The Weekly Town Crier (12/13/19)
All the week’s News that’s fit to cry about (12/13/19).
Question for the three of you who browse this list each week: when compiling the list each week, I use headers to (very broadly) categorize the different sections. Would you prefer that I left those in so that you can jump to different sections, or do you like just scrolling?
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 “Sesame Street puppeteer Caroll Spinney dies at age 85: at PBS.
Read “Rapper Juice WRLD Dead at 21” at Rolling Stone.
Read “Roxette’s Marie Fredriksson Dead at 61” at Pitchfork.
Read “The White Evangelical Persecution Complex” at Red Letter Christians.
Read “Want to Get Into the Christmas Spirit? Face the Darkness How I fell in love with the season of Advent” by Tish Harrison Warren at New York Times.
Read “GREAT JOB INTERNET Finally, a Christian alternative to the wicked heresy of the "Cha Cha Slide" at AV Club.
Read “Biblical Literalism among American Protestants Pastors, denominational leaders, and curious Christians need to be reassured—American Christianity is not becoming more liberal” at Christianity Today.
Read as Fathom wonders “Where was Jesus before Advent? If Jesus is eternal, can we find him in the Old Testament?”
Read “Behind the Rise of Evangelical Women “Influencers” at Religion and Politics.
Read “Misusing Romans 13 To Embrace Theocracy” at Sojourners.
Read “The Sort-Of Socialist Church Is Taking A Radical Approach To Christianity Jubilee Baptist is a quasi-socialist, anti-racist, LGBTQ-affirming church conducting a bold experiment: focusing on debt, work, and freedom from oppression instead of fear and moralism” at Buzzfeed News.
Read “Pastor Who Sermonized That Jews Are Going to Hell Was Trump’s Pick to Speak at White House Hanukkah Reception” at The Root.
Read “Is the “final judgment” really final? What the Bible doesn't say about hell” at Christian Century.
Read “Arizona will continue to resettle refugees, Gov. Doug Ducey tells Trump administration” at AZ Central.
Read “Merkel Tours Auschwitz With 'Sense Of Shame' And Warns Of Resurgent Anti-Semitism” at NPR.
Read “Papa John’s Founder Blames His Use of the N-Word on Kanye and Colonel Sanders” at The Root.
Read “India Prepares to Block Naturalization for Muslims A bill establishing a religious test for immigration to India is expected to pass Parliament, a major step for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu-nationalist agenda.” at New York Times.
Read “How Do We Know When Research Participants Truly Give Consent? Following news about research that used data collected from Uighurs, scientific publishers want to create new consent guidelines. But it’s complicated” at Slate.
Read “A University’s Betrayal of Historical Truth The University of North Carolina agreed to pay the Sons of Confederate Veterans $2.5 million—a sum that rivals the endowment of its history department” at The Atlantic.
Read “New Statue Unveiled In Response To Richmond's Confederate Monuments” at NPR.
Read “Nikki Haley gets the history of the Confederate flag very wrong” at Washington Post.
Read “CRACK VS. HEROIN An unfair system arrested millions of blacks, urged compassion for whites” at App.
Read “Principal Who Allegedly Banned Black History Month Accuses Black Teachers of Reverse Racism. Teachers Accuse Her of Original Recipe Racism” at The Root.
Read “This Is What Racism Sounds Like in the Banking Industry A JPMorgan employee and a customer secretly recorded their conversations with bank employees” at New York Times. ““We’re in Arizona. I don’t have to tell you about what the demographics are in Arizona. They don’t see people like you a lot.”
Read “Kansas City Chooses Free Public Transit” at The Appeal.
Read “Houston police chief criticizes McConnell and Senate Republicans over guns: 'Whose side are you on?' at CNN.
Read “Why You Need to Schedule Some Alone Time” at Rewire.
Read “Hiking Wheelchair Opens Up Outdoor Lifestyle To People With Serious Disabilities” at NPR.
Read “This town is giving families $500 a month. The results are remarkable: Recipients have used the money to apply for better jobs, spend more time with their children, or save for better housing” at The Guardian.
Read “Father Books 6 Flights To Stay With His Flight Attendant Daughter On Christmas” at Bored Panda.
Read “Socialism is as American as apple pie. Yes, really” at The Guardian.
