Trump Tweet? Republicans Prefer Not to See It.” at Yahoo.

Read “Market Meltdown: Dow Dives 1,800 Points On Worries Of 2nd Coronavirus Wave” at NPR.

Read “Is This the Last Stand of the ‘Law and Order’ Republicans? A punitive brand of conservatism embraced by Trump and some GOP hardliners is rapidly falling out of step with public opinion” at Politico.

Read “Justice in Policing Act: What’s included in Democrats’ police reform bill?” at MSNBC.

Read “Sen. Susan Collins Loses Endorsement Of Major Gun Control Group Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund supported the Maine Republican in 2014. This year, they’ve thrown their support behind Democrat Sara Gideon” at Huff Post.

Read “Don Jr. cost taxpayers at least $75,000 with hunting trip to Mongolia to shoot the world's largest sheep” at Daily Mail.

Read “The Case of Reality Winner” at Texas Orator.

Read “Georgia Betrays Its Voters Again” at The New Yorker.

Read “FCC failed to monitor Chinese telecoms for almost 20 years: Senate report” at Ars Technica.

Read “A Closer Look: The CARES Act Sent You a $1,200 Check but Gave Millionaires and Billionaires Far More” at Pro Publica.”

Read “Outsider Tapped in Flynn Case Calls Justice Dept. Reversal a ‘Gross Abuse’ of Power A former federal judge said that the attorney general gave special treatment to a presidential ally, undermining public confidence in the rule of law” at New York Times.

Read “Secretary of State Mike Pompeo Denies Impropriety in Firing State Department Watchdog” at Time.

Read “Zoom closed account of U.S.-based Chinese activist “to comply with local law” at Axios.

Read “Fed Officials Project No Rate Increases Through 2022 Central bank says it will maintain current pace of asset purchases to sustain growth” at Wall Street Journal.

Read “Trump administration proposes toughest asylum rules yet” at Axios. Under new asylum rules, the U.S. will now reject asylum seekers looking for protection from: - terrorists - gangs - 'rouge' government officials It's now effectively near-impossible to receive asylum in the U.S.

Read “As Trump Administration Restricts Legal Immigration, It’s Expanding A Class of Vulnerable Guest Workers. Farmworker and labor advocates say these workers are among the most exploited in the country” at The Appeal.

Read “Tom Morello, Serj Tankian Address Disillusioned Fans Who’ve Just Learned Their Music Is Political at Stereogum. And read my Tweet: “I just don't understand all these people who somehow thought a band called Rage Against The Machine would support their "Conservative" worldview. I would ask: "Who are these people," but unfortunately, they all drive big trucks with blue-stripe license plates in my neighborhood.”

Read “Sex Pistols' John Lydon Reveals He's Now a Full-Time Carer for His Wife with Alzheimer's "For me, the real person is still there. That person I love is still there every minute of every day, and that is my life" at Exclaim!

Read “90% of Independent Music Venues Could Close Due to COVID-19 The National Independent Venue Association is asking Congress for longterm financial assistance” at Consequence of Sound.

Read “The Dalai Lama to Release Album of Teachings and Mantras, Shares First Song “Compassion”: Listen” at Pitchfork.

Browse “This Is How I Feel: A Playlist By Young Black Listeners We asked: Is there one song helping you address your feelings right now?” at NPR.

Read “Third Man Records Unearth Original Stooges Lineup’s Final Concert for Live LP Live at Goose Lake: August 8th, 1970, featuring a full Fun House performance, marks bassist Dave Alexander’s last gig with band” at Rolling Stone.

Read “Watch Flaming Lips Perform “Race for the Prize” in Bubbles on Colbert The entire band and a live audience are all in the same room, and they’re all in individual bubbles” at Pitchfork.

Read “‘We Are Regretful And Embarrassed’: Lady Antebellum Changes Its Name To Lady A” at Pittsburgh CBS.

Read “The Power and Necessity of African American Literature” at Christ and Pop Culture.

Read “The Underground Kitchen That Funded the Civil Rights Movement Georgia Gilmore’s cooking fueled the Montgomery bus boycott” at Gastro Obscura.

Read “Planned Obsolescence: The Products You Buy are Designed to Break” at ACH News.

Read “That Fresh Sea Breeze You Breathe May Be Laced With Microplastic Researchers have discovered that the ocean is burping tiny plastic particles, which then blow onto land—and potentially into your lungs” at Wired.

Read “Coca-Cola and Carlsberg Will Switch to Plant-Based Bottles That Break Down Within a Year” at My Modern Met.

Read “Arizona 'Karen' is slapped in face by woman after screaming at her to 'go back to your own country' in racist rant at gas station” at The Daily Mail.

Read “Live Music Has Returned to Some Metro Phoenix Bars – Here’s What We Know” at Phoenix New Times.

Read “Tempe Mural Memorializes Local Musicians Lost — From Chester Bennington to Doug Hopkins” at Phoenix New Times.

The Weekly Town Crier (05/15/20)

All the week’s news that’s fit to cry about (05/15/20).

Read “Died: Darrin Patrick, Who Used His Fall and Restoration to Help Struggling Pastors” at Christianity Today.

Read “Betty Wright, Iconic R&B Singer, Dead at 66” at Pitchfork.

Read “Little Richard, Founding Father of Rock Who Broke Musical Barriers, Dead at 87” at Rolling Stone.

Read “R.I.P. Andre Harrell, Hip-Hop Mogul and Founder of Uptown Records Dies at 57” at Consequence of Sound.

Read “Jerry Stiller, Comedian With Enduring Appeal, Is Dead at 92” at New York Times.

Read “'Double Rainbow Guy' Paul Vasquez has died” at CNN.

Read “Roy Horn of Siegfried and Roy duo dies of coronavirus” at CNN.

Read “Largest Christian Radio Company Faces Financial Crisis Due to Coronavirus Downturn Salem Media makes cuts as more churches and ministries pull spending during the pandemic” at Christianity Today.

Read “Germany Just Banned Conversion Therapy for Minors” at New Now Next.

Read “Nearly 2000 former DOJ officials call for AG Barr to resign over Flynn case” at ABC News.

Read “White Man Who Wore KKK Hood to Store Won't Face Charges” at The Root.

Read “Ahmaud Arbery died for the indefensible principle of white control” at Religion News Service.

• Read “Ahmaud Arbery and the Trauma of Being a Black Runner” at Christianity Today.

Read/Watch“High school senior, mother say large group of armed people, including off-duty deputy, terrorized them in their home” at WCET.

Read “Trump Believes Giving Black Voters Access to Voting Is Stealing the Election” at The Root.

Read “Breonna Taylor’s Life Mattered The young EMT didn’t need to be a hero. She just needed to be alive” at Rolling Stone.

Read “Senate Votes to Allow FBI to Monitor Browsing History Without a Warrant Federal agencies no longer need probable cause to access your online browsing data” at Consequence of Sound.

Read “The many failures revealed by the Afghanistan Papers US officials have been lying about the war since it started. Why don’t we care?” at Christianity Today.

Weekly Coronavirus Roundup:

• Read “Trump says doing too much coronavirus testing makes the US 'look bad' as he pushes for the country to reopen” at Business Insider.

• Read “White House Rejects C.D.C.’s Coronavirus Reopening Plan” at New York Times.

• Read “Costco’s Mask Requirement Reminds Businesses The Customer Is Not Always Right” at Forbes.

• Read “Americans widely oppose reopening most businesses, despite easing of restrictions in some states, Post-U. Md. poll finds” at Washington Post.

• Read “Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: The Perils of Hollywood’s Reckless Social Media Posts” at Hollywood Reporter.

• Read/watch “Trump administration cuts funding for coronavirus researcher, jeopardizing possible COVID-19 cure” at CBS News.

• Read “CEOs, Farm Bureau President Told To Remove Face Masks Before Meeting With Mike Pence” at Huff Post.

• Read “The U.S. is exporting Covid-19 to Latin America. We should instead be working with our neighbors” at America Magazine.

• Read “Trump won't wear a mask in public because he's afraid he might look ridiculous and it will harm his reelection chances, report says” at Business Insider.

• Read “Unreleased White House report shows coronavirus rates spiking in heartland communities” at NBC News.

• Read "Dr. Anthony Fauci Said Reopening The Country Early Could Lead To Avoidable "Suffering And Death" at Buzzfeed News.

• Read “Coronavirus cases are on the rise in Texas and other states that reopened early, former FDA chief says” at CNBC.

• Read/Watch “Doctors Without Borders dispatches team to the Navajo Nation” at CBS News.

• Read “Cancel The Rent’ at The New Yorker. “If our government can spend trillions of dollars to bail corporations out of a worsening economic situation, then there is no reason why that same gesture cannot be extended to poor and working-class families.“

• Read “Bill Gates on how to fight future pandemics The coronavirus will hasten three big medical breakthroughs. That is just a start” at The Economist.

• Read “COVID-19 and The Mark of the Beast” at The Logos Academic Blog.

• Read “Americans more worried about reopening too quickly than not opening quickly enough, survey says” at USA Today.

• Read “Heavily Armed Protesters Gather Again At Michigan Capitol To Decry Stay-At-Home Order” at NPR.

• Read “Thousands of Americans Have Become Socialists Since March The Democratic Socialists of America have an estimated 10,000 new members—growth that organizers attribute, in part, to the coronavirus pandemic” at The Atlantic.

• Read “Trump Feared Testing Too Many People for Virus Would Spook Stock Markets, Says Report” at Daily Beast.
  

Read “Liberty University Dumps Its Philosophy Department” at The Way of Improvement.

Read “One For The History Books: 14.7% Unemployment, 20.5 Million Jobs Wiped Away” at NPR.

Read “Fight Over Vote-By-Mail Is ‘Spiritual Battle’ For ‘Control of the Free World,’ Says True the Vote Leader” at Right Wing Watch.

Read “Trump says Washington, DC, will never be a state — because of all the Democrats” at New York Post.

Read “Court Allows Emoluments Case Against Trump Over D.C. Hotel To Proceed” at NPR.

Read “After FBI Warrant, Sen. Richard Burr Steps Down As Intelligence Chairman” at News and Guts.

Read “QAnon Is More Important Than You Think: The Prophecies of Q. American conspiracy theories are entering a dangerous new phase” at The Atlantic.

Browse “Deaf People Show How To Swear In Sign Language, And It’s Shamefully Entertaining” at Design Your Trust.

Read “Live Nation Planning to Resume Concerts at “Full Scale” Beginning in 2021 In the short term, the concert promoter will experiment with fan-less or reduced-capacity shows” at Consequence of Sound.

Read “Supreme Launches Daniel Johnston Clothing Line” at Pitchfork.

Read “Brian May taken to hospital after tearing buttock muscles while gardening” at The Guardian.

Read “Nirvana, Siouxsie and the Banshees, David Bowie and Hundreds More Peel Sessions Hit YouTube” at Flood.

Read “Coachella Radius Clause Lawsuit Dismissal Reversed Oregon-based promoter Soul'd Out Productions can now re-file their anti-trust suit in U.S. District Court” at Pitchfork.

Read “Jason Isbell Discusses New Album ‘Reunions’ On ‘CBS This Morning’” at JamBase.

Read “Laurie Anderson and Michael Stipe on Music, Art and New Chapters “You’ve got to fall on your face to sit at the table,” says the erstwhile R.E.M. frontman” at New York Times.

Read “'I found the roots of electronic music in a cupboard!': the tale of India's lost techno pioneers” at The Guardian.

