111 MHz: ‘Top.’ Klara Lewis, the experimental composer is just out with Thankful, an album dedicated to the memory of Peter Rehberg—the head of her label, Editions Mego—who died in 2021. That memory accounts for the beat. Lewis is also the daughter of Wire’s Graham Lewis, which may account for the static and noise over it.
—Brendan Hasenstab
Nov. 04, 2024 |
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5 W Main: Righteous Victims. Over the last month, the Israeli Defense Force has been ordering Palestinian residents of northern Gaza—in Biet Hanoun, Beit Lahiya, and Jabalya—to move southward. The UN estimates that the IDF has expelled some 60,000 from these neighborhoods, while some tens of thousands still remain. Meanwhile, in the last few weeks, Israel has tightly restricted the number of food trucks entering Gaza—with virtually none now reaching the North.
The IDF has a straightforward explanation: It’s fighting Hamas in and around these neighborhoods. Others are implying more complex motives: Human-rights groups focused on the situation of Palestinians in northern Gaza are alleging that Israel might now be starting to carry out some version of the so-called “Generals’ Plan”—published in September by the Israeli NGO Forum of Commanders and Soldiers in the Reserves—which calls for the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who live north of the Netzarim Corridor to move south; for those who remain to be treated as combatants; and, in the words of the plan’s principal author, the retired IDF major general Giora Eiland, for forcing them to “surrender or to starve.”
We can’t yet know the extent to which this vision informs the IDF’s strategy in northern Gaza, but it’s not obscure. This January, 11 Israeli cabinet members participated in a conference in support of resettling Gaza, where Israel’s minister of communications, Shlomo Karhi, endorsed “encouraging voluntary emigration” of Palestinians in Gaza. As one banner at the conference expressed the view, “Only a transfer will bring peace.” And last month, the minister of national security, Itamar Ben Gvir, echoed the same language rather precisely: “We will encourage the voluntary transfer of all Gazan citizens.”
The history of the idea of “transferring” Palestinians is one of the subjects of the Israeli historian Benny Morris’s classic 2001 book, Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-2001. Morris chronicles the development of the idiom of “transfer” in the context of Israeli forces’ expulsion of Palestinians from their homes in 1948—and other expulsions since—largely as the implementation of policies formulated by Israeli leaders, not on the far right but on the liberal left. It’s a history Morris himself belongs to: He’s not a partisan of the Israeli right; he’s been opposed to it throughout his life; but he takes the view now that it would’ve been for the best if Israel had fully expelled the Palestinians when it had the chance.
—Gustav Jönsson
Oct. 31, 2024 |
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How to steal an election in America. This week, someone incinerated hundreds of ballots in Washington and Oregon. It’s not the sort of thing likely to reassure those who worry that next week’s U.S. presidential election risks being manipulated, or undermined, or ultimately stolen by partisan actors.
Already, the former president and current Republican candidate Donald Trump is intimating that the Democrats might somehow commit election fraud next week. Many of Trump’s supporters believe him, as they do his assertions about the Democrats having cheated their way to victory in 2020.
There’s widespread concern among Democrats, meanwhile, that Republicans will try to overturn the election in an even more determined way than did the “stop the steal” movement that led to the January 2021 Capitol Hill riot. So there’s plenty of worry on both sides.
How vulnerable is the U.S. election system, then? Today, Richard H. Pildes explores the threat of election fraud, the safeguards against it, and why so many Americans no longer trust their election process or election outcomes.
—Gustav Jönsson
Oct. 31, 2024 |
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111 MHz: ‘Another Kind of Forever.’ The NYC-based saxophonist Darius Jones leads an ensemble on his new album, Legend of e’Boi (The Hypervigilant Eye). It all owes something to the Art Ensemble of Chicago and other free-jazz pioneers. Here, they swoop and dive and howl in a groove that constantly evolves through the running time.
