October 25, 2016
“When Terrence M. Cunningham, the chief of police in Wellesley, Mass., and president of America’s largest police management organization, issued a formal apology earlier this week to the nation’s minority population ‘for the actions of the past and the role that our profession has played in society’s historical mistreatment of communities of color,’ he was making a long-overdue gesture.” Frank Serpico writes about the need to break the police brotherhood and “code of silence,” and how recent words by the head of the International Association of Chiefs of Police help. / Politico Magazine
New project provides census tract-level granular details about the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation’s efforts to destroy black neighborhoods in many major American cities. / dsl.richmond.edu, Slate
Government influence and censorship in TV shows and movies about law enforcement can be traced from Dragnet, created as a partnership with the LAPD, to Martin O’Malley’s blessing of The Wire’s depiction of Baltimore. / The Washington Post
“All the vibrations are vibrating, vibration-wise. I saw a cloud the other day that was the spitting image of Rudy Giuliani’s jowls. A Denny’s waitress gave me 2% off my pancakes because she was so impressed by the bedazzling on my Steve Bannon fanny pack. ‘Melania’ is now the 6,478th most popular name for houseplants.” Facts to back the oncoming Trump landslide. / Fusion
Dead people “voting” has been an American election year bugbear since the 1870s, and yet there’s zero evidence to show it has ever fraudulently happened. / Atlas Obscura
“It’s not for me to take away a grown man’s Twitter account.” Profile of Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway veers dangerously close to SNL parody. / CNN
Trump TV is a little more bootleg than we envisioned. Streamed on Facebook Live every night, his campaign news might be harder to find on cable than footage of him wrestling Steve Austin in 2007. / Politico, NPR
“Some supposed authorities have deemed me worthwhile, and so now I ‘matter.’ That is, until these authorities fade away, only to be replaced by new authorities. Gawd, I hope they like me. Just kidding. Fuck authority.” Elisa Albert’s notes against ambition in literature and life. / Hazlitt
Pete Burns, singer of “You Spin Me Round (Like a Record),” died. / YouTube
“In a world defined by our bodies, is it wrong to want more?” Should we apologize for finding transcendence in video games? / Medium
In case you feel like reliving the ’90s for a minute, the producers behind Amy have set their sights on the Gallagher brothers. / Esquire
“Canada is right where Stephen Harper left us. It’s been a year since the election, and we’re still selling arms to Saudi Arabia, still cutting $36bn from healthcare, and still basing our economy on fossil fuel extraction, and running roughshod over indigenous rights to do so.” Op-ed: You know know Canada isn’t warm, but it isn’t fuzzy either. / The Guardian
On Friday, the United Nations named Wonder Woman an Honorary Ambassador for the Empowerment of Women and Girls, and predictably, not everyone is happy about the elevation of a white comic book superhero most commonly portrayed as a scantily clad, overly voluptuous vixen. To be sure, the outfit is problematic—little more than go-go boots and a strapless armored American-flag-themed swimsuit one rogue jiggle away from toplessness—and it’s hard to see how much traction she could hope to gain in many of the culturally conservative nations where the most gender-oppressed women and girls she’s meant to inspire live. / CNN, thepetitionsite.com, NPR
“When it comes to minorities and women, we are only encouraged to run when the demographics are in our favor and discouraged when the demographics are not.” Ilhan Omar, a Muslim Somali refugee, who has been active in politics since arriving in the United States as a child, is poised to win a place in the Minnesota State Legislature, representing a non-Muslim-majority district of Minneapolis. / Huffington Post
Donald Trump’s “Such a nasty woman” comment to Hillary Clinton during the final presidential debate has inadvertently created a booming cottage industry of “nasty woman” swag for Clinton supporters. / Forbes
Massimo Bottura of Osteria Francescana, voted the World’s Best Restaurant, makes his signature dish of the “Crunchy Part of Lasagna”—a robustly Italian interpretation of chips and dip—and serves it to a robot. / theworlds50best.com
Specialty coffee growers surveying beans in the Democratic Republic of Congo risk kidnapping, extortion, and getting mixed up in machete fights to attend coffee tastings and source some of the world’s rarest and tastiest beans, in one case described as having “an easy-to-like personality.” Since high-quality coffee now accounts for 50 percent of all the coffee sold in the United States, traveling to “one of the last frontiers in a global scramble for the world’s best-tasting coffee” pays off. / The Wall Street Journal
Among the better political ads we’ve seen this cycle: Wife pleads for her husband’s reelection so he’ll quit talking to her about city budgets and transit policy. / YouTube
Good morning. Here’s a lovely “Earthrise” captured from the moon. / planetary.org
1) “Drinking parity” achieved: women now drink about as much alcohol as men. / BBC
2) Your shampoo may be labeled “organic,” but the term’s probably meaningless. / Quartz
The Museum of Endangered Sounds houses recordings of AOL Instant Messenger, rotary phones, dial-up tones, Space Invaders, typewriter clack, even Tamagotchi. / savethesounds.info
It’s settled, then: Transcription companies and professional linguists suspected that Trump was saying “big league,” not “bigly” this whole time. His spokesperson says they’re right. / The New York Times
So, how do you translate “bigly” and “I moved on her like a bitch” in other languages? In Chinese, apparently it’s “I pursued her like a harlot, but I could not succeed.” Some of Trump’s strange vocal tics are making linguists very frustrated. / montrealgazette.com
“Chinese people rarely talk about renminbi or yuan. The word they use is ‘kuai’, which literally means ‘piece’, and is the word used historically for coins made of silver or copper.” The Chinese currency is called both “yuan” and “renminbi.” Which one should you use, if either? Turns out, there are political reasons behind your choice. / Marginal Revolution
“When the next humanitarian crisis occurs, the cry of ‘no more Aleppos’ may be compelling. In that sense, at least, Syrian civilians won’t have died entirely in vain.” Washington’s zeal for humanitarian action ebbs and flows, which kills people. / The Atlantic