Read “My Cymbals Were Melting”: Bill Kreutzmann Joins Carrie Fisher, Ad-Rock and Nick Offerman in ‘Have A Good Trip’ Which Debuts Today” at Relix.

Read “Listen to Iggy Pop Read a Bedtime Story About His Dog” at Pitchfork.

See “Salvador Dalí’s Illustrations for The Bible (1963)” at Open Culture.

Read “Original Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater Games Getting Re-Released for PS4, XBOX One, and PC” at Consequence of Sound.

Read “An ASU researcher is working on a virus that's harmless to humans, but kills cancer cells” at AZ Central.

Read “Stanford scientists created a sound so loud it instantly boils water” at CNet.

See “Musician who loves danger invents a flame-throwing trombone” at Classic FM.

Read “Arizona Schools Plan For The Possibility Buildings May Not Open This Fall” at KJZZ.

The Weekly Town Crier (03/06/20)

All the week’s news that’s fit to cry about (03/07/20).

Read “Pioneering theoretical physicist Freeman Dyson dies at 96” at PBS News Hour.

Read “R.I.P. James Lipton, Host of Inside the Actors Studio Dead at 93” at Consequence of Sound.

Read “Churchgoers turn their backs on Bloomberg during service” at CNN.

Read “Three Cheers for Socialism Christian Love & Political Practice” by David Bentley Hart at Commonweal Magazine.

Read “5 Reasons Capitalism is not Christian” at Mike Frost.

Read “A church returns land to American Indians “This is decolonized land,” a young woman said. “This is a liberated zone” at Christian Century.

Read “Confederate Flags, Symbols Officially Banned From All Marine Corps Installations at The Root.

Read “Virginia becomes first Southern state to pass an LGBTQ nondiscrimination law Lawmakers approve Virginia Values Act, sending it to Gov. Ralph Northam for his signature into law” at Metro Weekly.

Read “Trump’s Praise for Modi on India’s ‘Incredible’ Religious Freedom Doesn’t Match Our Research The Evangelical Fellowship of India documents 300-plus cases of Christian persecution by Hindu nationalists each year. Muslims have it even worse” at Christianity Today.

Read “How to talk to your kids about race: This video nails it 'The worst conversation adults can have with kids about race is no conversation at all” at Click Orlando.

Read “Tucson mayor, councilwoman: No Confederate flags at rodeo parade” at AZ Central.

Read “Research Ties Historic Black Names to Longer Life In late 1800s and early 1900s, African-American men with distinctively black names lived longer than their peers, new study finds” at Wall Street Journal.

Read/Listen to “'Whiplash' Of LGBTQ Protections And Rights, From Obama To Trump” at NPR.

Read “Someone is using cat stickers to cover racism in Manchester” at The Manc.

Read “Rush Limbaugh is under fire for claiming the coronavirus is a 'common cold' being 'weaponized' to bring down Trump” at Insider.

Read “Corona Beer Is Losing Millions To Coronavirus To be clear, you cannot get Coronavirus from drinking Mexican beer” at Fatherly.

Read “Chris Matthews Retires From MSNBC” at The Hollywood Reporter.

Read “No, You Do Not Need Face Masks To Prevent Coronavirus—They Might Increase Your Infection Risk” at Forbes.

• Read “Born-again Christians immune from Coronavirus says NZ pastor” at Free Thinker.

• Read “Nigerian prophet to embark on journey to China to battle coronavirus” at Legit.

• Read “Bill and Melinda Gates Pledge $100 Million to Coronavirus Response” at Global Citizen.

• Read “America's patchwork, for-profit healthcare system poised to worsen coronavirus outbreak Those with poor insurance have a financial disincentive to seek medical help — which will only worsen the crisis” at Salon.

Read “Bloom: A Touching Animated Short Film about Depression and What It Takes to Recover the Light of Being” at Brain Pickings.

Read “Australian Associated Press: News agency to close after 85 years” at BBC.

Read “Black Engineer Invents Gloves That Turn Sign Language into Audible Speech” at Black Business.

Read “Fox News Analyst Brit Hume Got A Hilarious Lesson On Why You Should Close Your Tabs When Taking A Screenshot Of Your Internet Browser” at Comic Sands.

Read “Should Economy Air Travelers Have The Right To Sit Next To Their Kids?” at WBUR.

Read “Apple to Pay Upwards of $500 Million for Intentionally Slowing Old iPhones Apple might owe you $25” at Consequence of Sound.

Read “School policy forbids kids from saying 'no' when asked to dance One mom is fighting back on behalf of her 11-year-old daughter” at Today.

Read “Pro-Life Democrats Remind Candidates They Exist Ahead of the South Carolina primary, religious voters’ push for a “diversity of opinions” on abortion gets little reception from presidential hopefuls” at Christianity Today.

Read “Sanders can’t lead the Democrats if his campaign treats them like the enemy What Bernie needs to learn from Biden” at Vox.

Consider Jello Biafra’s 2020 Presidential Endorsement(s).

• Read “Neutral Milk Hotel’s Jeff Mangum Endorses Bernie Sanders in Rare Public Statement” at Pitchfork.

• Read “Kim Gordon’s New Bernie Sanders Ad Is an Absurd Recipe Video “What’s Cooking America?” encourages voters in Super Tuesday states to vote for Sanders” at Pitchfork.

• Read “Cedric Bixler-Zavala Denounces Former Bandmate Beto O’Rourke for Endorsing Joe Biden Former The Mars Volta and Foss member instead announced his support for Bernie Sanders” at Consequence of Sound.

Read “Pete Buttigieg To Suspend Presidential Campaign” at NPR.

• Read “Klobuchar is ending her presidential bid, will endorse Biden” at PBS News Hour.

• Read “Elizabeth Warren, Once a Front-Runner, Drops Out of Presidential Race” at New York Times.

• Read/Listen/Consider “Are Women Candidates Held To A Different Standard Than Men?” at WBUR.

Read “Rep. John Lewis: “We Must…Vote Like We Never, Ever Voted Before” at News and Guts.

Read “Trump suggests his supporters vote in another Democratic primary, this time in South Carolina” at CNN.

Read “Arizona House passes bill that would allow police at polling stations” at KTAR. Welcome to the Police State you never wanted.

Read “How Voters Psych Themselves Out and Choose the Wrong Candidate” at Psych Central.

Read “Texas Has Closed Hundreds of Polling Stations—Most of Them in Places Where Black and Latinx Populations Are Growing” at The Root.

Read “How Going To A Dead & Company Concert With A Stranger Helped Me Heal After Losing My Son “I hate crowds and loud rock music, but I was being offered a gift: the chance to learn more about my son all these years after he was taken from me” at Huff Post.

Wonder “Why So Many Medieval Manuscripts Depict Violent Rabbits?” at Sad and Useless.

Read “Public Enemy Part Ways With Flavor Flav Flavor Flav recently issued a cease and desist over Public Enemy performing at a Bernie Sanders rally in Los Angeles” at Pitchfork.

• Read “Public Enemy “did not part ways w/ Flavor Flav over his political views,” they say” at Brooklyn Vegan.

Read “Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land” Remains Private Property, Court Rules” at Pitchfork.

Read “Going Deep With Damien Jurado” at Aquarium Drunkard.

Read “Thom Yorke Announces Rare Solo Acoustic Performance Massive Attack invited him to open at All Points East” at Pitchfork.

Read “Skate or die! How skate-punk took over the world” at Louder Sound.

Read “Elkhorn” by Scott Elingburg at Analogue.

Read “Garcia Peoples and live taping in New York” at Wired.

Read/Listen to “Zia Records Turns 40: How The Phoenix Record Store Has Survived Revolutionary Music Industry Changes” at KJZZ.

Read “A Radical Act: Canadian Musicians in Conversation About Being Sober in an Industry Built on Booze” at Exclaim.

Watch “Bob Weir And Wolf Bros: Tiny Desk Concert” at NPR.

Read “The Archive Of Contemporary Music — And Its 3 Million Recordings — Is Leaving NY” at NPR.

Read “Genesis Set to Reunite For Arena Tour: Report Phil Collins, Tony Banks, and Mike Rutherford are getting back together for the first time in 13 years” at Consequence of Sound.

Mine the rich depths of “sweetblahg 2019 year in review”.

Read “It's hopeful and generous': Thurston Moore's experimental record shop” at The Guardian.

Read “MELVINS' BUZZ OSBORNE: 10 ALBUMS THAT MADE ME From David Bowie to Redd Kross, sludge-grunge stalwart shares stories behind records that shaped his life” at Revolver.

Read “Genesis Reunite for Tour The classic '80s lineup gets back together for several UK dates” at Pitchfork.

Read “Schitt’s Creek Cast to Take Final Bow with Farewell Tour The beloved series is currently in its sixth and final season” at Consequence of Sound.

Read “Garth Brooks elicits wrath of Trump supporters after wearing Barry Sanders jersey Unfortunately for Brooks, Barry Sanders shares a last name with Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders” at Consequence of Sound.

Read “Hillary Clinton to start a podcast” at CNN.

Read “Post Malone Says He Gets Face Tattoos Because He’s Insecure About His Looks "I'm a ugly-ass motherf*cker," the rapper admitted” at Consequence of Sound.

Read “I Read My Way Out: My Year Of Reading Copiously and Therapeutically.”

See “Smithsonian Places 2.8 Million Historic Images Into the Public Domain” at My Modern.net.

Read “The most massive explosion since the Big Bang was just spotted in deep space” at BGR.

Read “The Exiled Prince Behind Los Angeles’s Only Fresh-Pasta Food Truck Bend the macaro-knee” at Gastro Obscura.

Read “Sorry, Texas and New Mexico. Arizona loves Mexican food the most, website says” at AZ Central.

Read “Brits, Beers, and Blokes: An Oral History of George & Dragon English Pub” at Phoenix New Times.

Read/Listen to “'Not One Drop Of Blood': Cattle Mysteriously Mutilated In Oregon” at NPR.

The Weekly Town Crier (02/28/20)

All the week’s news that’s fit to cry about (02/28/20).

Read “Monkees Singer and Bassist Peter Tork Dead at 77” at Rolling Stone.

Read “Katherine Johnson, one of NASA's 'Hidden Figures,' dies at 101” at 12 News.

Read “Mazzy Star’s David Roback Dead at 61 The producer and instrumentalist also co-founded the bands Rain Parade and Opal” at Pitchfork.

Read “Clive Cussler, million-selling adventure writer, dies at 88 Clive Cussler was an adventure writer and real-life thrill-seeker” at 12 News.

Read “This Political Moment: A Way Forward in a Divided Age. Conflict is opportunity, my friend says optimistically.”

Read “SEC Charges Son of John MacArthur & Grace to You Board Member with Fraud” at Julie Roys.

Read “Internal report finds that L’Arche founder Jean Vanier engaged in decades of sexual misconduct” at America Magazine.

Read “Why Christ wouldn't aspire to ‘Christic Manhood’” at Religion News Service.

Read “Misogyny in Baptist Higher Education” at Baptist Voices.

Read “I Really Want to Skip Church” at Mockingbird. "As much as I’d love to tell people: 'Church should be your excuse for missing everything else,' I’m acutely aware of two things: (1) Church might be the reason you are missing love, grace, and mercy in your life; and (2) Church might be a lot more work than you can handle at the moment."

Read “Must Pro-Life Mean Pro-Trump? We have placed too much faith in the political calculus and not enough faith in God’s power” at Christianity Today.

Read “The “Music from Saharan WhatsApp” Series is an Experiment in Immediacy” at Bandcamp and browse my own posts about “Music from Saharan WhatsApp.”

