Our correspondent describes the fraught effort to attend the opening ceremony. It is a pageant highlighting a divided world, with party leaders aiming for zero covid, zero mistakes and zero dissent. An investigation reveals the brutal treatment meted out by Libya’s coast guard dealing with Europe-bound migrants—an outfit bankrolled by the European Union itself. And America’s gun-owners become surprisingly diverse.
The Covid vaccines are medical miracles. During the pandemic they have been literal life-savers; I’ll never forget the relief I felt after getting that first shot.
Despite the conspiracy theories in some corners of the web or on Fox News, there is simply zero evidence that they are killing people; that they are harming people in large numbers; or that this is all some malicious plot by Big Pharma. There is overwhelming proof that these vaccines prevent serious illness.
Like all medical interventions, though, vaccines can have side effects. And in the case of mRNA vaccines—those from Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna—there is a small but real risk for young people, especially young males. The need for an evidence-based discussion about the wisdom of requiring boosters is urgent.
But that’s easier said than done.
Over the course of this pandemic, the public has been told that pronouncements from federal health officials represent “the science.” Distinguished medical experts, including some from our nation’s most elite institutions, who have questioned official Covid recommendations and policies—on everything from lockdowns to masking to vaccine mandates—have often been demonized and sometimes silenced.
And so healthy debate about scientifically complicated and morally complex subjects has been shut down, both by censors and by self-censorship.
David Zweig has been one of those rare journalists who, from the start, has challenged the accepted narrative on Covid. He has published a stream of investigations for New York Magazine, the Atlantic, and Wired—from questioning the wisdom of closing schools, to hospitalizationmetrics, to maskingchildren—that initially were maligned or ignored, only to be accepted by legacy media and acknowledged by health officials months later.
Today, he reads an article he wrote for Common Sense that tackles the knotty subject of boosters and myocarditis.
A New Jersey ice cream truck just raised Venture Capital money, but our Takeaway has nothing to do with ice cream… just VC $$$. Amazon is jacking up the price of your Prime subscription because it’s time to hook ‘em and book ‘em. And Snapchat stock surged 60% because it realized early the greatest threat to social media isn’t regulation… it’s Apple.
$SNAP $AMZN
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For thousands of years, humans have traveled on the water and have wondered if it was possible to travel under the water like a fish.
The idea of underwater travel stuck around for centuries, but eventually, humans did figure out how to travel underwater, even if the first efforts were not successful.
Learn more about the submarine, how it was invented, and how they work, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
We’re not here to cancel Whoopi Goldberg over her Holocaust comments, but it looks like her own television network is already on it. The White House weighs in on censoring podcaster Joe Rogan, the masking meltdown continues in Northern Virginia, and Canadian truckers revolt against vaccine mandates.
Times
00:12 - Segment: Welcome to the Show
10:55 - Segment: The News You Need to Know
11:39 - Segment: Uncanceled
11:48 - Whoopi Goldberg suspended from The View over Holocaust comments
15:18 - Georgetown suspends constitutional law professor Ilya Shapiro over tweet, and students demand reparations from the school
18:24 - The White House weighs in on censoring podcaster Joe Rogan
25:40 - Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson comes to Rogan’s defense
26:47 - Mask meltdown continues in Loudoun County, Virginia
31:27 - Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti claims he held his breath while taking a photo with Magic Johnson at the NFC championship game
32:18 - Mom takes on the Prince William County School Board over masks
34:45 - Canadian truckers blockade roads in the country’s capitol, in protest of vaccine mandates
45:50 - The Washington Football Team takes on a new name: The Washington Commanders
Over 75 years have passed since the end of World War II, but the collective memory of the conflict remains potently present for the people of the Russian Federation. Professor David Hoffman, editor of a new collection of essays about war memory in “Memory of the Second World War in Soviet and Post-Soviet Russia” suggests that this is no accident. Together with an impressive, interdisciplinary roster of academic contributors, Hoffman examines how the current leadership of Russia has put war memory at the heart of national identity, and used it as a powerful unifying force.
