Karen Zarker

RFK Jr. Is Dismantling Public Health. A Fringe Theory May Explain Why. The Health and Human Services secretary has long embraced antiscientific ideas that run counter to germ theory, the basis of treating infectious diseases.

RFK Jr. Is Dismantling Public Health. A Fringe Theory May Explain Why.

www.wsj.com/health/rfk-j...

DOGE Targeted Him on Social Media. Then the Taliban Took His Family. Afghan scholar Mohammad Halimi, who fled the Taliban in 2021, had worked to help U.S. diplomats understand his homeland. Then DOGE put his family’s lives at risk by exposing his sensitive work for a U...

“Why would one of the richest men in the world commit such an act of injustice?… if …Musk himself were fully informed about this matter, he would likely be deeply ashamed.”

If only.

www.propublica.org/article/doge...

A Letter to America’s Discarded Public Servants You all deserved better.

“If intelligence analysts at the CIA saw our rivals engage in this kind of great-power suicide, we would break out the bourbon. Instead, the sound we hear is of champagne glasses clinking in the Kremlin and Zhongnanhai.”

www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...

The Most Nihilistic Conflict on Earth Sudan’s devastating civil war shows what will replace the liberal order: anarchy and greed.

The violence and suffering in Sudan is neither distant nor remote.

Read and realize.

Another excellent essay by the brilliant @anneapplebaum

www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...

Contributor: Jim Crow meets ICE at 'Alligator Alcatraz' 'Alligator Alcatraz' is a rebrand of an age-old threat and a euphemism for cruelty wrapped in a bad joke.

“Now here we are, 100 years after ‘Mammy’s Little Alligator Bait,’ and the bigots are once again using cartoon alligators to meme-ify racial violence, this time against immigrants.” #EzraClaytanDaniels

www.latimes.com/opinion/stor...

Are humans destined to evolve into crabs? | Aeon Essays ‘Everything becomes crab’ is more than an absurd meme. The crab is a deep symbol of our devil’s bargain with technology

You homo crustaceous, you.

A fascinating, entertaining essay by paleontologist-futurist Michael Garfield that swivels its vision about with the dexterity of a long-eyed swimmer crab.

aeon.co/essays/are-h...

Confessions of the Working Poor - Macleans.ca I work hard, buy quality clothes and fake my way through dinner-party conversations. I'm also part of a fast-growing Canadian underclass.

“To compensate for being low-income, I’m low-maintenance and low-upkeep. The human equivalent of a plastic lawn. Tidy! Durable! From a distance, it looks completely real!” #workingpoor

macleans.ca/society/conf...

The Enshittification of American Power First Google and Facebook, then the world. Under Trump 2.0, US statecraft is starting to mimic the worst tendencies of Big Tech.

“Trumpworld understands that—in controlling the infrastructure layer of global finance, technology, and security—it has vast machineries of coercion at its disposal.”

www.wired.com/story/enshit...

The 70 Best Albums of 2025 So Far » PopMatters The 70 best albums of 2025 offer sublime music as major artists return with new work and brilliant new sounds bubble up from the underground and worldwide.

THE 70 BEST ALBUMS OF 2025 SO FAR

The records offer sublime music as major artists return with new work and brilliant new sounds bubble up from the underground and worldwide.

Federal Government's Growing Banned Words List Is Chilling Act of Censorship - PEN America Banned words list 2025: The federal government is banning a growing number of words to comply with executive orders from President Trump.

Federal Government’s Growing Banned Words List Is Chilling Act of Censorship

pen.org/banned-words...

Commentary: Rep. Judy Chu wants to go inside immigration detention facilities. ICE wants to stop her As tens of thousands of immigrants are detained and held inside federal detention centers, the power of federal lawmakers such as Judy Chu to provide oversight and answers is even more critical — and ...

“Not enough of our lawmakers have spoken up, much less taken action, against the erosion of civil rights and legal norms currently underway.” #ImmigrantsRights

www.latimes.com/california/s....

Meet the Woman Who Vladimir Putin Fears the Most Struggling to break Russia’s all-mighty male state, 32-year-old feminist Daria Serenko poses a dire threat to the Kremlin.

“‘Feminists are the most visible political power in the opposition; we have become actors on the streets across Russia,’” – Daria Serenko

www.thedailybeast.com/meet-the-wom...

