An Arch Nemesis – COPY
May 17, 2022
Some Good News
- Rejection of Arctic mine expansion bid offers hope for narwhal population (Guardian)
- Snapchat co-founder pays off college debt of new graduates at L.A. art and design school (LAT, $)
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“Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who love, time is eternity.” – Henry Van Dyke Jr.
A Dangerous Theory
A mass shooting in a supermarket in Buffalo, New York on Saturday grabbed the nation’s attention when the heavily-armed white male suspect’s manifesto revealed him to be a believer in what’s become known as “replacement theory.” Just like the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting of 2018 and the El Paso shooting in 2019, the perpetrators believe a formerly-fringe conspiracy theory that Western elites are trying to disempower and replace white Americans. The theory was also a source of inspiration for the Charlottesville, Virginia rally.
The Buffalo shooter is an extreme version of the kind of believer of this theory, traveling to a Black part of town to commit his atrocious crimes. The theory has also been watered down and made more palatable in order to be preached by right-wing politicians and political commentators. The language that points to one specific group is replaced with broader terms like “leftists” or “immigrants,” but the idea remains the same. Of course, we all know about Tucker Carlson’s decidedly extremist views. The New York Times analyzed Carlson’s show on Fox News and found that over 400 episodes include mentions of Democratic politicians and other assorted elites who want to force demographic change through immigration – some of his sources were the same as those cited as favorite sites of the Buffalo shooter.
But it’s not just Fox News commentators or domestic terrorists. Replacement Theory Lite has been espoused by former House speaker Newt Gingrich, when he said leftists were attempting to “drown” out “classic Americans.” New York Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, who replaced Liz Cheney as chair of the House Republican Conference a year ago to become the third highest-ranking House Republican, released a campaign ad about “a PERMANENT ELECTION INSURRECTION.” She said that by granting “amnesty” to illegal immigrants, Democrats would be able to “overthrow our current electorate and create a permanent liberal majority in Washington.” Perhaps the most on-the-nose admission of guilt came from Representative Matt Gaetz’s defense of Tucker Carlson, when he said, “@TuckerCarlson is CORRECT about Replacement Theory as he explains what is happening to America.” An AP poll found that nearly one-third of American adults believe there’s a plot “to replace native-born Americans with immigrants for electoral gains.” The dangers of these off-hand comments made by lawmakers and news anchors alike cannot be understated or overlooked. (NYT ($), CNN)
An Arch Nemesis
- McDonald’s temporarily shut down over 800 restaurants in Russia shortly after the invasion of Ukraine, but announced on Monday that they’ll be leaving the country entirely. The famous fast-food chain will sell its businesses in Russia, and once the deal is finalized, the restaurants will be “de-arched” – they can no longer use the McDonald’s name, menu, or logo. Employees will still be paid until a sale is finalized, and will have opportunities at whichever company acquires them.
- McDonald’s opened the doors of its first restaurant in Moscow on January 31, 1990. The company said, the “humanitarian crisis caused by the war in Ukraine, and the precipitating unpredictable operating environment, have led McDonald’s to conclude that continued ownership of the business in Russia is no longer tenable, nor is it consistent with McDonald’s values.” (CNN)
Property Bothers
- According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, China’s property sales dropped 46.6% compared to last April, the biggest year-on-year fall since August 2006. The news comes as the real estate market struggles to find demand for new properties.
- The sales slump doubles the decline from March, when sales dropped 26.17% compared to March 2021. The Chinese real estate market has been on a downtrend since last year, when authorities attacked excessive borrowing by developers, leaving some prospective homeowners worried that their projects might not be finished.
