Articles of (Recent) Interest
During this time it has become increasingly important to stay informed (of course, only as much as you can handle). Here are some stories I thought were worth sharing:
I am subscribed to more newsletters than I can count. You can tell when I finally comb through them all because if you follow me on Twitter, I am always sharing some news article, spanning all types of domestic and international issues.
From Undark: The mission of this online space— “We illuminate the complicated and fractious places where science collides with politics, economics, and culture, and where differing world views compete for resources and influence.”
COVID-19 has brought to light many of the systemic and inherent flaws in our prison systems- but now that people are just beginning to pay attention to prisons death related to Covid-19….what are we overlooking? This article by Heather Schoenfeld, explores other crises in prisons that inmates suffer from.
There is no doubt that now, more than ever, we need hope and something to look forward to for our future. What about our path to mitigating climate change in 30 years? In a new book “The Future of Earth”, climate journalist Eric Holthaus explores an ambitious path to take and provides an inspirational vision on radically changing our world. His vision requires a mass amount of revolutionary thinking- are we ready for it?
Entirely alone. “This acute aloneness is one of the most heartbreaking aspects of the pandemic. And it has consequences that go beyond the lonely deaths. Health care workers aside, none of us will witness firsthand the intense suffering and death that Covid-19 has wrought. This, Weiss wrote in his day four entry, is the reality of the disease: “You really can’t understand till you see it…and that’s the problem. Nobody is seeing it.” And without a collective awareness of the loss and grief, without internalizing the scale of suffering, we aren’t emotionally equipped as societies to make the right decisions.” What are we not seeing?
How is that impacting how we deal with suffering, trauma, and grief? I am deeply worried about the emotional well being of our country. We must find ways to center community around our lives and re-imagine what that looks like without taking up physical space.
Women Bear a Heavy Burden— what are the ways in which the pandemic is disproportionately impacting women? Women make up the majority of front-line care takers around the world, are more likely to lose their job and be put in none-paying domestic positions at home, and are experiencing a serious spike in domestic violence. This article explores the far-reaching implications of this virus on women and the ways in which our long-term impact is understudied.
Covid-19 and the limits and inequalities in testing.
From The New Humanitarian: “The New Humanitarian is an independent, non-profit news agency focusing on humanitarian stories in regions that are often forgotten, under-reported, misunderstood or ignored.”
What are the 25 crises that have shaped human history? From 9/11 to the Rwandan Genocide. The war in Yemen or Syrian civil war. The implosion of Venezuela or the emergence of Boko Haram— these events no matter how different, completely influenced and changed the way we view humanitarianism and how we should respond in times of urgency.
How has Covid-19 impacted the women of Venezuela who travel through Colombia?
And for young girls in Cameroon..how is Covid-19 impacting the rise of child marriages?
When I volunteered at the border last summer I was immediately struck by how so much material on court information and bus procedure was in English instead of the language that migrants could understand.
Covid-19 is causing an added barrier in a similar way for migrants at the border.
And for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh at camps there are so many things lost in translation.
In India alone, the pandemic needs to be translated in 22 different languages for 1.3 billion people. Every word matters in a public health emergency.
A Few Videos!
August 3rd marked a 6 year commemoration of the massacre that Islamic State fighters launched an attack on the Iraq’s Yazidi minority in the Iraq’s Sinjar region. Nadia Murad, a survivor of Isis’s abuses and a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, and Amal Clooney, a human rights lawyer talked to the U.N to discuss the lack of progress that has been made in receiving justice. “None of the pathways to a court have been studied, pursued, or seriously discussed at the United Nations, or by the Security Council,” Clooney said. “No conference of foreign ministers has been convened. No government proposals, or counter-proposals, have been put forward and analyzed. No state has offered to host international trials.” You can watch it here.
What is the problem of facial recognition? What should we be aware of? John Oliver brilliantly investigates.
Another John Oliver piece on China and the recent human rights abuses against a Muslim minority.
TED Talk: Kiah Williams- You shouldn’t have to choose between filling your prescriptions and paying bills. This is actually brilliant and I implore everyone to give this a listen.
I have been loving The Atlantic lately! Here are some favorites:
Will Trump’s presidency finally mark the end of the denial of racism in the U.S? Ibram X. Kendi explores.
Where did we go wrong? How did a virus bring the greatest country on earth to it’s knees? For anyone interested in policy and what ways we can learn from our mistakes— this is a must read.
“Whether by conveying the scale of national grief during a pandemic, or exposing the relentlessness of racism, poetry has already created new ways of experiencing, and surviving, life’s darkest chapters.” The Atlantic had editors and writers send in 9 poems that are relevant and worth going back to during this time.
From Foreign Policy:
The sociologist who could have saved us from Covid-19?
From NPR Goats and Soda (aka my favorite reads for development economics and global health literature):
living bridges in a land of clouds, the photos here are dreamy. “In the Indian state of Meghalaya, one of the wettest places on Earth, villagers are separated by rivers and valleys. To stay connected, they coax tree roots to grow together into living bridges.”
What do 6 of the 7 countries with the most Covid cases have in common?
How Uganda is still ensuring that people have access to pads during the pandemic.
From the Activist History Review: how can this pandemic act as a process for self-discovery and radical transformation?
From ProPublica: how is the government letting down Native American children through public education?
photo from https://unsplash.com/@olenkasergienko?utm_source=squarespace&medium=referral