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MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE by Michael Wolraich Order today at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop |
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When Trump flashed the Bible on Monday at St. John’s Church near Washington’s Lafayette Park, he was holding it upside down and backwards, almost as if the book—or any book—has an unknown purpose.
This made is painfully clear that he was using the Bible as a prop, and that his appearance in front of the church was an effort to pander to the religious right. ... it’s likely to be remembered as one of the most shameful stunts of his entire presidency.
Should we worry that the way they used to be is the way they are now?
As the protesters moved north, fringe groups hung back, setting fires, breaking windows and grabbing goods from a string of luxury boutiques.
By Ali Watkins, Erik M. Norman & Nate Schweber @ NYTimes.com, June 1 with numerous photos
[....] By morning, the devastation in Manhattan was unlike anything New York had seen since the blackout of 1977. Block after block of boutiques in the Flatiron district had their windows shattered and’ their goods looted.
All down Broadway and through the side streets of SoHo, the destruction was widespread and indiscriminate, from chain drugstores to the Chanel boutique, from the Adidas outlet to Dolce & Gabbana [....]
The police said that more than 400 people were arrested in New York overnight on Sunday, mostly for looting and burglary. [....]
After midnight, a second protest march from Brooklyn crossed the Manhattan Bridge after having clashed with the police outside the Barclays Center. Once they reached Manhattan, the protesters immediately began smashing windows of stores on the Lower East Side.
Not long after this group arrived in Manhattan, gunshots rang out along Crosby Street in SoHo, and people scrambled for cover. Two men dove into an idling car, which sped off. An ambulance soon arrived and picked up a man, who the police said had been shot. It is unclear whether the incident was connected to the looting or protests [....]
“We’re robbing everybody!” one young man yelled on Houston and Broadway at 2:24 a.m [....]
It was not only luxury franchises that were targeted: On Lafayette Street, Jason Ackerman, 45, stood in front of his small business, Soho Ink, a tattoo and clothing shop. He said shoplifters stole $1,000 cash, all his clothing merchandise and smashed his display cases.
“I feel anger, disgust; I feel shame for my city that we’ve resorted to destroying,” he said. “New Yorkers, we’re supposed to come together.”
Mr. Ackerman said he considered himself a supporter of the protests, and was troubled that the looting had tried to commandeer its mission.
The destruction waned by 3 a.m., but it brought a new wave of panic: Looters, many of whom had crossed over the bridge from Brooklyn, realized they had no means of transport home. The city’s subways have been shut down overnight because of the coronavirus pandemic [....]
At 5:18 a.m., Joseph Holder, 65, a maintenance worker who sweeps the streets, surveyed the damage and was horrified. “I’m fearful for my life,” said Mr. Holder, who is black. “Yes, black lives matter, but what example are you setting for the next generation?” “Let me do what I have to do,” he said, preparing to go work. “Because I don’t want to be on these streets too long.”
Watching all the terrible news in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd, it’s been hard not to think about Eric Garner. The cases have so many similarities.
Can hay fever give you a cough? Do you get a temperature with hay fever? How do I know if I have coronavirus or hay fever?
The Royal College of General Practitioners is warning people not to mix up the symptoms of coronavirus with hay fever.It says it's concerned people may leave their houses thinking they've just got the seasonal illness, when actually they have contracted a deadly virus and should stay at home.
Here, BBC health correspondent Laura Foster explains how you can tell the difference.
Newark, New Jersey’s largest city, made no arrests and reported only minimal property damage during a weekend march.
By Tracey Tulley & Kevin Armstrong @ NYTimes.com, June 1
[....] The 12,000-person protest on Saturday afternoon brimmed with rage at the death of Mr. Floyd, a 46-year-old African-American man who died in Minneapolis after being handcuffed and pinned to the ground at the neck by Derek Chauvin, a white police officer.
But there were no protest-related arrests during the weekend. Tires were slashed on squad cars, but none were set ablaze and no storefronts were smashed. The most prominent graffiti, a message scrawled on a courthouse in spray paint — “WE LOVE U GEORGE” — had been power-washed clean by Sunday afternoon. “A lot of tension. A lot of anxiety,” Newark’s mayor, Ras Baraka, said Sunday in an interview. “But the community held the line.”[....]
Newark is not the only community that, so far, has remained relatively calm. Protesters in other cities, including Camden, N.J., and Flint, Mich., held similarly peaceful rallies, and Newark’s march was not without moments of confrontation [....]
But the simmering tension never reached a flash point — a victory that city officials and residents attributed to a combination of tactical decisions, community and political leadership and the still-raw memory of 1967.
Mr. Baraka, an African-American former high school principal whose father, the poet Amiri Baraka, was brutalized by the police in July 1967, invoked those dark days during a speech before the march as he urged only peaceful protest.
The director of the Newark Police Department, Anthony F. Ambrose, who is white, made a tactical decision not to position police officers in military-style gear along the route.
And members of the Newark Community Street Team, an entity formed six years ago to de-escalate violence in the city, and other community groups were deployed throughout the crowd to try to isolate those intent on destruction.
But in more than a dozen interviews, protesters and city leaders said it was the potent determination of predominantly young African-American members of the Newark community — many of whom have had past run-ins with the police — who stood in the way of widespread destruction.“It was a combination of anarchists and opportunists waiting for a window to be broken so they could go in and grab something,” said Aqeela Sherrills, the director of the 50-person street team. “But I tell you: The community wasn’t having it.” [....]
George's brother Philonise has since received calls from both Mr Trump and former Vice President Mr Biden.
He told MSNBC at the weekend that Mr Trump hadn't given him a chance to speak - but he went into more detail comparing the two during an interview with CNN.
"The Vice President - I loved this conversation. He talked to me for like 10 to 15 minutes," Philonise said.
"I was trying to talk his ear off ... great conversation."
By Stephanie Taladrid @ NewYorker.com, May 29
[....] “We were told that the cure to the coronavirus was isolation,” she said. “But, in a country where there is no food, no water, no light, no nothing, how are you supposed to isolate?” In mid-March, when President Nicolás Maduro ordered a lockdown, she and many other Venezuelans carried on with their normal lives. That meant going to the market every day to find whatever they could afford, if anything. Venezuela has the highest inflation rate in the world—bolivares are practically worthless, and most prices are in U.S. dollars. “A kilo of flour that today costs two hundred and ten thousand bolivares will be two hundred and fifteen thousand tomorrow,” González told me. Eggs now cost more than the monthly minimum wage [....]
[....] It’s increasingly clear that Venezuela’s regime is using the pandemic to strengthen its hold on power. Earlier this month, the Academy of Physical, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences issued a report accusing the government of underreporting infections. It warned of an estimated one thousand to four thousand cases, per day, as early as June. Days later, Diosdado Cabello, the Vice-President of Venezuela’s ruling party, dismissed the report and announced an investigation into the academy’s work. Appearing on his weekly state-television program, “Beat Them with a Club,” Cabello declared the report “an invitation to state security bodies to summon” its authors. Maduro’s nationwide lockdown has largely thwarted people’s ability to hold mass demonstrations. In a show of force, the military is enforcing quarantine measures and overseeing hospitals. More than a dozen health-care workers and journalists have been detained for speaking publicly about missing supplies or questioning the official infection count. As the pandemic spreads, the Trump Administration has continued its aggressive use of economic, legal, and military pressure on Venezuela—first by tightening sanctions, and recently by deploying naval destroyers off the country’s coast.
The country’s health-care system is in disarray after years of mismanagement and corruption. Shortages of medicine, supplies, and personal protective equipment are endemic [....]