- Amidst another COVID-19 outbreak, cities across the country have attempted to revive property sales by reducing mortgage rates and down payments, but the effort might not be enough to boost the market. A rising unemployment rate and falling income growth are also factors in the market’s decline. (Reuters)
Additional World News
- Independent probe points to Israeli fire in journalist death (Politico)
- Ireland says EU ready to work with Britain but protocol must be respected (Reuters)
- Convicted killer turned tech whiz confronts his sordid past (AP)
- Somalia elects Hassan Sheikh Mohamud as new president (Al Jazeera)
- US vice president, officials heading to UAE to pay respects (ABC)
- Center-right seeks to keep power in key German state vote (AP)
- Chile’s constitutional assembly rejects plans to nationalise parts of mining sector (Guardian)
Minions Versus Dominion
- A Colorado judge rejected a request by Trump allies to dismiss a defamation case leveled against them following their accusations of election fraud against Dominion Voting Systems, an electronic voting hardware and software company. The case, filed by Dominion executive Eric Coomer, alleges that Trump allies, including Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, and the networks OANN and Newsmax, used false allegations to defame Dominion and its employees.
- According to the judge, Coomer “will be able to present the following credible evidence to a jury which would be sufficient to meet the clear and convincing evidentiary standard in support.” The judge also noted that “Giuliani had ample reason to know his information regarding Coomer was unreliable and false. Prior to making statements regarding Coomer at the November 19, 2020 press conference, Giuliani spent virtually no time investigating Coomer or the Antifa call.” (CNN)
A Hot Plot
- Nonprofit research group First Street Foundation released an interactive map Monday allowing people living in the U.S. the ability to assess the wildfire risk to their property. The map is the first of its kind, as the federal government only provides risk assessment maps for flood damage.
- According to the map’s data, 686,000 U.S. properties face at least a 1% chance of being damaged in a wildfire this year. Half of all properties in the continental states face some degree of wildfire risk, but that number could grow to 56% of all properties by 2052. In some states, over 90% of all properties are projected to face risk of damage from wildfires.
- While a 1% risk of damage from wildfire might seem small, the federal government uses a 1% risk of flooding damage to determine if properties need flood insurance, and wildfire damage can be much more impactful than flooding. Additionally, a 1% yearly risk becomes a 26% risk over 30 years, the span of a normal mortgage. (NYT, $)
Additional USA News
- A Dallas Koreatown salon shooting may be linked to others at Asian American businesses (NPR)
- 7 injured in ‘related’ North Carolina shootings across multiple locations (NBC)
- Churchgoers hog-tie gunman after shooting in California kills one (Reuters)
- Pennsylvania Senate candidate Fetterman says he had a stroke (AP)
- Milwaukee Bucks cancel watch party at Deer District following shootings near arena after Game 6 (CBS)
- Florida bridge plane crash killed 1 on board, police say (AP)
- Biden Approves Plan to Redeploy Several Hundred Ground Forces Into Somalia (NYT, $)
In Living Color
- Synesthesia is a condition where two of the five senses are intertwined – for example, a voice could have a taste or a word could be a color in someone’s mind. Content about this condition on TikTok has exploded, with videos under #synesthesia having garnered about 289 million views. Comments are full of people asking to know what their names taste or smell or look like, and some creators even make money by having users pay for a “reading.”
- Lexical-gustatory synesthesia, which is when someone can taste words, has been estimated to occur in less than 0.2% of the population, so the proliferation of synesthetes on the social media platform has been met with skepticism. In recent months, many were noting that dissociative identity disorder and Tourette syndrome seemed overrepresented on the platform as well, accusing users of faking the conditions for views.
- With synesthesia, however, it’s becoming clearer that the problem is not the users, but the math. Back in 1993, neurologist Richard E. Cytowic first estimated that just one in 100,000 people had synesthesia, but a recent study from the University of Sussex’s Multisense synaesthesia lab actually puts the rate at 4.4% of the population. So if you’re one of those unique folks that just knows the number 5 is green with pink stripes, you might not actually be as unique as you think. (Wired)
Additional Reads
- Researchers devise iPhone malware that runs even when device is turned off (Ars Technica)
- Longest pedestrian suspension bridge opens in Czech resort (AP)
- Revenge travel: How vacation vengeance became a thing (CNN)
- New US lab to create versions of atoms never recorded on Earth (Guardian)
- SpaceX on pace to shatter US launch records. Again (CNN)
- Citizen scientists help discover more than 1,000 new asteroids (Ars Technica)
- Alligator who turned up outside South Carolina school relocated (CNN)