SOURCE: COVIDACTNOW.ORG NEW YORK TIMES: Terrifying though the coronavirus may be, it can be turned back. China, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan have demonstrated that, with furious efforts, the contagion can be brought to heel.Whether they can keep it suppressed remains to be seen. But for the United States to repeat their successes will take extraordinary levels of coordination and money from the country’s leaders, and extraordinary levels of trust and cooperation from citizens. It will also require international partnerships in an interconnected world. There is a chance to stop the coronavirus. This contagion has a weakness. Although there are […]
WELCOME TO THE OCCUPATION: Foreign Policy’s Survival Guide To The Impending U.S. Lockdown
EDITOR’S NOTE: Ordinarily we would not post another media outlet’s content in full, usually just a few paragraphs and a link to the web site of origin for the complete article. However, the following information is too important, smartly-reasoned and elegantly rendered — in short, too essential — to remain locked behind a paywall in this moment of impending doom. So with all due apologies to Foreign Policy we are re-posting it here in full. Because sometimes looting is justifiable. Doomsday is one of those times. FOREIGN POLICY: Whether you are reading this in your living room in Vancouver, office […]
NPR 4 THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When U Can’t
Click HERE to enlarge FRESH AIR: The U.S. has had two recent presidential elections in which the winner of the popular vote — Al Gore in 2000 and Hillary Clinton in 2016 — ultimately lost to the challenger for the seat. That’s because the U.S. has an Electoral College — each state gets a number of votes (by representative electors) in the Electoral College that’s proportional to its population. And 48 of the 50 states (Maine and Nebraska are the exceptions) have been awarding those electoral votes on a winner-takes-all basis. But New York Times journalist Jesse Wegman says it […]
WARNING: Something Wicked This Way Comes
BLOOMBERG OPINION: The problems of how to accommodate rising aspirations for equality through inequality-generating economies were particularly acute for nation-states such as Germany, Italy and Japan, that were trying to catch up with economically advanced Western countries. Once the series of economic shocks that began in the late 19th century climaxed in the Great Depression, the elevation of the far-right to power, and intensified conflicts between states, was all but guaranteed. In our own conjuncture, all ingredients of the previous calamity are present, if ominously on an unparalleled scale. For decades now, de-industrialization, the outsourcing of jobs, and then automation, […]
CINEMA: The MAGA Hunters
THE HUNT (Directed by Craig Zobel, 89 minutes, USA, 2020) BY DAN TABOR FILM CRITIC The Hunt is a guns-blazing riff on the classic humans-hunting-humans short story The Most Dangerous Game, with a very relevant Age of MAGA twist. The plot revolves around a Pizza Gate-style conspiracy called “Manor Gate” — an email chain conspiracy theory about a farm where a group of liberal elites hunt Trumpers after giving them a weapon and a head start into the woods. While the film is careful not to invoke Trump’s name in the film, it’s pretty clear who these right-wing folks voted […]
REVIEW: Grimes Anthropocene
In the five years since she’s released an album, Grimes’ public image has transformed from burgeoning indie star into love interest of everyone’s favorite billionaire Elon Musk. In the interim, Grimes sated listeners thirst for new material with a one-off single called “We Appreciate Power” with her collaborator Hana. The song was exciting and metallic, and it had the most transcendent bridge of her career to date, only furthering the upward trajectory of Grimes’ artistry since 2012’s Visions. Her next studio effort, 2015’s Art Angels, was the strongest collection of songs she had released up to that point. All […]
Spike Jonze Drops Beastie Boys Story Trailer