Read “Conservative columnist and political commentator David Brooks awarded Calvin University’s Kuyper Prize” at MLive.

Read “Pope Francis: Give Up Trolling For Lent” at Sojourners.

Read “25 Black Theologians Who Have Grown Our Faith Scholars and authors reflect on the significance of African American leaders in the church” at Christianity Today.

Read “Dialoguing Across Difference: Abortion & Big Tent Theology” at Red Letter Christians.

Read “How Stephen Miller Manipulates Donald Trump To Further His Immigration Obsession. Donald Trump’s senior adviser has been the true driving force behind this Administration’s racist agenda. How far will he go?”

Read “Women and Girls Contribute Trillions of Dollars in Unpaid Labor Every Year The world’s 22 richest men have more wealth than all of the women in Africa” at Global Citizen.

Read “Howard Thurman’s contemplative nonviolence The pastor and mentor to Martin Luther King formed a vision of resistance around prayer, not politics” at Christian Century.

Read “White Supremacist Group Arrested for Murder Plot, Found to Have More Targets in Mind Than Previously Known” at The Root.

Read “Survivors of Japanese Internment Speak Out Against Immigrant Detention” at Our Prism.

Read “Harvey Weinstein Taken to Hospital for Chest Pains Hours after being found guilty of rape” at Consequence of Sound.

Read “America's Mental Health Crisis Hidden Behind Bars” at NPR.

Read “Religion may be good for your health! People of faith are less likely to fall or feel ill compared to non-believers, official stats reveal” at Daily Mail.

Read “New Zealand Has Lifted 18,400 Children out of Poverty: Report” at Global Citizen.

Read “9th Circuit Denies Request To Vacate Arpaio Guilty Verdict” at KJZZ.

Read “The Last Slave Ship Survivor Gave an Interview in the 1930s. It Just Surfaced” at History.

Read “Colonialism’s Cages: When Indigenous People Were Placed In Human Zoos” at All That’s Interesting.

Read “What is döstädning, or Swedish Death Cleaning, and why is it causing such a decluttering buzz?” at Yahoo News.

Read “It’s Time to Let the Five Stages of Grief Die The five stages of grief are ingrained in our cultural consciousness as the natural progression of emotions one experiences after the death of a loved one. However, it turns out that this model is not science-based, does not well describe most people's experiences, and was never even meant to apply to the bereaved” at McGill.

Read “Supreme Court Pipeline Fight Could Disrupt How The Appalachian Trail Is Run” at NPR.

• Read “The Forest Service says the Appalachian Trail isn’t “land” in a pipeline fight at SCOTUS” at Quartz.

Read “Inspired by Little Free Libraries, a free pantry helps feed hungry neighbors in St. Paul” at Star Tribune.

Read “How To Give Advice: Less Fixing, More Listening” at NPR.

Read “Steve Jobs' signature is the star of retro Apple gear collection at auction An original 1983 Apple Macintosh is going for $25,000” at CNet.

Read “Korn’s Brian “Head” Welch Opens Wellness Spas Inspired by the Rigors of Touring” at Consequence of Sound.

Read “Italy Just Became the First Country to Require Schools to Teach Climate Change” at Global Citizen.

Browse “The Worst Things Michael Bloomberg Has Said About Women” at The Cut.

Read “Nevada Democratic Party asks caucus volunteers to sign confidentiality agreements” at CNN.

Read “Buttigieg Warns Against Sanders As The Democratic Nominee” at NPR.

Read “Admiral William McRaven: We Should Be Frightened, Deeply Afraid” at News and Guts. “When good men and women can’t speak the truth, when facts are inconvenient, when integrity and character no longer matter, when presidential ego and self-preservation are more important than national security — then there is nothing left to stop the triumph of evil.”

Read “Pompeo appeared to coordinate with Giuliani on Ukraine, new documents show” at Yahoo News.

Read “With An Election On The Horizon, Older Adults Get Help Spotting Fake News” at NPR.

Read “The Trump Era Proves That Women’s Studies Matters” at Ms. Magazine.

Read “'It's About Time': House Approves Historic Bill Making Lynching A Federal Crime” at NPR.

Read “Why Millennials Refuse to Let Go of Physical Media The last generation to know life before the internet hasn't fully switched over to streaming” at Inside Hook.

Read “Public Enemy Will Perform at Bernie Sanders’ Los Angeles Rally” at Paste.

Read “And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out Turns 20” at Stereogum.

Read “Robbie Robertson (The Band) Talks with M.C. Taylor (Hiss Golden Messenger) on the Talkhouse Podcast They talk road-dogging with Dylan, scoring for Scorsese, and creating the seminal Music from Big Pink” at Talk House.

Read “Jerry Lee Lewis Returns to Music: ‘I Thought I Would Never Play Again’ After a stroke last year robbed him of use of his right hand, the Rock and Roll legend thought his piano-playing days were over. Now, at 84, he just recorded a new album” at Rolling Stone.

Read “For the Record(s): There's No Shame in Owning a Crosley” at Phoenix New Times.

Read “Rebecca Foon Gets Honest and Raw with the Gorgeous 'Waxing Moon' at PopMatters.

Read “Mavis Staples Reflects on the Stax Years: Watch New Episode of 'Memphis Masters' at Billboard.

Read “Don Letts: ‘Punk was a refuge from racism’” at The Guardian.

Watch ‘Wetlands Preserved: The Story of an Activist Nightclub’ with Bob Weir, Phish, The Roots and More” at Relix.

Read “Yeasayer Suing Kendrick Lamar and the Weeknd Over Black Panther Song A new lawsuit alleges that “Pray For Me” infringes on the band’s 2007 song “Sunrise” at Pitchfork.

Read “The “Music from Saharan WhatsApp” Series is an Experiment in Immediacy” at Bandcamp and browse my own posts about “Music From Saharan WhatsApp.”

Read “Neil Young wants to tour historic venues but is struggling to find many still in operation He thinks that new arenas feel “soulless" at NME.

Read “One of Rock’s Most Doomed Romances Started on the Floor of Portland’s Scuzziest Punk Club No one at Satyricon who saw the two tangled bodies grappling in front of the jukebox could’ve known what they were witnessing” at Williamette Week.

Read “'It sounded like the future': behind Miles Davis's greatest album On the 50th anniversary of Bitches Brew, one of the contributing musicians and the director of a new documentary share their thoughts on the record” at The Guardian.

Read “New Order and Pet Shop Boys Announce Co-Headlining Tour The new wave legends will play 11 shows together this fall” at Consequence of Sound.

Read “City Of Liverpool To Open Memorial Garden In Honor Of George Harrison” at Live For Live Music.

Read “This black female musician you may not know has written songs you probably do’ at Good Morning America.

Read “RZA Shares New EP of Guided Meditation Songs” at Pitchfork.

Read “Revisiting Talk Talk, A Band Worried About Being A 'Laughing Stock'" at NPR.

Read “'She exists out of time': Umm Kulthum, Arab music's eternal star” at The Guardian.

Read “Heavy Rain: The Exodus of Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry” at Please Kill Me.

Watch “More Than 400 Classic Korean Films Free Online Thanks to the Korean Film Archive” at Open Culture.

Read “Sinclair stations are airing a dramatic special fearmongering about socialism, and it’s hosted by former Trump aide Sebastian Gorka” at Media Matters.

Read “The One Where the Friends Reunion Is Officially Happening on HBO Max” at Vulture.

Read “'Just Mercy' Wins Big At NAACP Image Awards” at BET.

Read “Daredevil 'Mad' Mike Hughes Killed In Crash Of Homemade Rocket” at NPR.

Read “Greg Kinnear to Make Broadway Debut as Atticus Finch in 'To Kill a Mockingbird'" at Hollywood Reporter.

Read “We’re gonna do economic activity—without money!”: Inside the criminal glamour of the San Francisco Diggers with Kent Minault” at Diggers Docs.

Read “Turkish Trash Collectors Built a Library of Discarded Books” at Global Citizen.

See “Thousands of life jackets worn by refugees attached to pillars at Minneapolis Institute of Art” at Twin Cities Pioneer Press.

Read “Surrealism Was a Decidedly Feminine Movement. So Why Have So Many of Its Great Women Artists Been Forgotten?” at Art Net.

Read “Scientists Found a Plastic Grocery Bag in the Ocean's Deepest Trench The bag was spotted in the Mariana Trench at a depth of 36,000 feet” at Global Citizen.

Read “An Iceberg Triple The Size Of San Francisco Breaks Off Antarctica's Most Endangered Glacier” at WBUR.

Read “Survival Of The Friendliest: How Our Close Friendships Help Us Thrive” at NPR.

Read “A New Theory On Time Indicates Present And Future Exist Simultaneously” at Science Philes.

Read “This 8-Year-Old Mexican Girl Won a Prize for Making a Solar Heater From Recycled Objects” at Global Citizen.

Read “You Cannot Heal Your Way Out of Being Human And you were never meant to” at Human Parts.

Read “A woman took 550 times the usual dose of LSD, with surprisingly positive consequences” at CNN.

Read “The Planet Is Doomed Unless We Stop Eating So Much Meat, UN Warns” at Global Citizen.

Read “Supermarkets in Thailand Are Replacing Plastic Packaging With Banana Leaves” at Global Citizen.

Read “C.S. Lewis’s Greatest Fiction Was Convincing American Kids That They Would Like Turkish Delight What would the perfect fantasy treat look like? Depending on where you’re from, probably not this” at Atlas Obscura.

Read “The Creepy Small Town In Arizona With Insane Paranormal Activity” at Only In Your State.

Read “Arizona Leads The Nation In Auto Glass Insurance Claims” at KJZZ.

Read “The 25 Best Places To Eat & Drink In Phoenix” at The Infatuation.

Read “Students walk out of Centennial High School after former principal resigns” at 12 News.

The Weekly Town Crier (02/14/20)

All the week’s news that’s fit to cry about (02/14/20).

Read “Wes Wilson, Psychedelic Poster Pioneer, Dies at 82 His work announced concerts by the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane and more — to those who could read them.” at New York Times.

Read/Listen to “Robert Conrad, star of TV's 'The Wild, Wild West,' dies at 84” at 12 News.

Read “Joseph Shabalala, Ladysmith Black Mambazo founder, dies aged 78” at The Guardian.

Read “Lyle Mays, Evocative Pianist Who Helped Define The Pat Metheny Group, Is Dead at 66” at WBGO.

Read “Acts 29 CEO Removed Amid 'Accusations of Abusive Leadership' Steve Timmis was acclaimed for his model of close church community. But former members claim that inside The Crowded House, he resorted to bullying and control” Christianity Today.

Read “Christian activist to sue NFL because Shakira and J-Lo performances endangered his eternal soul” at Raw Story.

Read “Can Christianity be a counterforce to finance capitalism? “Religious vocation sits very uneasily with individual self-advancement.” at Christian Century.

Read “After a Backlash, Nashville’s Belmont University Says It Will Let Non-Christian Art Professors Teach After All Watkins College of Art, which is being absorbed, was originally told that Belmont had a firm no non-Christians policy” at Artnet.

Read “A German Jew Vows To Fight On To Remove Anti-Semitic Sculpture After Court Defeat” at NPR.

Read “John Ortberg Investigated After Church Volunteer Confessed Attraction to Minors Menlo Church said the senior pastor showed “poor judgment” in allowing the member to work with children and failing to notify other staff” at Christianity Today.

Read/Listen to “Brené Brown Strong Back, Soft Front, Wild Heart” at On Being.