Read “Former Top Mexican Security Official Arrested On Cocaine Trafficking Charges” at NPR.
Read “MLB to Stop Testing Minor League Players for Weed” at Now This.
Read “Merriam-Webster Singles Out Nonbinary 'They' For Word Of The Year Honors” at NPR.
Read “Goodell says league has 'moved on' from Kaepernick special workout at Reuters. ““This was about creating an opportunity. We created that opportunity. It was a unique opportunity, a credible opportunity, and he chose not to take it. I understand that ... We've moved on.”
Read “Greta Thunberg: TIME's Person of the Year 2019” at Time.
Read “Brazil's President Calls Greta Thunberg a 'Brat'“ at Time.
Read “Trump mocks 16-year-old Greta Thunberg a day after she is named Time’s Person of the Year” at Washington Post.
Hear “Controversial Versions of “The Star Spangled Banner” by Igor Stravinsky, Jimi Hendrix, José Feliciano & John Philip Sousa” at Open Culture.
Read “FCC votes to set up a 3-digit suicide hotline number like 911” at 12 News.
Read “We Teach Children, Not Curriculum” at The Educator’s Room.
Read “Lawsuit Claims SAT And ACT Are Illegal In California Admissions” at NPR.
Read “Betsy DeVos Overruled Education Dept. Findings On Defrauded Student Borrowers” at NPR.
Read “Congresswoman Tells Betsy DeVos, You Are ‘Out to Destroy Public Education’ at Rolling Stone. “I’ve had some honest disagreements with my friends in the Republican Party on how to move education forward but I have never, not one time, believed they were out to destroy public education until I met you.”
Read “Judiciary Committee releases report outlining constitutional grounds for impeachment The report aims to define what the framers of the Constitution meant by an impeachable offense” at 12 News.
Read as the Los Angeles Times Editorial Board declares ‘We’ve seen enough. Trump should be impeached.”
Read “Legal Scholars Conclude President Trump Engaged In Impeachable Conduct” at News and Guts.
Read “We need to stop reacting to Trump—and start responding. There’s a big difference” at America Magazine.
Read “AP Fact Check: Trump and the people he forgets he knew” at PBS News Hour.
Read “The Trump campaign has over $1 million in outstanding bills from American cities” at Washington Post.
Read “Articles Of Impeachment Against President Trump” at NPR.
Read “Trump pays $2 million in damages ordered by judge over misuse of charity funds, according to NY attorney general” at Washington Post.
Read “The Case For Impeachment Is Overwhelming” at American Conservative. “The president doesn’t have a credible line of defense left. That is why his apologists in Congress and elsewhere have been reduced to making increasingly absurd and desperate claims."
Read “Judge says South Carolina GOP allowed to cancel its 2020 primary” at PBS News Hour.
Read “Medicare chief asked taxpayers to cover stolen jewelry” at Politico.
Read “Millions in military aid at center of impeachment hasn’t reached Ukraine” at Los Angeles Times.
Read “Trump’s border wall threatens an Arizona oasis with a long, diverse history: Many observers fear that a 30-foot wall along the Arizona border with Mexico will harm wildlife, lower the water table and destroy archaeological treasures” at PBS News Hour.Buzzfeed.
Read “US Border Officials Are Issuing Fake Court Notices To Keep Out Immigrants Who Have Won Asylum” at Buzzfeed News.
Read “Under Trump, immigrants face increasingly long and complicated road to citizenship” at PRI.
Read “$400M Arizona border wall contract under review for potential impropriety” at KTAR.
Read “Doctors Say They Were Arrested Trying to Give Flu Vaccines to Detained Migrants” at Now This.
Read “U.S. Backs Out of U.N. Meeting on Human Rights Situation in North Korea” at Time.
Read “At 34, Finland's Sanna Marin Set To Become World's Youngest Sitting Prime Minister” at NPR.
Read “Explosive investigative report says U.S. government misled public on war in Afghanistan” at PBS News Hour.
Read “Trusting the News Media in the Trump Era Partisan dynamics overshadow other factors in Americans’ evaluations of the news media” at Journalism.org.
Read “A new U.N. report argues many of the street protests popping up around the globe are driven by a growing sense that societies are rigged to favor the powerful — and trap the masses in low-wage, dead-end lives” at NPR.
