Stranger Than Fiction

A brief daily note of things you might find interesting or useful

June 08, 2020

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  • Minneapolis begins effort to disband police department. “In Minneapolis, where Mr. Floyd was killed in police custody, a veto-proof majority of the city council agreed to begin the process of disbanding the police department—a necessary step, council members said, after decades of incremental police reform.” - WSJ

  • Most voters are more troubled by police action than violence at some protests. “Voters by a 2-to-1 margin are more troubled by the actions of police in the killing of George Floyd than by violence at some protests, and an overwhelming majority, 80%, feel that the country is spiraling out of control, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll.” - WSJ

  • Large families in rural America are COVID-19 hot spots. “Outside of institutional settings like assisted-living facilities, large, multigenerational homes have emerged as one of the most dangerous places to be during the outbreak—a weak spot in the country’s public health response especially in the event of another wave of infections in the fall, as some experts fear.” - WSJ

  • Protests against racism spread overseas. “In London, protesters gathered outside the U.S. Embassy on Sunday for a second day of demonstrations. In Germany, “silent demonstrations” on Saturday drew 150,000 people; participants in Berlin chanted “Nazis out!” And in Rome, protesters pointed to far-right campaigns against migrants and the industries that they say exploit them in off-the-books jobs.” - WaPo

WHAT I’M READING + WATCHING + LISTENING TO

THE COMMENT

“This is not a protest anthem. It’s a lovers-at-a-crossroads jam. But LaBelle is working this crowd. She’s preaching about something that, at my sink, at a crossroads, along with millions of other black people, sounded like a much bigger love. Her exasperation felt transcendently real and timelessly final. Enough.” - Wesley Morris

THE STRANGEST

THE AV ROOM