Read “Despite Stigma, More Divorced Evangelicals Are Going to Church Their attendance outpaces other traditions, but still lags far behind married evangelicals” at Christianity Today.

Read “Breaking Out of the White Evangelical Echo Chamber Putting faithful witness ahead of political expediency starts with changing surroundings, words, and friendships” at Christianity Today.

Read “Ron Carpenter was promised $6.25M retirement payout in transition plan with John Gray, court docs say” at Christian Post.

Read World Magazine’s opinion piece “The gospel according to Pete Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg speaks often of his religion—but he tailors it to fit his politics, and it focuses on works over faith.”

Read “Billie Eilish Can Help Us Understand Teenage Anxiety The Grammy-award winning teen’s dark music can help us have necessary conversations with our children” at Christianity Today.

Read “Pope Francis Won't Allow Married Men As Priests, Women As Deacons” at NPR.

Read “Time To Delete Your Church’s Facebook Page?” “"Seventy percent of U.S. adults use Facebook, so the platform has effectively made itself the public square. Facebook is that worst possible spawn of the capitalist system—an unregulated monopoly” at Sojourners.

Read “Are Nationalism and Populism the Cure for What Ails the West? The “strong gods” of old are knocking at the door. We ought to be wary of letting them inside” at Christianity Today.

Read “Barbie debuts Rosa Parks doll as part of series honoring iconic women” at AL.com.

Read “Police Offering Drug Recovery Help: 'We Can't Arrest Our Way Out Of This Problem'“ at NPR.

Read “Masked white nationalists march in Washington with police escort” Yahoo News.

Read “Trump ‘Is Not a Racist’ Because the ‘People Who Wash Dishes’ at Mar-a-Lago ‘Love Him,’ Says Ben Carson “The people who drive the cars and park the cars at Mar-a-Lago, they love him, because he’s kind and compassionate,” the housing secretary said” at Rolling Stone.

Read “In The 1920s, 1 In 3 Eligible Men In Dallas Were KKK Members” at WBUR.

Read “Virginia lawmakers approve Confederate statue removal bills” at PBS News Hour.

Read “Many Mississippi prisoners kept locked up past release dates due to housing shortage” at Mississippi Today.

Read “Pakistan Court Rules That Men Can Marry Underage Girls After They've Had Their First Period The ruling comes in direct violation of the Child Marriage Restraint Act” at Global Citizen.

Read “Are Gun Owners Happier And Do They Sleep Better? UA Study Says No” at KJZZ.

Read “After Flint Water Crisis, Number Of Students With Special Education Needs Spikes” at WBUR.

Read/Listen to “World's 1st 3D Printed Neighborhood Being Built In Mexico” at WBUR.

Read “QAnon’ conspiracy theory creeps into mainstream politics” at PBS News Hour.

Read “Navy Pilot Who Filmed the ‘Tic Tac’ UFO Speaks: ‘It Wasn’t Behaving by the Normal Laws of Physics’” at The Intelligencer.

Read “The Age of Decadence Cut the drama. The real story of the West in the 21st century is one of stalemate and stagnation.” at New York Times.

Read “"You wouldn't think you'd go to jail over medical bills": County in rural Kansas is jailing people over unpaid medical debt” at CBS News.

Read “Trump says Coronavirus will be gone by April when the weather gets warmer, doesn't offer scientific explanation” at AZ Central.

Read “Nearly 1 in 3 American workers run out of money before payday—even those earning over $100,000” at CNBC.

Read “Not welcome: Gay students, parents are denied service in Florida’s publicly funded voucher schools” at Orlando Sentinel.

Read “President Trump Is Trying to Eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts—Again—in His Just-Released 2021 Budget Proposal” at Artnet.

Read “Trump administration moves ahead on shrinking Utah monuments” at PBS News Hour.

Read “Trump Charges Secret Service up to $650 a Night for a Room in His Properties Add this to the long list of the president’s grifts” at Rolling Stone.

Read “'Not Guilty': Trump Acquitted On 2 Articles Of Impeachment As Historic Trial Closes” at NPR.

• Read “Trump fires key impeachment witnesses Sondland, Lt. Col. Vindman in purge The officials provided critical testimony during the House inquiry into the president's conduct with Ukraine” at NBC News.

Read “Mike Bloomberg Is Paying ‘Influencers’ to Make Him Seem Cool” at Daily Beast.

Read “Pelosi Delivers Another Resistance Meme, and Nothing Else The House Speaker theatrically ripped up a speech that she gave Trump a platform to deliver” at Rolling Stone.

Read “Trump’s New Budget Goes After Social Safety Net Programs The budget calls for cuts to Medicaid and food stamps while asking tax-payers to pay billions for the president’s wall” at Rolling Stone.

Read “Tech Entrepreneur Andrew Yang Drops Out Of 2020 Presidential Race” at NPR.

Read “Barr takes control of legal matters of interest to Trump, including Stone sentencing Attorney General William Barr's intervention in Roger Stone's case wasn't the first time senior political appointees reached into a case involving an ex-Trump aide, officials say” at NBC News.

• Read “William Barr Supported Pardons In An Earlier D.C. 'Witch Hunt': Iran-Contra” at NPR.

Read “Senate GOP blocks three election security bills” at The Hill.

Read “The Great Affordability Crisis Breaking America In one of the best decades the American economy has ever recorded, families were bled dry” at The Atlantic.

Read/Listen to “The Day America Went Dry: Looking Back At Prohibition 100 Years Later” at WBUR.

Read “Good Looks Alone Do Not Make You Attractive: There’s Much More To It…We live in a world where many like to think that attractiveness is all about having good looks and a cool taste for fashion” at I Heart Intelligence.

Read “Who decides what words mean Bound by rules, yet constantly changing, language might be the ultimate self-regulating system, with nobody in charge” at Aeon.

Read/Listen to “Antarctica just hit 64.9 degrees - its highest temperature ever recorded” at WHAS11.

Read “Bill & Melinda Gates Add Climate Change and Gender Equality to Foundation's Priorities” at Global Citizen.

Read “Native burial sites blown up for US border wall” at BBC.

Read/Listen to “Capturing The Undersung Blues People Of The Rural South” at NPR.

Read “10 Songs by The Clash That Made Films Better Wes Anderson, Martin Scorsese, and Judd Apatow are all fans” at Consequence of Sound.

Read “Devastating” Manufacturing Plant Fire Threatens Worldwide Vinyl Record Supply Third Man Records’ Ben Blackwell says the destruction of Apollo Masters’ California facility “will present a problem for the vinyl industry worldwide” at Pitchfork.

Read “Fan designs impressive Tool LEGO set that has a chance to be manufactured” at Consequence of Sound.

Read/Watch/Listen to “Family Of Bob Marley Releases New Animated Video For “Redemption Song” at Live For Live Music.

Read “Sufjan Stevens Announces New Album With His Stepfather Lowell, Shares Song” at Pitchfork.

Read/Listen to “For Bob Marley's 75th Birthday, Ziggy Marley Reflects On His Father's Legacy” at NPR.

Read “Blind Faith: The Meteoric Rise & Rapid Fall Of Clapton, Baker, Winwood, And Grech’s 1969 Supergroup” at Live For Live Music.

Read/Listen to “Fascination, Friendship And Desire: Kathleen Hanna On The Reign Of 'Rebel Girl' at NPR’s American Anthem series.

Watch “A Brief History of Dad Rock” by Pitchfork.

Read “Putting their necks on the line one gig at a time” at the Sydney Morning Herald.

Browse “5 Movie Soundtracks That Rescued Great Musicians From Obscurity” at Pitchfork.

Read “Take one: lost Dave Brubeck tapes reveal jazz hit originally sounded like ‘a bad student band’ at The Guardian.

Read “Nina Simone’s rare 1982 album, Fodder On My Wings, to be reissued Until now, the album's commercial availability has been sporadic at best” at Consequence of Sound.

Read “Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan's Voice Offers A Sonic Refuge” at NPR. “Last year, a live recording of a performance from late Pakistani vocal master Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan was released from the archives after 35 years. The album, 'Live at WOMAD 1985,' captures Khan at his vocal prime and at his most traditional, performing in the South Asian musical style of qawwali.”

See “John Frusciante Perform With Red Hot Chili Peppers Members for First Time Since Reunion” at Rolling Stone.

Read “Yo La Tengo on the Pros and Cons of Being a Self-Managed Band” at Spotify.

Read “Pussy Riot Say Russian Police Shut Down Video Shoot, Citing “Gay Propaganda” The “БЕСИТ / RAGE” shoot was thwarted at a cost of $15,000, the group says” at Pitchfork.

Read “Kamasi Washington releasing new concert film from Apollo Theater” at Rolling Stone.

Read “Bauhaus, Morrissey, Blondie, Devo, Bunnymen, P-Furs & lots more playing LA’s Cruel World fest at Brooklyn Vegan.

Read “Heavy Metal, Year One: The Inside Story of Black Sabbath’s Groundbreaking Debut Half a century since Ozzy Osbourne first bellowed, “What is this that stands before me?” the band and their collaborators look back on the album that kick-started a worldwide movement” at Rolling Stone.

Read “RPM Records: Sustainable Vinyl Pressing In Europe!” at Discogs.

Read “Neil Young, Willie Nelson, Stephen Stills and More Will Perform at ‘Light Up The Blues’ Autism Benefit” at Jambands.

Read “Carol Kaye: The Boss of the Bass Guitar” at Please Kill Me.

Read “Bassist Admits to Burning Churches to “Raise His Profile as a Black Metal Musician” Holden Matthews will be sentenced to at least 10 years in prison on May 22nd” at Consequence of Sound.

Read “A Code Switch Playlist For Black History Month” at NPR.

Read “Remembering Richard Flower, an unsung player in the Gin Blossoms' origin story” at AZ Central.

Read ‘The Whole System Collapsed’: Inside the Music Industry’s Ongoing Distribution Crisis ‘It’s amazing how a company most have never heard of can bring the U.S. music industry to its knees,’ said one label exec struggling to get his artists’ records into stores” at Rolling Stone.

Read “Universal Confirms Nirvana, Beck, Sonic Youth, Elton John Masters Damaged in Warehouse Fire Works by Soundgarden, R.E.M., Jimmy Eat World, and others were also lost in the 2008 blaze” at Pitchfork.

Browse “8 Pitchfork Staffers on Their Favorite Music Moments in Recent Movies” at Pitchfork.

Read “Netflix reveals the 9 shows and movies it's pulled at the request of the world's governments” at News.AV Club.

Read “Be Kind. Please Rewind: An Ode to the VCR” at Pop Matters.

Read “The Rise Of The Single-Shot Movie In A Hyper-Edited World” at NPR. “Once editing was invented, one-shot movies seemed primitive. But in the past 20 years, the number of one-shot feature films rose 500%.”

“Let's unpack this whimsical, detailed poster for Wes Anderson's The French Dispatch” at AV Club.

Read “Disney Didn’t Just Buy ‘Hamilton’ for $75 Million; It Bought a Potential Franchise Disney wants to bring the Lin-Manuel Miranda brand under the same corporate umbrella as Marvel and "Star Wars." at Indie Wire.

Read “Keith Richards quits smoking The Rolling Stones guitarist admitted that kicking heroin was easier than stopping smoking” at Consequence of Sound.

Read “Famous Authors Are Writing Books for a Time Capsule Library None of Us Will Ever See” at Bookish Buzz.

Read “Finally, Van Gogh Gets His Own Action Figure, And Yes, You Can Detach His Ear” at Demilked.

Read “President Trump Wants to Make ‘Federal Buildings Beautiful Again’ With a New Executive Order That Echoes Fascist History” at Artnet.