Read “Bolton Tweets Criticism of Trump Admin. Blocking UN Meeting on North Korea” at News and Guts.
Read “Russian Foreign Minister Invited To White House; Claims No Election Interference In 2016” at News and Guts.
Read “Homeowner Leaves Snacks For Amazon Delivery Guy And His Reaction Is Too Pure” at Bored Panda.
Read “Low-income communities are being decimated by fines.”
Read “Solange Is Very First Recipient of Lena Horne Award, Donating $100,000 Prize to Houston Charity” at The Root.
Read “Why Are Cops Around the World Using This Outlandish Mind-Reading Tool?” at ProPublica.
Read “The Mistake I Made With My Grieving Friend The author of We Need to Talk reveals how she learned to help — and not help — a friend with loss” at Huffington Post.
Read “A North Dakota county was poised to be first to bar refugees under Trump’s executive order. Residents said no” at Washington Post.
The “Best Of” Lists continue to roll in:
Browse Rolling Stone’s picks for “The 50 Best Songs of 2019.”
Browse Rolling Stone’s picks for “40 Best Country and Americana Albums of 2019.”
Browse “2019 Year End Lists: John Darnielle, the Mountain Goats” at Merge Records.
Browse Pitchork’s picks for “The 100 Best Songs of 2019.”
Browse Pitchfork’s picks for “The 50 Best Albums of 2019.”
Browse PopMatters’ picks for “The 70 Best Albums of 2019.”
Browse PopMatters’ picks for “The Best Jazz of 2019.”
Browse Paste’s picks for “The 50 Best Songs of 2019.”
Browse NPR’s picks for “The Best Songs of 2019 So Far.”
Browse NPR’s picks for “Best Music Of 2019.”
Browse “Steven Hyden’s Favorite Albums of 2019” at Uproxx.
Browse Vice’s picks for “The 100 Best Albums of 2019.”
Browse “RSTB Best of 2019” at Raven Sings The Blues.
Browse my list of 2019 Favorite music
Read as Time names Lizzo “Entertainer of the Year.”
Take “A Deep Dive Into Tom Waits’ Best Rare and Unreleased Material” with Tyler Wilcox at Pitchfork.
Read “Warren Ellis on the transformative power of music” at Sydney Morning Herald.
Read “Spotlight: Garcia Peoples” at Relix.
Read “How five friends from Phoenix came to rule the world as Alice Cooper” at AZ Central.
Read “Hall and Oates announce 2020 tour dates Including shows with Squeeze” at Consequence of Sound.
Read “A Conversation With Jeff Lynne Of ELO” at NPR.
Read “ASCAP launches health and wellness program for musicians A report earlier this year revealed that 73% of musicians suffer from mental illness” at Consequence of Sound.
Read “A Show About Spotify Is Coming to Netflix The scripted series will tell the story of Spotify’s creation” at Pitchfork.
Read “Dinosaur Jr. are in the studio making a new album” at Consequence of Sound.
Read “Chris Cornell’s Widow Sues Soundgarden Over Unreleased Recordings” at Rolling Stone.
Revisit at 1980 Relix interview with Robert Hunter about some of the band’s most memorable songs.
Read “Nils Lofgren: Back on the Horse” at Premier Guitar.
Read “The story of Ghanaian highlife legend Ebo Taylor’s “lost tapes” in his own words” at Vinyl Factory.
Read “How Ryley Walker Survived Addiction, Mental Illness, And Self-Destruction In 2019” at Uproxx.
Read “The Raincoats / 40th Anniversary :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview” at Aquarium Drunkard.
Read “In Memoriam: Bands We Lost In 2019” at Stereogum.
Read “‘Let It Bleed’: Why the Stones’ Nastiest Masterpiece Feels Right on Time” at Rolling Stone. “Their 1969 classic remains the band’s darkest LP, and that’s why it sounds perfect right now.”
Read “David Bowie immersive live experience to be held at National Space Centre planetarium” at NME.
Read “Talking Heads Create Official Instagram Account Stoking Rumors Surrounding “Remain in Light” 40th Anniversary” at Post-Punk.
Read “This is not your beautiful Talking Heads reunion, David Byrne confirms” at AV Club.
