Barack Obama's original sin: America's post-racial illusion | Barack Obama

 Posted on March 23, 2024  |  19 minutes  |  3853 words  |  Aldo Pusey

Barack Obama campaigned on a promise of hope but for many the reality was a disappointment. Illustration: Joe MageeBarack Obama’s refusal to use his position as president to intervene on behalf of African Americans is a stain on his record many activists will never forget by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor. Illustration by Joe MageeIn the first hours of the new year in 2009, just weeks before Barack Obama was to be inaugurated as the next president, shots rang out in Oakland, California. [Read More]

I recently read that one of the gates into Jerusalem was named "The Eye of the Needle," and was quit

 Posted on March 23, 2024  |  9 minutes  |  1864 words  |  Aldo Pusey

NOOKS AND CRANNIESI recently read that one of the gates into Jerusalem was named "The Eye of the Needle," and was quite tricky to negotiate, since it was quite small. Does this mean that when Jesus said "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven," He meant that, far from being impossible, it was merely tricky? [Read More]

Man who murdered ex-girlfriend in hospital knife attack jailed for life | Knife crime

 Posted on March 23, 2024  |  4 minutes  |  794 words  |  Jenniffer Sheldon

Knife crime This article is more than 13 years oldMan who murdered ex-girlfriend in hospital knife attack jailed for lifeThis article is more than 13 years oldJonathan Vass repeatedly stabbed Jane Clough while on bail charged with raping her, court toldA man who stabbed his ex-partner to death while on bail charged with raping her has been given life in prison. Ambulance technician and former bouncer Jonathan Vass, 30, was given a minimum 30-year term for the murder of nurse Jane Clough, 26, the mother of his baby daughter. [Read More]

More than 1,000 workers sign up to unionize at top US Volkswagen plant | US unions

 Posted on March 23, 2024  |  3 minutes  |  461 words  |  Chauncey Koziol

US unions This article is more than 1 month oldMore than 1,000 workers sign up to unionize at top US Volkswagen plantThis article is more than 1 month oldUAW says effort at Chattanooga plant in Tennessee is booming as union aims expand membership after recent victories More than 1,000 workers at Volkswagen’s Chattanooga plant in Tennessee – the automaker’s flagship US manufacturing site – have signaled they want to unionize, a significant early win in the United Auto Workers’ latest attempt to expand its membership. [Read More]

Silo review this rich dystopian drama is absolutely thrilling

 Posted on March 23, 2024  |  4 minutes  |  811 words  |  Jenniffer Sheldon

TV reviewTelevisionReviewApple TV+’s adaptation of a novel about a post-apocalyptic, bunker-dwelling civilisation provides an utterly fantastic story. It builds its world meticulously – and packs plenty of punch Silo, Apple TV+’s 10-part adaptation of the first book in Hugh Howey’s bestselling trilogy of the same name, is not for the claustrophobic. The world-building is meticulous, and that world is almost entirely underground. The last few thousand people left alive on Earth at some unspecified (but we suspect not too distant) time in the future have been confined in a multilevel, self-sustaining, subterranean silo while they wait for the planet to recover from whatever toxic event rendered it uninhabitable. [Read More]

The Australian cult that fed children LSD: Guy Pearce on the disturbing true story behind The

 Posted on March 23, 2024  |  6 minutes  |  1187 words  |  Chauncey Koziol

Australian televisionActor and co-director Jeffrey Walker speak about the chilling inspiration behind the series Get our weekend culture and lifestyle email As soon as he put down the script, Jeffrey Walker knew he wanted to work on the Disney+ series The Clearing. “It was one of those reads that you just couldn’t stop thinking about,” the show’s co-director says. “It affected me emotionally and psychologically.” This might ring as hyperbole if it weren’t for the disturbing real-life story behind the script. [Read More]

The Flames by Sophie Haydock review vivid portraits of Egon Schieles muses

 Posted on March 23, 2024  |  4 minutes  |  667 words  |  Jenniffer Sheldon

Book of the dayFictionReviewFour women close to the Austrian painter are illuminated in this impressive debut, set against the tumult of Secession Vienna and its pandemic Egon Schiele’s images of women are challenging and varied. Some are elusive, quaint or decorative, but many are sexual, powerful, provocative. They raise unsettling questions of voyeurism and exploitation. Who were these women and what role did they play in Schiele’s life and his art? [Read More]

Too many cooks: the veg box | Food

 Posted on March 23, 2024  |  3 minutes  |  473 words  |  Valentine Belue

Word of Mouth blogFoodToo many cooks: the veg boxDo weekly deliveries mark the path of righteousness or the start of an inexorable slide into vegetable tyranny?Pandora's veg box? Photograph: Organic Picture Library/Rex Features I love my veg box - well to be strictly accurate, I used to. I loved the idea of getting fresh, seasonal veg direct from the farmer so I read up diligently on the subject and ordered a weekly box from a reputable supplier. [Read More]

We hugged for a long time: the Ukrainian father who rescued his children from Moscow

 Posted on March 23, 2024  |  7 minutes  |  1353 words  |  Kary Bruening

Yevhen Mezhevyi with Matvii, 13, ​and Sviatoslava (nine) and Oleksandra​ (seven) ​in Red Square, Moscow after being allowed to take them back. Photograph: Yevhen MezhevyiYevhen Mezhevyi with Matvii, 13, ​and Sviatoslava (nine) and Oleksandra​ (seven) ​in Red Square, Moscow after being allowed to take them back. Photograph: Yevhen MezhevyiUkraineMariupol resident Yevhen Mezhevyi was determined to find his son and daughters after they were deported to Russia Yevhen Mezhevyi struggled to hide his anger on Sunday when he saw footage of Vladimir Putin, the man who had overseen the deportation of his three children, visiting his home town of Mariupol. [Read More]

All That Is by James Salter review

 Posted on March 22, 2024  |  5 minutes  |  1050 words  |  Aldo Pusey

FictionReviewJames Salter, now in his late 80s, is amazingly good – but is he great, asks James Lasdun"Only those things preserved in writing have any possibility of being real," goes a line in the epigraph to James Salter's new novel. The preserving impulse must have special urgency for an author in his ninth decade. At any rate, the fast-flowing scenes that depict the 40‑year passage from youth to middle age of Philip Bowman, protagonist of All That Is, have a burn and clarity intense even by Salter's standards. [Read More]