Read “Thorncrown Chapel This futuristically sylvan church is a glass-enclosed marvel of modern architecture” at Atlas Obscura.

See “Someone In Bulgaria Is Putting Googly Eyes On Broken Street Objects, And It’s Even Better Than Fixing Things” at Bored Panda.

Read “A Small Pennsylvania Museum Just Discovered It Has Owned a Rembrandt for 70 Years Without Knowing It” at Artnet.

Read “Foucault Pendulum at the Franklin Institute A daily replay of the experiment that proved the rotation of the Earth” at Atlas Obscura. “The four-story Foucault pendulum at the Franklin Institute has now been swinging for more than 80 years.”

Read “The name you’re given as a child might affect the shape of your face” at Quartz.

Read/hear “The Trump Administration Is 'Silencing Science,' Environmental Law Expert Says” at WBUR.

Read “For Kid's Coughs, Swap The Over-The-Counter Syrups For Honey” at NPR.

Read “Researchers Link Autism To A System That Insulates Brain Wiring” at NPR.

Read “'Ghost' DNA In West Africans Complicates Story Of Human Origins” at NPR.

Read “Mad Honey This hallucinogenic honey can sell for over $60 a pound on the black market. This pollinated honey can pack a hallucinogenic punch” at Atlas Obscura.

Read “How Dried Cod Became a Norwegian Staple and an Italian Delicacy” at Atlas Obscura.

Read “All About Books and Comics is Closing in April” at Phoenix New Times.

Read “O'odham sacred site near Lukeville blasted for border wall construction” at AZ Central.

Read “President Trump hosting rally in Phoenix February 19” at 12 News.

Read “'No One Claims Responsibility': Amid Rising Homelessness, Phoenix and Its Largest Shelter Are Out of Sync” at Phoenix New Times.

Read “The Whole Family Will Love A Trip To This Bigfoot-Themed Restaurant In Arizona” at Only In Your State.

Read “Poll: Arizona Voters Support Tougher Gun Laws By 8:1 Margin” at KJZZ.

Read “Rep. Raul Grijalva: Border Wall Construction Doing Irreparable Damage” at KJZZ.

The Weekly Town Crier (01/31/20)

All the week’s news that’s fit to cry about (01/31/20).

Read “Kobe Bryant, Los Angeles Lakers Legend, Dead at 41 Basketball great and 13-year-old daughter Gianna among five dead in helicopter crash near Calabasas, California” at Rolling Stone.

Read “You Are Here Bonhoeffer on the ‘Stupidity’ That Led to Hitler’s Rise Americans today might do well to heed Bonhoeffer’s warning” at Intellectual Takeout.

Read “In U.S., Decline of Christianity Continues at Rapid Pace An update on America's changing religious landscape” at Pew Forum. “Catholics are no longer a majority among U.S. Latinos.”

Read “The Art of Grieving: A Spiritual Practice for our Time” at Missio Alliance.

“Get Ordained Free as a Dudeist Minister” at Dudeism.

Read “Trump’s spiritual adviser called for ‘all satanic pregnancies to miscarry.’ It was a metaphor, she says” at Washington Post. Behold, Trump’s version of “Pro-Life”.

Read “The Tanzanian Court Just Banned Child Marriage in the Country For Good” at Global Citizen.

Read “Our problem isn’t just loneliness—it’s species loneliness How human isolation from the rest of the world keeps us from thriving” at Christian Century.

Read “75 Years After Auschwitz Liberation, Survivors Urge World To Remember” at NPR.

Read “Portion of US border wall in California falls over in high winds and lands on Mexican side” at CNN.

Read “Children With Parents Who Are Addicted To Their Cell Phones Affect Children's Development” at Healthy Holistic Living.

Read/Watch “Space Force logo tweeted by Trump bears uncanny resemblance to 'Star Trek' insignia” at CNN.

Read “Single-use plastic: China to ban bags and other items” at BBC.

Read “4 Reasons Why Slowing Down Will Actually Make You More Successful” at Inc.

Read “We Are Drowning in a Devolved World: An Open Letter from Devo Following the band's Rock Hall nomination, founder Gerald Casale reflects on its dystopian legacy in the age of Trump” at Vice.

Read “Finland ends homelessness and provides shelter for all in need” at Scoop.

Read “Heard but Not Seen Black music in white spaces.” at Slate.

Read “United States Spend Ten Times More On Fossil Fuel Subsidies Than Education” at Forbes.

Read “Trump is attracting a new crop of big donors, including many who have never given before” at Washington Post. “It’s like insurance that is going to help save the country. . . . It’s for me and my grandkids and the next generations. Trump’s vaunted political money machine is helping drive record sums to the Republican National Committee, and not just from the same donors who supported him in 2016. Enticed by exclusive gatherings and ecstatic about the president’s tax cuts, an eclectic new crop of donors is going all in, giving five and six figures to support his reelection.”

Read “44 Years Ago, Shirley Chisholm Became the First Black Woman to Run For President” at Smithsonian Magazine.

Read “Pompeo steps up attacks on NPR reporter, but doesn't deny her account The secretary of state on Saturday attacked the correspondent who reported that he had cursed and berated her over questioning about Ukraine, but did not directly challenge those claims.” at NBC.

• Read “State Department drops NPR from Pompeo trip after Ukraine dust-up” at CNN Business.

• Read “NPR Seeks 'Clarification' From State Department About Reporter Dropped From Trip” at NPR.

Read “Supreme Court order allows Trump’s new green card rule to take effect” at PBS News Hour.

Read “2,500-Year-Old Chariot Found – Complete with Rider And Horses” at Archeology World.

Read the (satirical?) piece “Band Member With Kid Subtly Adds Girl Scout Cookies to Merch Table” at The Hard Times.

Attention Grateful Dead fans: “Ever wanted to quickly find every performance of a Grateful Dead song, along with the song played before/after? Or maybe only the ones from a certain year, band lineup, guest musician, etc? Now you can! Get it here (FREE)”.

Read “Neil Young is Now a US Citizen: Here’s 5 Versions of “Rockin’ In The Free World” at Relix.

Read “Neil Young says that the MacBook Pro has “Fisher-Price” audio quality and calls it “a piece of crap” at Music Radar.

Read “Mick Fleetwood on His Peter Green Tribute Show, Future Plans, and Lindsey Buckingham “Lindsey’s legacy is alive and well, and as it should be,” says the drummer. “It will never be taken away, and never be down-spoken by any of us” at Rolling Stone.

“Watch the First Teaser for Beastie Boys and Spike Jonze’s New Documentary” at Pitchfork.

Read “Ozzy Osbourne: ‘I Think About Death But I Don’t Worry About It’” at Rolling Stone.

Read “The New Pornographers Censor Their Name for New Kids’ Shirts” at Pitchfork.

Browse Clickhole’s list of “5 Episodes Of ‘Diners, Drive-Ins And Dives’ Where Guy Fieri Clearly Just Stopped Into The Restaurant Because He Desperately Needed To Use The Bathroom.”

Browse “Super Bowl Halftime Shows Ranked: From Worst to Best” at Rolling Stone.

Read “Check Out Washington Nationals Pitcher Sean Doolittle’s Phish-Inspired Wilson Glove” at Relix.

Read “In 2019, more Americans went to the library than to the movies. Yes, really.” at LitHub.

Read “Why You Should Surround Yourself With More Books Than You'll Ever Have Time to Read'“ at Inc.

Read “Classic Children’s Books Now Digitized and Put Online: Revisit Vintage Works from the 19th & 20th Centuries” at Open Culture.

“Say Hi, How Are You To Houston's New Mural Honoring Daniel Johnston” at Houston Press.

See “Perfectly Timed Photo Frames a Solar Eclipse Around a Man Leading a Camel in the Desert” at My Modern Met.

Read “Psychology still skews western and affluent. Can it be fixed? Critics have argued that these biases present an imperfect view of the human mind. Why is it so hard to correct?” at Salon.

Read “Ask Ethan: How Can We See 46.1 Billion Light-Years Away In A 13.8 Billion Year Old Universe?” at Forbes.

Read “Germany is turning 62 military bases into wildlife sanctuaries 'We are fortunate that we can now give these places back to nature' at The Independent.

Read “Eat Like a 1970s Radical With ‘The People’s Philadelphia Cookbook’ The 1976 book included contributions from the Black Power and Gay Liberation movements” at Gastro Obscura.

Read “'Penis Man' Graffiti Artist Arrested by '25 Heavily Armed SWAT Officers' at Phoenix New Times.

Read “World’s first Atari-themed hotel will open in Phoenix” at AZ Weekend.

Read “Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin Architecture School Is Shutting Down” at Phoenix New Times.

Read “Federal court says Arizona 'ballot harvesting' law discriminates against minority voters” at AZ Central.

The Weekly Town Crier (12/20/19)

All the week’s News that’s fit to cry about (12/13/19).

Browse all the Weekly Town Crier posts so far.

Listen to all 52 episodes of The Global Elite Music Radio Podcast Supershow.

Listen to a mix of artists who have performed Habañero Collective house shows.

Browse the Musical Worldview posts.

Stream/download an introductory mix of Sacred Steel music.

Browse all my favorite music of 2019.

Read “R.I.P. Danny Aiello, Do the Right Thing actor dies at 86” at Consequence of Sound.

Read “Flamin’ Groovies Singer Roy Loney Dead at 73” at Rolling Stone.

Read “Anna Karina, Singer and French New Wave Actress, Dead at 79” at Pitchfork.

Read “Observing Advent Makes Me Feel Less Alone Following the rituals of the church calendar remind me that my life is part of the larger story of God’s creation, redemption, and restoration” at Christianity Today.

Read “Is Trumpism a cult? A new book from a former cult member makes the case” at Vox.

Read the opinion piece: “The False God of Conservative Christianity” at Evangelicals for Social Action. “here's a religion whose savior was a refugee, yet it rejects refugees. Whose God embraces sojourners, yet it deports immigrants. Whose parishioners worship someone called the Prince of Peace, yet they defend violence and are pro-war. Whose hero was an ethnic minority, yet they're complicit in white supremacy. Whose Christ was unlawfully arrested and killed by a governing empire, yet it has become nationalistic and oppressive.”

Read “Mormon Church has misled members on $100 billion tax-exempt investment fund, whistleblower alleges” at Washington Post.

• Read “Mormons pulling 400,000 youths out of struggling Boy Scouts” at KTAR.

Read “How long is the sermon? Study ranks Christian churches” at AP News.

Read “The Risky Business of Letting the Government Define a Religion Trump's executive order undermines the freedom of Jewish self-definition” at Sojourners.

Read “Don’t Panic About Nones Who Stop Believing” at Church Life Journal.

Read “Who was the Buddha? When we strip away the myths, such as his princely youth in a palace, a surprising picture of this enigmatic sage emerges” at Aeon.

Read “Christian influencer couple wants to resurrect young daughter who died, seeks $100k in crowdfunding” at Boing Boing.

Read ““Sort-Of Socialist” Church Pastor Accused of Sexual Misconduct” at Juicy Ecumenism.

Read “Chicago’s Top Prosecutor Tosses Out More Than 1,000 Marijuana Convictions Ahead of State Legalization Law” at The Root.

Read “Krispy Kreme, Panera Bread owner to give $5M to Holocaust survivors over family's Nazi ties The Reimann family learned that their ancestors used forced laborers in their factory under the Nazis during World War II” at NBC News.

Read “Gambian minister brought Myanmar to The Hague ‘in the name of humanity’” at PRI. “25 years after the Rwandan tragedy, here we are again, not doing anything to stop another ongoing genocide in Myanmar.”

