What to do with the art of monstrous men? That’s the question Claire Dederer grapples with in Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma. She wonders whether she can or should continue to love the work of Roman Polanski and Michael Jackson, Hemingway and Picasso? And if it’s possible to divorce the art from the artist.
How do we now view the glorious, technicolour paintings of Paul Gauguin’s works from Tahiti? The writer Devika Ponnambalam has imagined the life of one of his muses Teha’amana in her latest novel, I Am Not Your Eve. Gauguin was 43 when he first arrived on the island in 1891 and made numerous teenage girls his ‘unofficial wives’.
The science writer Michael Bond is interested in the psychology behind fandom. In his book Fans he looks at the pleasure of tribalism and sense of belonging, but also what happens when one’s hero falls short, and the cognitive dissonance needed to continue to stay true to a monstrous genius.
In State Responses to Crimes of Genocide: What Went Wrong and How to Change it (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022) Dr Ewelina U. Ochab and Lord Alton of Liverpool bring together ongoing situations of genocide around the globe. Foregrounding the testimonies of victims, the authors' multiple visits to the aftermath of atrocities, and the countless actions taken by Lord Alton in British Parliament over his 40 year political career, this book is a chilling but essential read which compels a response. Atrocities are contextualised in the history of the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. It poses the question as to what, if anything, has improved since the Genocide Convention was enacted in 1948.
In our interview, Dr Ochab and Lord Alton make the case that the international response to recent and ongoing genocides perpetrated against Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang, against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, against belief minorities in Syria and Iraq, and in Nigeria and Dafur, have been inadequate. Instead, the global community must act to predict, prevent, protect and punish genocide. And while recent responses to these atrocities would seem to give little hope for the future, the book does aim to motivate action to prevent the crime of genocide in the future.
Dr Ewelina U. Ochab is a human rights advocate, author and co-founder of the Coalition for Genocide Response.
Lord David Alton of Liverpool was a Member of the House of Commons in British Parliament for 18 years, and is now an Independent Crossbench Life Peer.
Jane Richards is a doctoral student at the University of Hong Kong. You can find her on twitter where she follows all things related to human rights and Hong Kong politics @JaneRichardsHK
Today, Liz and Andrew check in on three stories we've previously covered: the conclusion of the E. Jean Carroll lawsuit against Donald Trump; the recent convictions of the Proud Boys in connection with the January 6 insurrection; and what's going on in Fulton County, Georgia. It's a whirlwind and you don't want to miss it!
In the Patreon bonus, Andrew and Liz discuss what really happened in Hawaii in 1960 and why it doesn't help the insurrectionists no matter what John Eastman tells you.
Eight people were killed and at least seven others were wounded Saturday after a gunman opened fire at an outlet mall in Allen, Texas – making it the 200th mass shooting of the year, and the second deadliest since the Monterey Park attacks in January.
King Charles III was officially crowned Saturday as Britain's first new reigning monarch in 70 years. Royal watcher Kristen Meinzer tells us how Charles' coronation was different from when his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, ascended to the throne, and how public opinion of the monarchy has changed since then.
In headlines: CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky will step down at the end of June, seven horses died at the Churchill Downs racetrack in the days ahead of the Kentucky Derby, and two American couples were busted for trying to bring in over 650 pounds of Fruit Roll-ups into Israel.
Crooked Coffee is officially here. Our first blend, What A Morning, is available in medium and dark roasts. Wake up with your own bag at crooked.com/coffee
A 10-year-old girl from Honduras arrived at the southern border unaccompanied by adults. She told Sheena Rodriguez that she hoped to stay in America, and wanted to “color and get to know my father.”
The Honduras girl is like so many other unaccompanied alien children, says Rodriguez, founder and president of Alliance for a Safe Texas.
These kids arrive at the border with “pieces of paper with handwritten numbers on it," she says, "and these children are going to people that they have never even spoken to."
About 85,000 migrant children have entered the U.S. and been placed with a sponsor, but the federal U.S. government now doesn't know the children's location or status. Through her work at Alliance for a Safe Texas, Rodriguez seeks to raise awareness about how the border crisis has led to the exploitation of children, and to offer solutions to lawmakers who are trying to fix policies that led to the current situation.
Rodriguez’s desire to find out what was really going on at the southern border began about three years ago. She says she needed to see the situation for herself, so she planned a trip. Rodriguez left her home in North Texas and arrived around midnight in Laredo, about 160 miles south of San Antonio on the Mexican border.
“We encountered about 60 different men, all young men, to the one Border Patrol agent,” Rodriguez says, adding: “And he looked at me, didn't know me from anywhere, and said, ‘I need help. We're being invaded.’"
At that moment, Rodriguez says she committed to doing something to address the border crisis.
Since that first trip, Rodriguez says, she has taken nearly three dozen trips to the border and spoken with many illegal aliens, including unaccompanied migrant children.
Rodriguez joins "The Daily Signal Podcast" to share stories of these unaccompanied children and explain what we know about how minors are arriving alone at the border.
To hear Ron DeSantis tell it, “Disney” represents “wokeness.” To the state of Florida, though, the company represents tourist dollars and tax revenue. As the war between Mickey and the Florida governor heads to the courts, Disney CEO Bob Iger doesn’t seem worried. Is DeSantis?
Guest: Lori Rozsa, the Washington Post’s Florida correspondent.
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Make an impact this Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage Month by helping Macy’s on their mission to fund APIA Scholars. Go to macys.com/purpose to learn more.
It's our first ever listener mailbag episode of Strict Scrutiny! You asked, we answered-- is court expansion possible? Is law school worth it? Who are our fancy billionaire friends? Can we stop being such hysterical harpies? Which Taylor Swift song is the best? Plus, we recap Justice Alito's "interview" with the Wall Street Journal so you don't have to read it.
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Today on the show, we meet a prosthetic designer and a neuroscientist fascinated with understanding how the brain and body might adapt to something we haven't had before — a third thumb. Dani Clode and Tamar Makin spoke to Short Wave in Washington D.C., at the 2023 annual meeting for the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
The protagonist of Susanna Hoffs' debut novel, Jane Start, probably listens to Dionne Warwick to hype herself up in the morning. Start is 33 and living with her parents – her days of pop stardom, for one song, are 10 years behind her. But in This Bird Has Flown, a romantic spark reignites a second chance for her creative endeavors, too. In today's episode, Hoffs tells NPR's Andrew Limbong how her own experiences as a rockstar influenced the story, which she's now adapting into a feature film.