Professor Hoffman and his fellow contributors were inspired by the memory studies of Pierre Nora, and in the fifteen well-crafted essays that make up The Memory of the Second World War in Soviet and Post-Soviet Russia (Routledge, 2021) they examine a wide range of what Nora called the “lieux de mémoire” or sites of memory, which includes textbooks, memorials, monuments, archives, and films. Hoffman’s choice of this international group of scholars, working in Russia, Ukraine, Britain, France, Norway, Austria, Germany and the United States across a range of academic disciplines, from film to sociology ensures that the essays offer a wide range of viewpoints and subjects, moving in a deft chronological sweep from just after the war to the present day.
World War II, known in Russia today as The Great Patriotic War, was a defining moment for the twenty-four-year-old Soviet State. If the Revolutions of 1917 created the USSR, it was the hard-won victory over the Nazis in The Great Patriotic War that turned it into a Great Power. The cost of that victory remains breath-taking today: 27 million men and women lost their lives, major cities were destroyed, and millions were left displaced. No family escaped the collective trauma, which is still felt today.
In examining the sites of memory, the essays in “Memory of the Second World War in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia” offer a comprehensive look at the developing deployment of war memory, particularly by the current Russian leadership. Although Vladimir Putin was not alive during World War II, he has sought to weave his own personal narrative into that of the memory of the Great Patriotic War. Putin revived and expanded the countrywide commemorations of May 9 or Victory Day, which provided the vivid backdrop to his first inauguration ceremony in 2000. As president and prime minister, Putin spearheaded a renewed respect for the dwindling cadre of World War II veterans, and by creating state-of-the-art historical museums dedicated to the war, he ensured that war memory is kept alive for a new generation of Russians.
“Memory of the Second World War in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia” also explores the changing narratives around Ukraine and other former Soviet republics, the Holocaust, Lend-Lease, local media, and other key aspects of the collective memory of World War II in Russia. While the collection is a valuable contribution to the emerging scholarship on World War II memory begun by Nina Tumarkin and others, I suspect that “Memory of the Second World War in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia” will ultimately enjoy a much wider audience: the essays offer rich insight into the mindset of Russia’s leaders and people, at a moment of heightened tensions between Russia and the West.
Professor David Hoffman is Ohio State’s College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor.
Jennifer Eremeeva is an American expatriate writer who writes about travel, culture, cuisine and culinary history, Russian history, and Royal History, with bylines in Reuters, Fodor's, USTOA, LitHub, The Moscow Times, and Russian Life.
South Dakota became the first state to pass an anti-trans bill in 2022 yesterday, and according to a report by the Human Rights Campaign, roughly 280 anti-trans bills will likely move through state legislatures nationwide this year. Chase Strangio, a lawyer for the ACLU and transgender activist, joins us to discuss how we can get involved in the fight to combat these measures across the country.
President Biden said that the U.S. had conducted a raid in Syria during which Abu Ibrahim al-Hashemi al-Qurayshi, the leader of ISIS, died. There were at least three civilian deaths confirmed by the Pentagon with no American casualties. Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Adam Schiff said that the civilian deaths should be investigated “while keeping in mind the history of ISIS leaders using civilians as human shields.”
And in headlines: The Biden administration accused Russia of planning a false flag operation, the FBI identified suspects amid a wave of bomb threats against historically Black colleges and universities, and Facebook reported it had lost daily active users for the first time in its history.
Antisemitism is a problem, not only in the Middle East, but also in the United States. It’s also a problem that some members of Congress are willing to engage in and/or are willing to ignore in their own ranks.
In 2019, Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., made a series of remarks many considered to be antisemitic. Rep. David Kustoff of Tennessee is one of two Jewish Republicans in Congress and was horrified by what she has said.
Among other things, Omar has implied that American Jews hold a dual loyalty to the U.S. and to Israel, and stated that Jews had "hypnotized the world."
"What a congressman or senator says or does or demonstrates matters, and it gets magnified," he explained. "The fact of the matter is, when you have members who say some of the things that some of their members say, people pay attention, and it gains some resonance around the world."
Kustoff joins the show to discuss where Congress has failed to push back against antisemitism in its ranks and what Congress’ role in combating it is.
Also on today's show:
The global leader of ISIS is dead following a counterterrorism raid in Syria by U.S. special forces.
Virginia's new attorney general is getting involved in a lawsuit over mandatory masks in the state's schools.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and other officials emphasize the importance of mask-wearing at the Super Bowl after he was spotted not wearing one at an NFL playoff game last weekend.
