Rising Crime of Sextortion of High School Boys

Scammers are targeting teenage boys on social media—and driving some to suicide.

By Olivia Carville; Photographs by Kevin Serna; New York Time Magazine, April 15, 2024

Parents and grandparents of high school boys should read what happened to 17-year-old Jordan DeMay when he responded to an Instagram message from what he thought was a flirty girl named Dani.  What began as an innocent exchange escalated into blackmail that cost Jordan his life.

Social media has long been a potentially dangerous place for girls. Now it is as dangerous for boys, as this article illustrates.

Is it possible to catch criminals who take advantage of girls and boys using sextortion on social media sites? Yes, but it is extremely challenging as you’ll learn reading this article about bringing two Nigerian brothers to justice. w/c 

Why Theater Matters in a Democracy

What Began as a War on Theater Won’t End There

By James Shapiro, Guest Opinion, New York Times, April 20, 2024

James Shapiro, author of the forthcoming The Playbook: A Story of Theater, Democracy, and the Making of a Culture War, discusses the benefits of theater in American schools and the origin of efforts to suppress it. If you have had children, or grandchildren, involved in school theater, you know firsthand how they benefit from it, from gaining empathy for others, to building friendships, to learning cooperation, and to becoming themselves live theatergoers in their adulthood. Thinking, questioning adults are critical to a thriving democracy, and theater helps us produce such American citizens. As Shapiro concludes in this essay, “Until those in power in this country pivot from suppressing theater to investing in it, it’s not just the arts but also democracy itself that remains vulnerable.” w/c

Inside the Notorious NATIONAL ENQUIRER

What I Saw Working at The National Enquirer During Donald Trump’s Rise

By Lachlan Cartwright, New York Times Magazine, April 3, 2024, Updated April 12, 2024

As you read this tell-all about the National Enquirer, the Trump election inference criminal trial has been underway for a while. Learn from an insider how catch and kill and even more importantly negative, false stories about opponents were used to support Trump’s presidential candidacy. It’s a scheme worthy of the worst tabloids. w/c

The Biggest Kid’s Show You Don’t Know About

How Bluey Became a $2 Billion Smash Hit—With an Uncertain Future

By David Leonard, Bloomberg Businessweek, April 3, 2024

Bloomberg Bluey Podcast

Bluey Episode: “Sleepytime”

If you don’t have children or grandchildren and you’ve never heard of, let alone watched, Bluey, you’re forgiven. After reading about Bluey, listening to the Bloomberg podcast, and watch one of Bluey‘s most popular episode, ask yourself: if Australian creator Joe Brumm had pitched the idea to you, would you have bought it? Australian Broadcasting, the BBC, and Disney did, and they are reaping the rewards, while providing children and parents with gentle, relatable viewing. See for yourself by watching the “Sleepytime” episode. Extra points if you identify the music. w/c

Russell Banks Takes a Stark Look at Rual America

American Spirits

By Russell Banks

Interestingly, while fewer and fewer Americans live in the rural areas of the country, by virtue of the Electoral College system this receding population exerts considerable influence on our governance. What are they thinking when they support wholeheartedly the types of politicians that appear antithetical to our democratic system? Perhaps the answer to that question is what kinds of lives are they leading. How do they perceive their place in a changing America? What do they feel they have lost?

Russell Banks has been exploring and probing the psyche of rural Americans for years in many of his finest novels, and that’s no less so in his final collection of novellas, American Spirits. (Banks died at age 83 in 2023.)

In the first novella, “Nowhere Man,” Doug Lafleur finds himself lost in a town, Sam Dent, and country he felt he once knew. An avowed Trump supporter because he feels the man is the only one who will honor his right to own guns and live life as he traditionally has, he ends up making a variety of bad decisions that put him in direct conflict with a brutal expression of Trump’s narcism and anarchism. Things do not end well for Doug and his family.

In the third novella, “Kidnapped,” descendants of the 19th century town founder of Sam Dent, selfish and vain Sam Dent, fall prey to the drug problem plaguing all America, but particularly rural America. Elderly Frank and Bessie Dent take on the care of their grandson Stevie, failing to recognize the young man’s intellectual weakness and penchant for bad decisions, none so disastrous for the entire family than his interaction with small time Canadian drug dealers. The Sam Dent line comes to a tragic end that really never had to happen.