—Brendan Hasenstab
Oct. 30, 2024 |
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The day the lights went out in Cuba. The Republic of Cuba’s power grid finally collapsed on October 18. The state had sent all nonessential workers home the day before, trying to cut the island’s electricity usage, but it didn’t help. Around 11:00 a.m., the entire country lost electricity; it was restored for a while the following day, but there have been repeated, total blackouts across the country since then—and even on the best days, there are rolling blackouts to conserve energy. In many parts of the country, there’s electricity for only a few hours a day. The blackouts have caused problems for the country’s water systems, as well—on account of which hundreds of thousands of Cubans now don’t have running water. What’s behind all these problems?
The government blames the ongoing U.S. embargo; tourism hasn’t recovered since the pandemic; and more than 10 percent of the island’s population has emigrated in the past few years. And yet, as Javier Corrales explained in July 2021, Cuba’s economy has been falling apart for years—above all, because its main patron, Venezuela, is undergoing its own economic collapse. Meaning Venezuela can’t afford to send as much money—or oil to power the electricity grid—as it has been for the past 20 years. It’s one of the Americas’ more existential questions, Corrales says, of political and economic sustainability.
—Michael Bluhm
Oct. 29, 2024 |
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111 MHz: ‘Rain & Snow.’ L.A. bassist Sam Wilkes from iiyo iiyo iiyo, a live record cut in 2022 but just released. Here, Wilkes is joined by the keyboardist Chris Fishman, the keyboardist-guitarist Thom Gill, the drummer Craig Weinrib, and the guitarist Dylan Day. It’s a journey, this tune.
—Brendan Hasenstab
Oct. 29, 2024 |
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The things that I used to do. Giorgia Meloni can seem a little confusing. For years before becoming Italy’s prime minister in 2022, Meloni often used unforgiving far-right rhetoric about migrants and migration—even claiming there was an international conspiracy to replace ethnic Italians with emigrants from Africa. She congratulated Vladimir Putin for “winning” the Russian presidential election in 2018. All around, she fit well the profile of the European populist-right political leader modeled by Hungary’s Viktor Orbán.
Now that she’s in power, however, Meloni has done little to follow up on her anti-immigration rhetoric with anti-immigration policies. She’s continually sided with Ukraine against Russia—even sending weapons to Kyiv. And she’s shown a moderation many, on the left and the right, wouldn’t have expected across other issue areas, as well. What’s she doing?
Today, Leila Simona Talaniexplores the apparent tensions between Meloni’s words and deeds. Talani says Meloni’s decisions as prime minister are all about keeping the right friends, not making the wrong enemies, and carefully accumulating political power as she goes. And as it’s still early—she’s been prime minister for only two years—it’s still also an open question how the power she might accumulate will reshape her politics and policy decisions.
—Michael Bluhm
Oct. 28, 2024 |
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5 W Main: Flying Blind. Last week, some 33,000 unionized Boeing workers in Washington state, who’ve been striking since the middle of September, voted by a large majority to reject an offer that included a 35 percent wage hike over four years. Why?
It’s the first major negotiation since 2014, when Boeing froze the company’s traditional pension plan after threatening to move production of the 777 out of the region. Now, workers want to reinstate that pension plan along with a 40 percent raise and guarantees for improved working conditions.
And they know Boeing's leadership needs to end the strike soon. The company has been burning through roughly US$1 billion a month, is now US$53 billion in debt, and is at risk of seeing its investment credit rating downgraded. Production had been lagging behind schedule even before the strike—and that’s having knock-on effects on the rest of the industry: Ryanair, Boeing's largest customer in Europe, says it'll have to cut flights next summer, while Emirates says it has had to make “significant and highly expensive” changes to its fleet programs.
In his 2022 book Flying Blind: The 737 Max Tragedy and the Fall of Boeing, the investigative reporter Peter Robinson explores how Boeing sank into this morass—as its leadership, seeking to maximize short-term profits, reduced testing, cajoled regulators, pressured employees, and outsourced large parts of its production chain. Meanwhile, In 2018 and 2019, two Boeing 737 MAX 8 crashed, killing 346 people.
—Gustav Jönsson
Oct. 26, 2024 |
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Weather report: Istanbul, Türkiye. Looking out from Galata Bridge on the Istanbul waterfront—Friday, October 18, just after 9:00 AM. A shower passed through overnight, leaving it at a comfortable 14◦ C (58 ◦F)—and creating a rainbow over the Bosporus.
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