Read “40 Reasons We Still Love The Clash’s London Calling The band's masterpiece remains a glowing torch in a world of fear, injustice, and oppression” at Consequence of Sound.
TV and Movies get Year-End Lists too:
Browse Consequence of Sound’s picks for the “Top 25 Films of 2019.”
Browse “The 20 worst films of 2019” at AV Club.
Browse Think Christian’s picks for “The Best TV of 2019.”
Read “Redbox no longer lets you rent video games” at CNet.
“Watch a teaser for Hulu's Hillary Clinton docuseries” at AV Club.
Read “Prince’s Purple Rain Added to National Film Registry The Library of Congress has also archived She’s Gotta Have It, Clerks, The Last Waltz, and more” at Pitchfork.
Read “New Matrix film gets 2021 release, will open on same weekend as John Wick 4” at Consequence of Sound.
Read “The TV Club, 2019 Entry 4: TV isn’t dead, but it’s not getting livelier.” at Slate.
Read “Elon Musk wins defamation lawsuit over tweets against caver in Thailand rescue” at 12 News.
Read “Miss Universe 2019 Is Young, Gifted And An Outspoken Believer In 'Black Girl Magic'“ at NPR.
Read “Bill Cosby Loses Appeal of Sex Assault Conviction” at Variety.
Read the Chili’s menu interpreted by Cormac McCarthy at McSweeny’s.
Read “This Library Bar In Indiana Is Every Book Nerd’s Paradise” at Bookish Buzz.
“Check Out these Miniature Book Houses” at Bookish Buzz.
Browse “40 Of The Worst Newspaper Headlines To Make You Facepalm At The Stupidity” at Bored Panda.
Browse “Christianity Today's 2020 Book Awards” at Christianity Today.
Read as Bookish Buzz wonders “Seriously Though, How Did the Most Beautiful Library in America Get Demolished?”
Read “A Q&A with Justin McRoberts” by Aarik Danielsen at Fathom Magazine.
Read “A Gardener Found a Stolen Gustav Klimt Painting Tucked Behind a Secret Panel—in the Very Building It Was Stolen From” at Artnet.
Read “Revive Dying Coral Reefs, Study Finds” at Forbes.
Read “Plants 'Scream' in the Face of Stress: A new study suggests that plants that are stressed by drought or physical damage may emit ultrasonic squeals” at Live Science.
Read “Scientists discover how gene mutation causes autism and intellectual disability” at 12 News.
Read “Earth's magnetic song recorded for the first time during a solar storm” at Phys Org.
Read “ACA Insurers In The Supreme Court: Why Consumers Should Pay Attention” at NPR.
Read as Boing Boing wonders “Where are all the time travelers?”
Read “Weak potato harvest could cause French fry shortage across U.S., report says” at WSBT.
Read “St. Nicholas: The story behind Santa Claus” at CNN.
Read “The Story Behind Vintage "Shiny Brite" Christmas Ornaments” at Crackerjack 23.
Read “Someone Is Putting Tiny Cowboy Hats On Pigeons Around Las Vegas” at Unilad.
Read “The Time a Nazi Mad Scientist Built a Real Movie Villain Island Lair in Argentina” at Mysterious Universe.
Read “20-foot ‘Indescribably beautiful’ leg lamp inflatable appears at ‘A Christmas Story’ house” at Local 10.
Read “Man whose farts 'can kill mosquitoes six metres away hired to create new repellent'“ at The Mirror.
Read “Arizona man registers swarm of bees as emotional support animals” at New York Post.
Read “EPA Data: Phoenix Has Highest Levels in U.S. of Carcinogenic Gas Ethylene Oxide” at Phoenix New Times.
Read “Laws allowing U.S government to force Native American children into boarding schools still in force” at AZ Family.
Read “Versace to open store at Scottsdale Fashion Square mall in 2020” at ABC 15.
Read “Beer Price Could Double By End Of Month If Tax Break Expires” at KJZZ. “The Craft Beverage Modernization and Tax Reform Act could expire at the end of the month. Over the past two years, the act lowered federal excise taxes for breweries, wineries and distilleries. This allowed producers to use money they saved in taxes on their operations.”
Read “Ducey-Appointed Nursing Board Member Said 'Minorities' Are 'Trying to Change Us'“ at Phoenix New Times.