Read “Dolly Parton statue may replace KKK leader memorial at Tennessee Capitol” at Consequence of Sound.

Read “Wyoming Students Showed Up to Class in Bootleg KKK Robes Because of Course They Did: 'This Is Taught Behavior” at The Root.

Read “ICE Denied Arizona Detainees Proper Medical and Psychiatric Care” at Phoenix New Times.

Read “Despite Trump’s vow to revive the death penalty, support for capital punishment shrank in 2019” at Washington Post.

Read/watch “Texas judge sues after being warned for refusing to perform same-sex marriages” at 12 News.

Read “New Research Identifies Possible Mass Graves From 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre” at NPR.

• Read “We changed how we refer to the 'Tulsa Race Riot.' Here's why” at Tulsa World.

Read “Why a Small Offense Shouldn’t Have Life-Altering Consequence Opinion: Nearly 10 years ago, I was arrested and detained in jail for 45 days after failing to appear in court for a low-level, non-violent offense. Today, I’m fighting so that others don’t have to go through what I did” at Texas Observer.

Read “Americans are drowning in medical debt, so this nonprofit is buying — and forgiving — it” at PBS News Hour.

Read “Amazon is delivering half its own packages as it becomes a serious rival to FedEx and UPS” at The Verge.

Read “Baby boomers are the most sensitive generation, new study says — and it shows exactly what the world is getting wrong about millennials” at Business Insider.

Read “President Obama: A world ruled by women would improve "just about everything” at Salon. “I'm absolutely confident that for two years, if every nation on earth was run by women, you would see a significant improvement across the board on just about everything... living standards and outcomes.”

Read “United States to fund gun-violence research after 20-year freeze Government spending deal includes $25 million for studies of firearm safety” at Nature.

Read “Why Some Men Still Dress Like They’re 16. It’s not because they’re lazy” at Slate.

Read “Archaeologists Discover Ancient Greek Royal Tombs Dating Back 3,500 Years” at NPR.

Read “Facebook, Instagram ban influencers from promoting guns and vaping” at Engadget.

Read “Germany bans gay ‘conversion therapy’ for minors” at PBS News Hour.

Read “Wakanda (fake Marvel country) listed as US trade partner on USDA website The fictional home of "Black Panther" appeared on an agricultural tariff tracker maintained by the USDA, NBC News reports” at 12 News.

Read “‘We are sending more foster kids to prison than college’” at Kansas City.com.

Read/Listen to “Fewer Students Are Going To College. Here's Why That Matters” at NPR.

Read “House Judiciary Committee Approves 2 Articles Of Impeachment Against Trump” at NPR.

• Read “McConnell indicates he’ll let Trump’s lawyers dictate Trump’s impeachment trial” at Washington Post.

• Read “Arizona Republican in denial about core impeachment detail” at MSNBC.

• Read “Bill Barr is serving notice to DOJ officials that he’ll ruin them if they investigate Trump” at Raw Story.

• Read “Dem. rep. expected to leave party over impeachment” at MSNBC.

• Read “750+ historians add their voices on Impeachment” at Medium. “President Trump’s numerous and flagrant abuses of power are precisely what the Framers had in mind as grounds for impeaching and removing a president.”

• Read “Russia’s State TV Calls Trump Their ‘Agent’ at The Daily Beast. “Russian commentators note, rightly, that “sooner or later, the Democrats will come back into power," and they’re already joking about offering Trump asylum.”

• Read “President Trump Sends Pelosi Letter Protesting ‘Partisan Impeachment Charade’ at NPR.

• Read “Matthews: This isn't a fact finding mission, it's a roll-call vote to see what party you're in” at MSNBC.

• Read “Trump Should Be Removed from Office. It’s time to say what we said 20 years ago when a president’s character was revealed for what it was” at Christianity Today.

  • Read “Wake up, everybody: a response to the impeachment of Donald Trump from the AME Church” at Religion News Service. “"We take no solace in the fact that God's revelation about Trump's lack of Constitutional character and his divisive and destructive policies would push our nation away from democracy and toward dictatorship were right."

  • Read “If Trump is impeached, it will be hard for Senate Republicans to vote to convict him They need to do it anyway” at Christian Century.

  • Read as Franklin Graham tells the New York Times “My father (founder of the magazine) would be embarrassed ... There’s a liberal element within the evangelical movement. Christianity Today represents that.”

• Read “Vladimir Putin Backs Trump, Calling Impeachment Charges ‘Completely Made Up” at NPR.

• Read “To avoid removal, Trump only needs senators representing 7 percent of the country to support him” at Washington Post.

Read “Trump May Not Debate 2020 Democratic Nominee” at News and Guts.

• Read “Trump says he'll do debates, but may bypa

• Read “Vladimir Putin Backs Trump, Calling Impeachment Charges ‘Completely Made Up” at NPR.

Read “Trump May Not Debate 2020 Democratic Nominee” at News and Guts.

• Read “Trump says he'll do debates, but may bypa”

• Read “Vladimir Putin Backs Trump, Calling Impeachment Charges ‘Completely Made Up” at NPR.

Read “Trump May Not Debate 2020 Democratic Nominee” at News and Guts.

• Read “Trump says he'll do debates, but may bypass commission that runs them” at 12 News.

Read “You Don’t Know Bernie” at Buzzfeed News. “Bernie Sanders — the guy who admits he can be grumpy and “nasty” and a “real son of a bitch,” the guy who’s known for giving the same speech over and over again — that guy is trying to win this campaign, maybe his last, by making people feel less alone.”

Read “U.S. Government Loses 2 Border Fence Funding Lawsuits” at KJZZ.

• Read “Fox News poll finds a wealth tax is far more popular than Trump's wall” at The Week.

Read “New Kentucky Governor Restores Voting Rights to More Than 100,000 Formerly Incarcerated” at The Root.

• Read “Pardons by Former Kentucky Governor Spark Outrage and Calls for Investigation” at Rolling Stone.

Read/watch as PBS News Hour wonders “Should the federal government be able to negotiate the prices of prescription drugs?”

Read “Appeals court strikes down ACA's individual mandate” at Axios.

Read as Rolling Stone wonders “What Do We Do With the Afghanistan Papers? Are Americans ignoring the revelation that their government lied to them, again, for decades about another endless war? Or have they mastered their ability to process their anger about such injustices?”

• Read “The Whole Damn Thing Was A Lie” at Sojourners. “A confidential trove of government documents obtained by The Washington Post reveals that senior U.S. officials failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan throughout the 18-year campaign, making rosy pronouncements they knew to be false and hiding unmistakable evidence the war had become unwinnable.”

Read “This is How a Society Dies America and Britain are Textbook Examples of a New, Gruesome Phenomeon: Rich Nations Self-Destructing Into Poor Failed States” at Eand.

• Read “‘This Feels Worse Than Trump’: Artists Voice Anguish After Boris Johnson’s Landslide Victory in the British General Election” at Artnet.

Read “Trump's War Pardons Are Sabotaging the Military Justice System Victims of America's war crimes had little means of accountability. Now, even that is being eviscerated” at ACLU.

Read “Mitch McConnell is in ‘Literal Violation of the oath’ he must take for impeachment trial, says government professor” at Newsweek.

• Watch “Sen. Sherrod Brown says there’s “increasing talk” that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell should recuse himself in an impeachment trial: “He doesn’t have respect for the institution, although you’d think the Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate would” at MSNBC.

Read “Georgia purge removes nearly 309,000 voter registrations” at PBS News Hour.

Read “Conservative Radio Show Cancelled After Host Wishes a ‘Nice School Shooting’ Would Replace Impeachment Coverage” at The Root.

Read “Why Dyeing My Hair and Tattooing My Body Are Forms of Self-Care” at The Mighty.

Read “Grace at SantaLand: Why David Sedaris Is My Favorite Advent Reading” at Mockingbird.

Read “Opinion: Should It Be Illegal To Sleep Outside?” at NPR.

Read “Why Are So Many Gen Z Kids Becoming Furries? Furry influencers on TikTok are bringing the long-misunderstood subculture to a whole new generation” at Rolling Stone.

The 2019 “Best Of” Lists keep rolling in:

• Read “Our 50 favourite albums of 2019” at Vinyl Factory.

• Read “NPR Music Staff Picks: The Best Albums Of 2019” at NPR.

• Browse “Aquarium Drunkard :: 2019 Year In Review".

• Browse “J.C. Mosquito’s Best of 2019” at Something Else Reviews.

• Browse the full list of my favorite 2019 music.

  • Listen to Volume 01 of my 2019 Year-End Playlist

  • Listen to Volume 02 of my 2019 Year-End Playlist

  • Listen to Volume 03 of my 2019 Year-End Playlist

  • Listen to Volume 04 of my 2019 Year-End Playlist

Read “Jerry Garcia’s “Alligator” Guitar Sells for $420,000” at Jambands.com.

Read “The Clash: How London Calling still inspires 40 years on” at BBC.

• Read “The Clash’s ‘London Calling’: 10 Things You Didn’t Know” at Rolling Stone.

• Read “The Clash Never Failed Their Influences” at Consequence of Sound.

• Read “The Clash Started a Rebellion by Defying Labels” at Consequence of Sound.

• Read “You've Never Heard 'London Calling'?!” at NPR.

Read “At The End Of The End of The Decade Lists“ by Marty Sartini Garner at The Outline. “Era-specific album lists are only really interesting because of the implicit arguments they make. I wrote about how this year’s Best Albums of the Decade lists upheld our cultural hegemony and highlight some problems with music criticism.”

Read “Yeasayer Call It Quits The Brooklyn indie band released its final album, Erotic Reruns, earlier this year” at Pitchfork.

Read “Here’s the most popular YouTube music video of the decade” at KTAR.

Read “Kanye West’s Opera Mary Coming to New York City” at Pitchfork.

Read “Remembering Joseph Hoo-Kim – the legendary roots producer and Channel One founder.”

Read “Hiss Golden Messenger review – songwriter is an anchor in a rudderless world” at The Guardian.

Read “'He was a musical warlock': reflecting on Frank Zappa's greatest album at 50” at The Guardian.

Read “Cox Communications Hit With $1 Billion Verdict in Music Copyright Suit” at Variety.

Listen “to the Full Version of The Smiths’ Historic First Recording “I Want A Boy For My Birthday” at Post-Punk.

Read “YouTube Plays Will Now Count Toward the Billboard Album Charts” at Pitchfork.

Read “Lee “Scratch” Perry’s first #1 on Billboard in 60yr Career” at Yardhype.

Read “'It's a Total Nightmare': Problems at Direct Shot Distributing Have Made New Vinyl and CDs Scarce” at Billboard.

Read “Radiohead upload their entire discography to YouTube” at Consequence of Sound.

Read “DC’s Legendary Punk Label Dischord Records Makes Its Entire Music Catalog Free to Stream Online” at Open Culture.

Read PBS’ profile of Tinariwen: “How this nomadic music group is bridging cultural divides.”

• Watch a short profile of Tinariwen here at Holiday at the Sea: 'We made a career out of roaming'.

• See Amadjar by Tinariwen on my 2019 Favorite music wrap-up.

Read “US Justice Department Reportedly Preparing Legal Action Against Live Nation” at Steregum.

Read “Chasing Ephemera: Entering the World of the Necks Michael McKinney offers an extensive guide to the veteran jazz trio at Passion of the Weiss.

