Category Archives: Around the World

“This isn’t a defense strategy. It’s a commandeering of communications and messaging to create an illusion about what’s happening on Capitol Hill.”

Slate: This Impeachment Won’t Be a Legal or Political Battle. It Will Be an Information War. “Republicans are willing to ignore what’s happening because they think they’ll get away with it. They might not be wrong.” By Dahlia Lithwick.

“Confusing and conflating the legal facts of impeachment with the political facts of impeachment is only the first step in the GOP effort to distort the impeachment process. The follow-up strategy is slowly emerging, and it’s as nihilistic as it is terrifying: The White House and Trump’s Republican defenders seem to understand that this is, at its heart, a messaging war. This is politics in the form of who dominates the airwaves. As such, the thrust of the new impeachment defiance will be to simply deny that any of it is happening in the first place. This isn’t an elaborate attempt to push back or to reframe or to counter the impeachment investigation; it’s a media tactic designed solely to deny its very existence. Wednesday’s revelation that Bill Taylor knew he was dealing with a quid pro quo should be the last nail in the bribery/abuse-of-power coffin. But it won’t be, because none of those concepts even figure in the Republican defense strategy.”

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Bayerischen Gypsy Brass, Funk Brass oder Alpen Jazz Techno

WDR Rockpalast: LaBrassBanda – Ein musikalischer Heimatfilm. (YouTube, 45min) Dokumentation von 2012.

“Die Band LaBrassBanda kommt aus Übersee in Bayern. Das kann man hören und sehen. Ihre Erfolgsgeschichte ist einzigartig und ungewöhnlich. Ihre Texte sind im Rest der Republik kaum verständlich. Sänger Stefan Dettl singt auf bayrisch. Und doch spüren die Menschen überall, worum es ihnen geht. Ihre musikalische Besetzung besteht aus Schlagzeug und Bass sowie Posaune, Trompete und Tuba. Mit dieser nicht alltäglichen Mischung schaffen es LaBrassBanda das Publikum mitzureißen. Ihre euphorischen Konzerte sind ein Erlebnis und bringen Menschen jeden Alters zusammen.”

“Women I meet every week assure me that they are never going to feel perfectly safe again”

Slate: Why I Haven’t Gone Back to SCOTUS Since Kavanaugh. “Some things are worth not getting over.” By Dahlia Lithwick.

“It is not my job to decide if Brett Kavanaugh is guilty. It’s impossible for me to do so with incomplete information, and with no process for testing competing facts. But it’s certainly not my job to exonerate him because it’s good for his career, or for mine, or for the future of an independent judiciary. Picking up an oar to help America get over its sins without allowing for truth, apology, or reconciliation has not generally been good for the pursuit of justice. Our attempts to get over CIA torture policies or the Iraq war or anything else don’t bring us closer to truth and reconciliation. They just make it feel better—until they do not. And we have all spent far too much of the past three years trying to tell ourselves that everything is OK when it most certainly is not normal, not OK, and not worth getting over.
[…]
Sometimes I tell myself that my new beat is justice, as opposed to the Supreme Court. And my new beat now seems to make it impossible to cover the old one.”

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“More people are using more nicotine products.”

NPR: Teen Vapers Who Want To Quit Look For Help Via Text.

“It all started at the mall when a friend offered her a puff from a JUUL e-cigarette.

“It was kind of peer pressure,” says Beth, a Denver-area 15-year-old who started vaping in middle school. “Then I started inhaling it,” she says. “I suddenly was, like, wow, I really think that I need this — even though I don’t.”

Soon, Beth — who asked that her last name not be used because she hasn’t told her parents about her vaping — had a JUUL of her own. She was vaping half a pod of e-liquid a day, the nicotine equivalent of half a pack of conventional cigarettes. She used other brands, too — a Suorin, a Novo and a modified device, which gives users custom vaping options.

Beth tried to quit on her own, so her mom wouldn’t find out. But it was hard and her school didn’t have enough resources to help her, she says.”