Where Is Barack Obama? The “audacity of hope” presidency has given way to the fierce lethargy of semi-retirement.

Yeah, where the hell is Barack Obama?

“‘I’m sick of Obama staying above the fray while that fray is swallowing us whole.’”

www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...

The Coming Economic Nightmare Trump’s tariffs could cause stagflation for the first time in decades. It may go on for a long, long time.

“The economic crisis of 2025 started in the mind of one man, but Trump’s tariffs are dislocating planet-wide networks of trade. The dislocation has already sliced trillions of dollars from the value of U.S. corporations.”

www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...

#EUAID

Bliss amidst an apocalypse?

How the Democrats Blew It Kamala Harris and Donald Trump campaign insiders talk about the 2024 campaign, voter outreach, social media, and that Las Vegas Sphere ad.

Where are the #Democrats @DNC right now? Silence.

“You’re telling people what they care about — at no point are you asking them what they care about.”

www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...

“They’re Scared Shitless”: The Threat of Political Violence Informing Trump’s Grip on Congress With the president smashing norm after norm, even lawmakers within his party have feared for their personal safety, and at least one has told confidants that it has swayed his decision-making.

“[Republicans are] scared shitless about death threats and Gestapo-like stuff,”

www.vanityfair.com/news/story/t...

Why Did We Stop Talking About Medicare For All? Medicare for All has seemingly dropped out of the political conversation. Dr. Adam Gaffney, a physician and Medicare for All expert, explains why we still need a single-payer healthcare system and add...

Why did we stop talking about Medicare For All?

www.currentaffairs.org/news/we-stil...

#DoomsdayClock #NuclearWar

Dark Comedy 'Patriot' Illuminates the Dark Reality of Neoliberalism » PopMatters The dark comedy Patriot illuminates how neoliberalism makes choices for us disguisedly, using entrepreneurial agency as a fig leaf to obscure manipulation.

“Adaptable as the liquid metal T-1000 of Terminator 2 [Neoliberalism ingrains] destructive belief systems in work and family life in ways people don’t notice. The consequences of decades of inculcating a toxic mindset are now very clear.“

www.popmatters.com/patriot-stev...

Why Stoicism is one of the best mind-hacks ever devised | Aeon Essays As legions of warriors and prisoners can attest, Stoicism is not grim resolve but a way to wrest happiness from adversity

On the sensible side of #stoicism

‘You are unfortunate in my judgment, for you have never been unfortunate’

aeon.co/essays/why-s...

Your brain does not process information and it is not a computer | Aeon Essays Your brain does not process information, retrieve knowledge or store memories. In short: your brain is not a computer

Brains Are Not Computers: the Harmful Side of Linguistic Ideology

“…the idea that humans must be information processors…because computers are…is…silly…when…the IP metaphor is…abandoned, it will…be seen that way by historians...”

aeon.co/essays/your-...

Why Zora Neale Hurston Was Obsessed with the Jews Her long-unpublished novel was the culmination of a years-long fascination. What does it reveal about her fraught views on civil rights?

Why Zora Neale Hurston Was Obsessed with the Jews

www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

How Hollywood lost the culture war Its fate hitched to the Democratic Party, Hollywood has reinforced the failure of political imagination that gave us Trump 2.0: reflections on a doomed alliance.

[Our celebrity political culture] “…a far cry from … front-line activism of Harry Belafonte … or Jane Fonda … [is] … the logical end point of… Obama’s 2008 slogan, “Hope,” … fundamentally empty if it didn’t specify the hoped-for.”

www.latimes.com/entertainmen...

Life under the rule of #MAGA

#DemocracyInAmerica

‘They’re dragging us to destruction’: the Gazans who oppose Hamas Despite the risk to their lives, some Palestinians spoke out to say that after October 7, the group built tunnels to save themselves while civilians were left to face death

The Gaza’s Who Oppose Hamas

www.thetimes.com/world/middle...

Scenes From The Literary Blacklist Widespread censorship is killing writers’ careers before they begin.

Scenes from the Literary Blacklist

www.persuasion.community/p/scenes-fro...

Our Insurance Dystopia - Boston Review Private insurance companies have long dominated the provision of social security in the United States, but resistance is growing.

Our Insurance Dystopia

Private insurance companies have long dominated the provision of social security in the United States, but resistance is growing.

www.bostonreview.net/articles/our...