Read “Ivan Conti’s Free-Thinking Samba Legacy” at Bandcamp and listen to “Aroeira” by Ivan 'Mamão' Conti on Episode 39 of the Global Elite Music Radio Podcast Supershow.

Read “John Frusciante Rejoins Red Hot Chili Peppers” at Relix.

Read “Iggy Pop, Public Enemy, Roberta Flack, Isaac Hayes, More Get Lifetime Achievement Grammys” at Pitchfork.

Read “Bill Kreutzmann Talks Hawaii Home, Jerry Garcia, More In Rare New Interview” at Live For Live Music.

Browse “An introduction to Parliament-Funkadelic in 10 records” at Vinyl Factory.

Read “Are Podcasts Threatening the Growth of the Music Industry?” at Rolling Stone.

Read “Insane hardcore show at a Denny’s restaurant gives new meaning to Super Slam: Watch The young promoter launched a GoFundMe campaign to pay for damages” at Consequence of Sound.

Read “George Benson: The Album That Changed My Life” at Jazzwise.

Read “Greta Thunberg Documentary Coming to Hulu in 2020” at Rolling Stone.

Read “Adam Driver Walks Out of NPR ‘Fresh Air’ Interview Over ‘Marriage Story’ Clip” at Daily Beast.

Read “Star Wars,' The Trilogy That NPR Turned Into Radio Drama” at NPR. “A long time ago, in an NPR far, far away, the network produced three radio dramas based on the original "Star Wars" trilogy.”

Read “Chris Frantz Talking Heads Memoir ‘Remain In Love’ Set For May 2020 Release” at Jambase.

Browse “17 Home Libraries That Look Like Something Out Of A Fairytale” at Bookish Buzz.

Read “In Acknowledgement of Acknowledgements: Dispelling the myth of the solitary genius” at Comment.

Read “Gibby Haynes of Butthole Surfers to Release Young Adult Novel About a Supernatural Dog” at Paste Magazine.

Read “The Far Side is officially online for the first time, with new comics to come” at The Verge.

Read “If Jane Austen Got Feedback From Some Guy In A Writing Workshop” at Buzzfeed. “Also, why five sisters? How about just two? Combine Jane and Kitty. Or, better, make one of the sisters a brother (named "Jim," maybe?), and then he could be the narrator who mentions his sisters from time to time! Like Hamlet!”

Read “Go Ahead in the Rain Will Make You Love A Tribe Called Quest Even More” at Pitchfork. “That insistence on evolving alongside the music we cherish is the book’s most rewarding sentiment.”

See “This Artist Turns Precious Moments Figurines Into Your Worst Nightmire” at Best Products.

Read “Salvador Dalí’s Tarot Cards Get Re-Issued: The Occult Meets Surrealism in a Classic Tarot Card Deck” at Open Culture.

Read “This new exhibit explores the work of Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat” at Vinyl Factory.

Read “With exhibit on Abraham, Episcopal cathedral in Boston organizes interfaith conversation” at Christian Century.

See “The Psychedelic Beauty of Destroyed CDs” at Wired.

Read “The Smithsonian Just Opened a Manila Envelope and Discovered Four Yayoi Kusama Paintings It Had No Idea Existed” at Artnet.

Read “The Milky Way Sounds Like a Wacky Jazz Ensemble An astronomer translated the sounds of galactic gases into a piece of music” at Atlas Obscura.

Browse “All the Species Declared Extinct This Decade” at Gizmodo.

Read “In Our Brutal Modern World, Science Shows Our Brains Need Craft More Than Ever” at Science Alert.

Read “Invasive insect never-before seen in U.S. discovered at Port of Nogales The bug that was found during an inspection is part of the family of leafhoppers” at 12 News.

Read “Singing Mozart in the MRI shows how overtone singers can hit two notes at once” Aeon.

Read “How a White Lie Gave Japan KFC for Christmas One cunning business maneuver created a tradition and saved a franchise” at Atlas Obscura.

Browse Hop Culture’s picks for “The 20 Best Beer Label Designs of 2019.”

Read “The Return of Japan’s Female Sake Brewers Pushed out of brewing more than a century ago, they’re making a comeback” at Atlas Obscura.

Read “Ancient Egyptian 'head cone mystery' solved by archaeologists Researchers have long speculated about the purpose and meaning of pointy “head cones” depicted in Egyptian art. Now they’ve actually found the real thing” at National Geographic.

Read “The Story Behind ‘Green Boots’ Tsewang Paljor, Mount Everest’s Most Famous Dead Body” at All That’s Interesting.

See “Glowworm Tunnel An abandoned railroad tunnel is now filled with bioluminescent bugs” at Atlas Obscura.

Read “Why monsters haunt Christmas in Europe but not America” at QZ.

Read “Inside the New York Public Library’s Last, Secret Apartments” at Atlas Obscura.

Read “Red light cameras still going away, but speed radars may stay in Phoenix” at KTAR.

Read “Barrio Brewing Company turns over business to employees” at KOLD.

Read “SuperShuttle to end service to Phoenix airports in 3 weeks” at KTAR.

Read “Once affordable, Phoenix rents among fastest rising in US” at KTAR.

The Weekly Town Crier (12/06/19)

All the week’s News that’s fit to cry about (12/06/19).

Browse all the Weekly Town Crier posts so far.

Listen to all 52 episodes of The Global Elite Music Radio Podcast Supershow.

Listen to a mix of artists who have performed Habañero Collective house shows.

Browse the Musical Worldview posts.

Stream/download an introductory mix of Sacred Steel music.

R.I.P. Irving Burgie, Songwriter Who Helped Bring Calypso To America, Dies At 95 (NPR)

Read “Thankful for the Bad: Upside Down Gratitude This Thanksgiving Upside down gratitude is the ability to give thanks even for the parts of our lives which lead us to sadness and struggle and suffer” at Christianity Today.

Read “Will Worship for Likes To build their celeb-approved megachurch, Churchome, pastors Judah and Chelsea Smith preach community, love, acceptance, and inclusion. Is their Instagrammable message truly reframing Christianity or simply helping their church rake in millions?” at Marie Claire.

Read “What Pastors Can Learn From a Converted Musician: He’s a tremendously famous musician. Some people even use the word genius to describe him. His music moves people, as it has for a long time. He changed the industry. By all accounts, he’s a legend in popular music. But then something happened. It’s make sense if you thought I was talking about Kanye West. No, I’m talking about Bob Dylan.”

Read “The Christian Roots of the Fair Trade Movement” at Christianity Today.

Read “False Idol — Why the Christian Right Worships Donald Trump: White evangelics have their presidential strongman in Donald Trump.” at Rolling Stone.

Read “This Advent, Listen to those who feel unwelcome in the church” at Sojourners.

Read “The Crisis of American Christianity, Viewed From Great Britain The theologian N. T. Wright is unfazed by the faith’s politicization in the U.S.” at The Atlantic.

Read “Jesus’ risen, mutilated body In Luke’s postresurrection appearances, the disciples have to reckon with the traumatic somatic” at Christian Century.

Read “American Jesus, Stay Away from Me: The Jesus of the Bible looks nothing like American Jesus.” at Red Letter Christians.”

Read “The New Math of Church Mergers An option once seen as a failed strategy is now giving many congregations a new lease on life” at Christianity Today.

Read “Why we need religion Stephen Asma, an agnostic, argues powerfully that religion is natural and beneficial. Is it such a leap to believe that it is grounded in truth?” at Prospect Magazine.

Read “Florida Bill Protects Black Hairstyles in School, Workplace” at My Spectrum 13 (Orlando).

Read/watch “Michael Eric Dyson: 'black voters are sick and tired of being taken for granted'“ at MSNBC.

Read “The Night Doesn’t Stop the Stars” On the 50th anniversary of the killing of Fred Hampton, poet Haki R. Madhubuti pays tribute to the leader of Chicago’s Black Panthers with a new work” at Chicago Magazine.

Read “George Zimmerman Sues Trayvon Martin’s Family, Others for $100 Million The new suit is helmed by conservative lawyer Larry Klayman, based on allegations in new book and film by conspiracy theorist Joel Gilbert” at Rolling Stone.

Read “Sick and Alone Most of America’s county jails escape lawsuits seeking reforms for inmates with serious mental illness. Now Arizona’s Cochise County has joined hundreds of other small counties innovating ways to keep people with serious mental illness out of their jails. But it comes too late for Adrian Perez, who has spent the past 13 years cycling in and out of jail, and solitary confinement, which only makes him sicker.: Our jails and prisons have become our new asylums because there is nowhere else for the mentally ill to go” at Arizona Center For Investigative Reporting.”

Read “Rev. William Barber on the Political Power of Poor People: ‘We Have to Change Our Whole Narrative’” at New York Magazine.

Read/Watch “Young boy invites entire kindergarten class to his adoption hearing” at 12 News.

Read “North Korea warns Japan's Abe may soon see 'real ballistic missile' Pyongyang lashes out at Japanese leader stepping up rhetoric against close US ally in the region as nuclear talks stall” at Al Jazeera.

Read The Guardian’s opinion piece: “America is not the land of the free but one of monopolies so predatory they imperil the nation.”

Read “Not So OK, Boomers They‘re attacking the seat of millennial pleasure — the body. It’s high time we contemplated the possibility Boomers want to kill us all” at Medium.

Read “Defiant Mark Zuckerberg defends Facebook policy to allow false ads Zuckerberg says ‘people should be able to judge for themselves the character of politicians’ and compares alternative to censorship” at The Guardian.

Read “Researchers Find A Remarkable Ripple Effect When You Give Cash To Poor Families: A new major study finds that for every dollar in cash aid given to Kenyan families living in poverty, the total economic activity in the area increased by $2.60.” at NPR.

Read “TikTok accused of secretly gathering user data and sending it to China A proposed class-action lawsuit alleges the app "includes Chinese surveillance software” at CNet.

Read “His Company Makes Speakers. Now He's Speaking Out, Opposing Tariffs: Since last fall, this 70-year-old speaker company in Minnesota has had to pay tariffs on some components imported from China. "A surprising number of people I talk to … think that somehow China is paying the tariffs," the company's president says. It's a claim that President Trump has repeatedly made.” at NPR.

Read “Half of all homeless people may have had traumatic brain injury” at The Guardian.

Read “This is the World’s First Beer Taproom That Also Houses Foster Dogs Rescued From Kill Shelters” at Good News Network.

Read “Hedy Lamarr: The Incredible Mind Behind Secure WiFi, GPS And Bluetooth” at Forbes.

Read/watch “What newly released emails reveal about OxyContin, Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family” at PBS News Hour.

Read “The False Promise of Morning Routines Why everyone’s mornings seem more productive than yours” at The Atlantic.

Read “Google faces $50 million lawsuit from Genius for stealing lyrics They've been accused of "misappropriating content".” at NME.

Read “You may be required to get your picture taken when leaving, entering US” at 12 News.

Read “Millennials weren’t the only ones gutted by the recession. Gen X has never recovered. By Austin Channing Brown Dec 4, 2019, 8:00am EST Share this story” by Austin Channing Brown at Vox.

Watch/Read “You Won't Live Comfortably In the U.S. Working 40hrs a Week” at 12 News.

Read “Schools teach refugee, migrant kids skills to succeed in US: This year's students at Valencia Newcomer School feature kids from 21 countries and speak 15 languages” at KTAR.

Read as PBS wonders “What If We Let Kids Get Bored? Give kids space to get bored — you will be amazed by the creative ways they fill their time.”

Read “A Silent Epidemic: Our public schools are struggling to handle millions of students with mental health problems. Here’s why” from 2016 at NPR.

Browse “6 Books for Kids about the Civil Rights Movement” at the New York Public Library website.