In the second novella, “Homeschooling,” Banks reimagines the Hart family murders that took place in Mendocino Country, California, in 2018. His retelling explores how the town of Sam Dent, and specifically a young couple, react to a lesbian couple fostering four Black children from Texas. As in the real life event, the children reach out on several occasions for help but the town, the young next door couple, and the system can’t seen to find a way to help, with the ending as tragic as those in the two other novellas.

If this sounds bleak to you, then you might wonder how disheartening life must feel to those living in the hundreds of Sam Dents across the nation. American Spirits is like reading a dramatized version of Arlie Russell Hochschild’s Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right (recommended). w/c

Climate Change Migration Has Begun

The Flooding Will Come “No Matter What”

By Abrahm Lustgarten, ProPublica, April 11, 2024

Climate change doesn’t care whether or not you believe in it. It is happening now and will worsen as the years pass, even with our efforts to mitigate its effects.

If you look closely, you can see climate change changing life in the United States, in the West where heat makes like nearly unbearable, on the coasts where the seas overtake the land.

Concentrating on Louisiana, this article looks at how climate change alters not only the look of the continental U. S. but also the lives of its citizens. This is the beginning of the great climate change migration. w/c

How Bad Actors Skirt Federal Gun Laws

Inside the Historic Suit That the Gun Industry and Republicans Are on the Verge of Killing

By Vernal Coleman, ProPublica, March 25, 2024

How do guns find their way into the hands of criminals? Why do Chicago police officers find so many out of state guns used in local crimes? 

Part of the answer is straw buyers and gun shop owners willing to sell to them.

As you’ll read in this linked article, Gary, IN, launched Operation Hollowpoint to demonstrate how straw gun buyers and willing gun shop owners were putting weapons into the hands of those unqualified to purchase guns. Based on the results, the city drafted a law to halt the practice. Then the Indiana state government controlled wholly by Republicans stepped in to stop the law by offering their own bill that took the matter out of the hands of local governments. Under this law, only the state could pass such regulatory laws.

How do bad actors of all sorts skirt Federal gun laws that Republicans constantly say should be enforced before passing new laws? This is how. w/c

 

Colorblindness: White Supremacy Never Gives Up

The ‘Colorblind Trap’

By Nikole Hannah-Jones, New York Times Magazine, March 13, 2024

We as a nation have attempted redressing the impact of over 400 years of slavery in the English colonies and the United States. Our efforts have been only partially successful.

It took a civil war to end slavery in the United States. Short-lived Reconstruction was a try at righting past wrongs and putting everyone on level footing. Then followed decades of outright segregation in the South and a hidden form of systemic racism in the North. Years of civil rights activism finally produced the the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In the end, though, it hasn’t done enough to eliminate racial segregation because whites have found numerous ways to enforce segregation without calling it segregation (for example, zoning laws, redlining, and the like).

And now the battle for equality has entered yet another phase, that of turning the idea of a Colorblind society into yet another way to keep African Americans separate and unequal.

How is Colorblindness being turned into another tool for perpetuating segregation? You’ll find the answer in this piece by Nikole Hannah-Jones. It is worth your time if you believe in redressing past injustices to achieve a really colorblind American society. w/c

 

Why the Younger Dryas Claim Persists

The Comet Strike Theory That Just Won’t Die

By Zach St. George, New York Times Magazine, March 5, 2024

So, first, what is the comet strike theory referenced in the title? This hypothesis puts forth the idea that the sudden changes occurring during the Younger Dryas period (around 12,900 years ago) resulting in a return to glacial conditions in North America happen because of a comet strike.

As you’ll learn reading the article, this hypothesis has been debunked by scientists in various fields, who regard it as a confluence of pseudoscience, pseudoarchaeology, and pseudohistory, and a cherry-picking of data based on confirmation bias. However, it’s an idea born in 2007 that will not die.

How it came about, the debate it aroused, the implications for factual science it raises, and where matters stand now are the subjects of this intriguing article. Inquiring minds should find it interesting. w/c

How the Super, Super Rich Hotel

Eight Secrets of Fancy Hotels I Learned After Becoming a Butler

By Brandon Presser, Bloomberg Businessweek Online, February 22, 2024

Many of us have splurged by staying at first-class hotels while traveling, either for business or pleasure. They seem pretty posh compared to average hotels, and those friendly, attentive hotel workers, they add to the pleasure and feeling of being special.

But, as good, and expensive, as they are, they don’t compare to hotels and services enjoyed by the really super rich. Take Raffles, Singapore, for example. Service there is like nothing we have ever experienced, and probably never will. But by reading this article, you can stoke your fantasies. And who knows? One day you may hit the big jackpot and experience this level of luxury for real. w/c