RS: As seen in the clip, the movie was inspired by Diamond and Horovitz’s collaboration on 2018 memoir Beastie Boys Book and the live show that followed it. The 571-page tome, written over the course of four years, paid tribute to their best friend and bandmate, Adam Yauch, who died of cancer in 2012, which is also a key part of the trailer. The film will premiere in IMAX on April 2nd and on Apple TV+ on April 24th, right on the heels of the 26th anniversary of the release of Beastie Boys’ 1994 album Ill Communication. It reunites Beastie […]
MUST SEE TV: Naruto
Naruto, Masashi Kishimoto’s short anime series, explores the childhood of Naruto Uzumaki, an orphaned aspiring ninja in The Leaf Village. Naruto wants nothing more in the world than to become the Hokage of the Leaf Village, just like his father before him. Naruto grew up without a family, so in a sense, the citizens of the Leaf Village raised him — even though most despised his constant childish antics throughout the town. Naruto finds a home in his ninja team, Team 7. His team includes his instructor Kakashi Hatake, an introverted but highly trained ninja with a mysterious power and […]
REST IN POWER: Bryan Dilworth (1968-2020)
I don’t know how common knowledge this is, but countless times back in the ’90s, when some up-and-coming band that Bryan booked had been stiffed at the Khyber, he would wind up paying their meager guarantee out of his own pocket so they’d have enough gas money to make it to the next town/gig and live to rock another day. I remember sitting with him at the bar one night when some band I can’t remember the name of that we all liked but nobody in Philly had heard of/cared about was playing for the sound man, and Bryan, in […]
Q&A W/ Joshua Ostrander AKA Mondo Cozmo
BY JONATHAN VALANIA Joshua Ostrander, aka singer-songwriter-producer and one-man-band Mondo Cozmo, is having a moment. After years and years of dues-paying obscurity grinding out laudable-but-doomed-to-the-cutout-bins music in bands called Laguardia and East Coast Conference Champions, Ostrander is finally enjoying a turn in the sun. Born and raised in Bucks County, and a resident of Philadelphia until 2006 when he pulled up stakes and headed to L.A. in search of fame and fortune, Ostrander spent the better part of the last decade working dual landscaping gigs by day, and feverishly recording in his bedroom at night, living on little more than […]
CINEMA: Open Wide
SWALLOW (directed by Carlo Mirabella-Davis, 94 minutes, USA, 2019) BY DAN TABOR FILM CRITIC Swallow, the directorial debut by Carlo Mirabella-Davis, stars Haley Bennett as Hunter, a timid, blue collar woman who has married into a wealthy, overbearing family. Hunter spends her days cloistered in newfound luxury, decorating the exquisite home gifted by her husband and in-laws, who pressure her into a pregnancy she is at best ambivalent about. Katelin Arizmendi’s sublime cinematography imbues Hunter’s antiseptic surroundings with an almost otherworldly quality. Desperately searching for a way to take back control of her life, Hunter soon comes down with pica, […]
SONIC BOOM: Just Imagine
Sonic Boom, aka Peter Kember, announces the June 5th release date of his new solo LP All Things Being Equal, his first since 1990’s Spectrum LP. As an early treat, the hypnotic lead-off single and music video “Just Imagine”, dropped yesterday. Over the vivid, calculating arps, Kember’s trance-inducing vocal invites listeners to follow his bliss. The accompanying video, directed by Nuno Jardim, brings the song’s soulful psychedelia to life in visuals resembling an electronic aurora borealis. As these vibrant lights whirl and overlap, they eventually take the form of Kember. He becomes the viewer’s guide of sorts, transporting them through storm […]
Q&A W/ Swallow Director Carlo Mirabella-Davis
BY DAN TABOR FILM CRITIC A few weeks ago I got to chat with Carlo Mirabella-Davis, the writer and director of the unconventional psychological thriller Swallow, which opens in Philadelphia tomorrow. The upstate New York native’s feature length directorial debut stars Haley Bennett (The Girl on the Train) as the immaculate Hunter, a timid woman who married into a wealthy family and is now a stay at home wife. Desperately searching for the means to regain some semblance of control over her life, Hunter develops pica, a psychological disorder where you swallow things that no human should ingest: thumb […]