Read “Majority Of Republicans Say Trump Is A Better President Than Lincoln” at Politics USA.

• Read “Trump Has Spent $115 Million On Golf Trips ― Or 287 Years Of Presidential Salary Trump often boasts of donating his White House pay, but taxpayers are shelling out much larger sums for his hobby” at Huff Post.

• Read “Trump to designate Mexican drug cartels as terrorist groups” at KTAR.

• Read “Trump campaign will deny press credentials to Bloomberg News Trump’s campaign manager accuses agency of ‘declaring their bias openly’ after choice to not cover Democratic candidates critically" at The Guardian.

• Read “Trump, Who Slashed Taxes by $1.5 Trillion, Is Pushing Cuts to Food Stamps Self-declared man of the people proposes to take food from poor people” at Rolling Stone.

• Read “Trump loses appeal to block Deutsche Bank, Capital One from handing his financial records to Congress” at CNBC.

• Read “Trump Is Waging War on America’s Diplomats: And the impeachment inquiry is only making things worse. With new figures and fresh horror stories, Julia Ioffe reports on how the president is politicizing our embassies, alienating our allies, and decimating the ranks of the foreign service.” at GQ.

• Read “the House Intelligence Committee’s Impeachment Report” at Rolling Stone.

• Read “Rep. Adam Schiff: 'The Uncontested Facts Show This President Solicited A Bribe'“ at NPR.

• Read “Report reveals frequent contact between Giuliani, Nunes and the White House” at PBS News Hour.

• Read “Trump Hands $400 Million Border Wall Contract to Republican Donor Who Touted Construction Firm on Fox News” at Second Nexus.

Read “US seeks high court permission to resume federal executions” at KTAR.

Read “Trump nominee who is anti-IVF and surrogacy was deemed unqualified. She just got confirmed” at Washington Post and then just remind yourself that the Trump administration is appointing judges to lifetime appointments who have previous been deemed “unqualified.”

Read “William Barr says "communities" that protest cops could lose "the police protection they need" at Washington Post.

Read “We should hang’ Ilhan Omar, GOP House candidate says while seeking donations” at Washington Post.

Read “Romney Saw “No Evidence” of Ukraine Meddling in 2016 U.S. Election” at News and Guts.

Read/watch “Student loan forgiveness emerges as key 2020 issue” at MSNBC.

Read “Kamala Harris Has Dropped Out of the Presidential Race” at Rolling Stone.

• Read/Watch “Why Kamala Harris’ campaign failed to gain traction” at PBS News Hour.

• Read “Kamala Harris’s Criminal Justice Record Killed Her Presidential Run: Harris’s record as a prosecutor was representative of a politics of the past. The nation has moved on” at The Appeal.

• Read “Kamala Harris Mattered, and Still Does She made the boldest and (ultimately) most quixotic argument of any candidate, and her failure is a sign of these Trumpian times” at Rolling Stone.

Read “It’s Not Just A ‘Fictional Narrative,’ It’s Russian Propaganda: Republicans are not following Fiona Hill's warnings to ignore the Russian propaganda about Ukraine, in fact they're doubling down. Contributor Steven J. Harper puts in all in context and perspective.” at News and Guts.

Read “Lisa Page Speaks: ‘There’s No Fathomable Way I Have Committed Any Crime at All: “The former FBI lawyer and ongoing Trump target breaks two years of silence in this exclusive interview. And she has quite a lot to say.” at Daily Beast.

Read “Fox News host Tucker Carlson: Putin does not hate America like liberals do” at The Guardian.

Read “Inside the ‘extraordinary’ campaign to put Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court” at PBS News Hour.

Read “A New Online Archive Lets You Listen to 40 Years Worth of Terry Gross’ Fresh Air Interviews: Stream 22,000 Segment Online” at Open Culture.

Read “Mahna Mahna at 50: fascinating facts about the unforgettable Muppets song” at CBC.

Browse “Best of 2019” Lists:

• Browse Stereogum’s picks for “The 50 Best Albums Of 2019.”

• Browse Consequence of Sound’s picks for “Top 50 Albums of 2019.”

• Browse Gorilla Vs. Bear’s Albums of 2019.

• Browse Paste’s picks.

• Browse Rolling Stone’s picks for “The 50 Best Albums of 2019.”

Read “Samana Give Listeners a Map to Locate an Obelisk Hidden in Wales” at Bandcamp.

Read “Taylor Swift, Lizzo, Lana Del Rey: Pop Stars (and Their Fans) Clap Back: This year has seen a spike in pop stars using social media to push back against music critics. Their fans fell in line, swarming the offending writers with hate” at New York Times.

Read “Khruangbin and Leon Bridges Team Up for New Texas Sun EP” at Pitchfork.

Read “Massive Attack commission research into touring’s impact on climate The research aims to create a "roadmap to decarbonisation" at Consequence of Sound.

Read “U2 Are Getting Their Own SiriusXM Channel “Generally when I open my mouth, people prefer if I’m singing,” Bono said. “But on U2X RADIO, maybe they’ll forgive me the odd interruption” at Rolling Stone.

Read “Frozen Fingers :: An American Primitive Holiday Meditation” at Aquarium Drunkard.

Read as NPR wonders “Is It OK To Bootleg Concerts?”

Read “Justin Vernon Tells Aaron Rodgers What “Holocene” Is About” at Stereogum.

Read “Kid Rock is shutting down his Detroit restaurant amid protest over his recent Oprah rant. "I may be guilty of being a loud mouth jerk at times, but trying to label me racist is a joke" at Consequence of Sound.

Read as “Lana Del Rey Interviews Grimes” at Pitchfork.

Read “Garcia Peoples’ One Step Behind Is Clear-Eyed and Ambitious Chris Forsyth on how the Brooklyn band successfully does “whatever the f&*k they want” on their new album” at TalkHouse.

Read “Chet Baker’s Tale of Woe” at Downbeat.

Read “Alice Cooper on Returning to His Detroit Roots Legendary rocker details his new covers album, Breadcrumbs” at Consequence of Sound.

Read “A Look Inside Japan’s Listening Bars For Audiophiles” at Vinyl of the Day.

Read “Jimmy Eat World share playlist of music they listened to on tour in the ’90s Read More: Jimmy Eat World share playlist of music they listened to on tour in the ’90s” at Brooklyn Vegan.

Read “10 Lessons Learned From Attending Concerts Sober For A Month” at Live For Live Music.

Read “A New Tool From Spotify Walks the Line Between Advertising and Pay-For-Play” at Rolling Stone.

Read “Talking Heads’ Jerry Harrison, Adrian Belew to Tour “40 Years of ‘Remain in Light'” with Turkuaz” at Jambands.com.

Read “The Go-Betweens' Perfect Pop Cracked Open Stream rarities and live tracks from volume two of 'G Stands For Go-Betweens'“ at NPR.

Read “Jimmy Eat World's Jim Adkins: "I used to study classical and jazz... then I was suddenly sleeping on floors and playing punk-rock" at Guitar World.

Read “DC Comics Comes Under Fire for Deleting Batman Poster That Sparked Chinese Backlash: DC Comics came under fire for pulling a Batman poster after Chinese commenters said it appeared to support pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong” at Variety.

Browse “Top 100 TV Shows of the 2010s” at Consequence of Sound.

Read “Questlove to Direct New Movie Black Woodstock A documentary about 1969’s Harlem Cultural Festival, which featured performances from Nina Simone, Stevie Wonder, Sly and the Family Stone, and more” at Pitchfork.

Read “Oprah Producing Documentary About Sexual Assault in the Music Industry” at Exclaim.

Read “Johnny Depp producing musical starring Michael Jackson’s glove In which the King of Pop's iconic sequin glove "is actually an alien from outer space [and] feeds on virgin boy blood" at Consequence of Sound.

Read “Brazil President Blames Leonardo DiCaprio for Funding Amazon Wildfires Without evidence, Jair Bolsonaro says actor is “giving money to torch the Amazon” at Rolling Stone.

Read “Willie Nelson quits smoking marijuana due to breathing issues "I have abused my lungs quite a bit in the past" at Consequence of Sound.

Read “The Travel Diaries of Allen Ginsberg in South America” at LitHub.

Read “'We Wanted Our Patrons Back' — Public Libraries Scrap Late Fines To Alleviate Inequity” at NPR.

Read “Reading Toni Morrison in Advent A seasonal practice: cultivate the patient gaze to describe life as we find it” at Christian Century.

Read “Cry, Heart, But Never Break: A Remarkable Illustrated Meditation on Loss and Life “Who would enjoy the sun if it never rained? Who would yearn for the day if there were no night?” at Brain Pickings.

Read “How did renowned novelist Kurt Vonnegut Jr. wind up in Iowa City? Two years in Iowa were turning point in novelist's career at The Gazette.

Read/Listen to “What Bestseller Lists Really Tell Us About A Book's Popularity: The appearance of Donald Trump Jr.'s TRIGGERED on the bestseller lists prompted us to dig into how those lists work -- and how they can be manipulated.” at NPR.

See “Winged Insects Made From Old Computer Circuit Boards And Electronics” at Bored Panda.

Read “Researchers Have Found That Visiting Art Museums Can Offer Significant Relief for People Living With Dementia” at Artnet.

See “Photographer Spends Eternity Waiting For Museum Visitors To Match Artworks And The Result Is Worth The Wait” at Bored Panda.

Read “Were the Mexican Muralists America’s Greatest Street Artists? A New Whitney Show Will Examine Their Too-Long-Ignored Legacy” at Artnet.

Read “Just A Reminder That Gorillas Hum ‘Little Food Songs’ To Themselves While They Eat” at Live For Live Music.

Read “Cats Domesticated Themselves, Ancient DNA Shows” at National Geographic.

Read “Scientists Resume Efforts To Create Deadly Flu Virus, With US Government's Blessing” at Forbes.

Read “Scientists Discover Psychedelic DMT Creates Waking Dream State In Brain: ‘It’s Like Dreaming But With Your Eyes Open’ at Newsweek.

Read “Hoag's Object Is a Galaxy Within a Galaxy Within a Galaxy (and Nobody Knows Why)” at Live Science.

Read “China gene-edited baby experiment 'may have created unintended mutations'“ at The Guardian.

Read “Probe Gets Close To The Sun — Finds Rogue Plasma Waves And Flipping Magnetic Fields” at NPR.

Read “New drug curbs delusions in dementia patients, study finds If approved, it could not only help people with Parkinson's but also Alzheimer's” at 12 News.

Read “Ballast Point sold to tiny suburban Chicago brewery Kings and Convicts in beer industry stunner” at Chicago Tribune.

Read “The World’s Most Valuable Whisky Collection Is Worth Nearly $17 Million A Vietnamese man's 20-year obsession with Scotch yields a world record” at Inside Hook.

See “Vale Street England's steepest street has such a drastic incline that locals tie their parked cars to lampposts when it gets icy” at Atlas Obscura.

Read “Bill would require Arizona students to say the Pledge of Allegiance: The bill would strike an existing law that allows time for "those students who wish" to recite the pledge and instead require a parent to excuse the student” at AZ Central, and remember kids, forced patriotism is fascism.

Read “Arizona 19-year-old suing Juul for getting him addicted to nicotine” at 12 News.

Read “Whistleblower says contractors failing to fix locks at Phoenix-area prison” at KTAR.

Read “Why the devil is the Scottsdale City Council fighting Satanists?” at AZ Central.

Read “20 Years of Modified Arts: How the Gallery Changed Roosevelt Row” at Phoenix New Times.