Things I Enjoyed This Week
The first film ever to be released with a Comanche dub, Prey (released this weekend on Hulu and Disney+) has seen a tidal wave of support, leaving industry experts wondering why it wasn’t given a proper theatrical release. One reason may be that the film stars an unfamiliar actress, Amber Midthunder (top-tier name btw), and although I haven’t made time to watch it yet, I feel confident that it will exceed my expectations. If nothing else it’s an alien movie that involves the dismemberment of European settlers. Sign me all the way up!
The return of the English Premier League, which may seem silly given (gestures broadly at the world melting), but it’s truly a welcome distraction from the endless dread of reality.
This incredible investigation by Caitlin Dickerson of the family separation policies implemented by the Biden administration. As bad as we may think it is to take children away from their parents, somehow the reality is actually worse.
Things I Did Not Enjoy This Week
Updated reports from Palestine indicate the Israeli destruction is devastating as more than 30 Palestinians have been killed and hundreds more wounded. The New York Times continues to provide woefully-biased coverage, as today’s reports claim “Palestinian Islamic Jihad militants fired a barrage of rockets at Jerusalem, in fighting that has killed at least 31 people.” No mention that every one of those 31 people was Palestinian or that at least five of those victims were children. No mention that the sole power plant in Gaza has been shut down, leaving many of the 2 million Gazan’s to experience rolling blackouts as Israel continues to conduct “precision airstrikes” that level apartment buildings and neighborhoods alike
This article, in which NPR reports that a famous Banksy painting that was literally spray painted on the separation wall between Israel and the West Bank has “resurfaced in a swank art gallery in downtown Tel Aviv”. That’s a hell of a way to say that Israel stole a priceless piece of resistance art from the cage wall of their prisoner, and now it’s displayed in the heart of Tel Aviv, as if the state of Israel isn’t the subject being critiqued in the piece
This deep-dive into the surveillance technology used on the US-Mexico border. Little known fact, in 2010 I spent about two weeks in the exact area mentioned in this article, the Sonoran desert in southern Arizona, working with an organization dedicated to protecting migrant lives. From experience I can tell you the terrain is extremely unforgiving and uninhabitable, and US Border Patrol has spent billions of dollars on high tech surveillance equipment, from drones to infrared cameras, to make the journey into this country extremely deadly and near impossible.