2024 Presidential candidate and bestselling author Marianne Williamson returns to Bad Faith to explain why she unsuspended her campaign, what she makes of RFK’s success, and how her politics toward Israel bear on her approach to the crisis in Gaza. She reflects on past criticism from the left -- including Norm Finkelstein and RBN -- and debates the characterization of her views as "Zionist." Stick around until the end for some Oscars 2024 discussion.
Uganda's President 79 year old Yoweri Museveni, has promoted his son Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba to head the military. His promotion comes amid a major cabinet reshuffle in which five ministers were sacked. Mr Museveni has denied speculation that he is grooming him as his successor. What do Ugandans make of it?
Also an analysis of the recently approved Rwandan bill that, Rwanda says, will ensure the safety of asylum seekers from the UK
And why the opinion about the police across the continent is very low!
Today's podcast considers the terrorist attack in Russia and what it means for the war in Ukraine—and what the chaos in Congress means for the war in Ukraine as well. Also, lesson #257 in what happens if you try to get a job in mainstream media when you're on the right, and what the new Netflix show Three-Body Problem might tell us about our coming debt cliff. Give a listen.
Warnings from the Americans went unheeded, police took too long to respond, and now the Kremlin has found a way to link it to Ukraine. Could this tragedy be used to Vladamir Putin’s advantage? A hotline for Japanese men to discuss their anxieties is an unfortunate indicator of a wider social problem (09:48). And why America’s love for big trucks is hitting a dead end (17:15).
For full access to print, digital and audio editions of The Economist, try a free 30-day digital subscription by going to www.economist.com/intelligenceoffer
Donald Trump faces deadline to post bond to cover New York judgment. Mourning Moscow attack victims. United Airlines scrutiny. CBS News Correspondent Steve Kathan has today's World News Roundup.
Israel's Defense Minister is in the U.S. today at a moment of tension between the two allies. An offshoot of the Islamic State claims responsibility for Friday's mass shooting in Moscow, while Russian authorities point instead to Ukraine. And two of Donald Trump's legal battles collide today — one criminal, one civil, both in New York City.
Want more comprehensive analysis of the most important news of the day, plus a little fun? Subscribe to the Up First newsletter.
Today's episode of Up First was edited by Mark Katkov, Nick Spicer, Krishnadev Calamur, Alice Woelfle and Ben Adler. It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Ben Abrams and Milton Guevara. We get engineering support from Phil Edfors. And our technical director is Carleigh Strange.
The Vietnamese American writer Viet Thanh Nguyen was awarded the Pulitzer prize for his debut novel The Sympathiser in 2016. Now he turns his attention to memoir, in A Man of Two Faces. He was four when he was forced to flee Vietnam with his family, but as he looks back at his life he explores the necessity of forgetting and remembering, and how far the promise and dream of America can be trusted.
The journalist and Deputy Editor of Harper’s Bazaar Helena Lee wants to showcase the voices and experiences of writers from the East and Southeast Asian diaspora living in the UK. East Side Voices celebrates the diversity of that experience and explores the impact on identity, community and family.
Jessica J. Lee was born in Canada to a Taiwanese mother and a Welsh father and in her collection of essays, Dispersals, she muses on the question of how plants and people become uprooted and cross borders. Combining memoir, history, and scientific research she explores how entwined our fortunes, movement and language are with the plant world.
Can you really die from laughing too hard? Between 1870 and 1920, hundreds of women suffered such a fate—or so a slew of sensationalist obituaries would have us believe. How could laughter be fatal, and what do these reports of women’s risible deaths tell us about the politics of female joy?
In Death by Laughter: Female Hysteria and Early Cinema (Columbia University Press, 2024), Dr. Maggie Hennefeld reveals the forgotten histories of “hysterical laughter,” exploring how women’s amusement has been theorised and demonised, suppressed and exploited. In nineteenth-century medicine and culture, hysteria was an ailment that afflicted unruly women on the cusp of emotional or nervous breakdown. Cinema, Hennefeld argues, made it possible for women to laugh outrageously as never before, with irreversible social and political consequences. As female enjoyment became a surefire promise of profitability, alarmist tales of women laughing themselves to death epitomised the tension between subversive pleasure and its violent repression.
Dr. Hennefeld traces the social politics of women’s laughter from the heyday of nineteenth-century sentimentalism to the collective euphoria of early film spectatorship, traversing contagious dancing outbreaks, hysteria photography, madwomen’s cackling, cinematic close-ups, and screenings of slapstick movies in mental asylums. Placing little-known silent films and an archive of remarkable, often unusual texts in conversation with affect theory, comedy studies, and feminist film theory, this book makes a timely case for the power of hysterical laughter to change the world.
This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose forthcoming book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars.
