A weekly digest of the most important news, ideas and culture from around the world. Host Michael Washburn summarizes the best journalism from the week that was, including the publications you never have time to read. www.themediaglobe.com
Reading the Globe: A weekly digest of the most important news, ideas and culture around the world.
Claim This Podcastby Michael Washburn
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24 episodes
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Podcast Overview
A weekly digest of the most important news, ideas and culture from around the world. Host Michael Washburn summarizes the best journalism from the week that was, including the publications you never have time to read. www.themediaglobe.com
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Publishing Since
6/25/2021
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Recent Episodes
May 20, 2022
Reading the Globe #024: French in Quebec; Depp v. Heard
<p><strong>Mandating French in Quebec</strong></p><p>Furious controversy and public demonstrations have raged this week over Bill 96, one of the toughest pieces of legislation so far drafted in the efforts of francophones to make theirs the official language of Quebec. A May 16 <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/8839830/bill-96-quebec-business-impact/">article</a> by Elizabeth Zogalis on the website Global News describes how many anglophones in Montreal and other parts of the province fear the ramifications of such a hardball approach to promoting the use of French in the workplace and public institutions.</p><p>It may give readers a sense of the slant of Global News to note that you have go considerably further down, toward the end of the article, to find a differing view of Bill 96. </p><p><strong>Depp v. Heard</strong></p><p>Johnny Depp’s lawsuit over the alleged libel his ex-wife Amber Heard committed in a Washington Post op-ed piece continues this week, as does her countersuit, with Heard on the stand taking questions under cross-examination from Depp’s lawyer about their heated quarrels. One of the most harrowing parts of a trial filled with disquieting testimony was <a href="https://nypost.com/2022/05/17/johnny-depps-lawyer-grills-amber-heard-on-bottle-sex-assault/">Heard’s claim</a> that Depp committed sexual assault with a bottle. Jurors saw a photo of the bottle, which was intact despite Heard’s claim that she feared it was broken while inside her body.</p><p>The gruesome testimony, along with Depp’s claims to have lost the tip of his middle finger when Heard threw a vodka bottle at him and to have hidden from her while she went on a rampage looking for him, is the subject of a May 17 <a href="https://themediaglobe.com/podcasts/reading-the-globe-024-french-in-quebec-depp-v-heard/Dear%20Professor%20Hetherington:">article</a> in the New York Post by Elizabeth Rosner and Snejana Farberov.</p><p><strong>California Judge Nixes Gender Quotas</strong></p><p>Just when you may have thought there was no hope for California, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Maureen Duffy-Lewis last week made a sensible decision striking down gender quotas that had forced corporations in the state to have a certain number of women on their boards. As Evan Symon details in a May 16 <a href="https://californiaglobe.com/articles/la-superior-court-judge-rules-against-california-gender-based-corporate-board-quota-law/">article</a> for California Globe, the judge’s ruling finds that SB 826, which has been law in the Golden State for three years, violates the right to equal treatment and is therefore unconstitutional.</p><p><strong>Israel Defends Itself</strong></p><p>As terrorist attacks continue to endanger the civilians, military, and infrastructure of Israel, prime minister Naftali Bennett has pledged a massive response making use of helicopters and missiles, the Jerusalem Post <a href="https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-706899">reported</a> on May 17. According to the Post’s article, calls for a tough response have grown in the aftermath of the killing of Noam Raz, a veteran counterterrorist operative, during an Israeli Defense Force operation in the city of Jenin last week, and another incident where IDF soldiers fatally shot a Palestinian man at a checkpoint when he ran at them with a knife, among other incidents. The article details how IDF soldiers have arrested numerous terror suspects in recent days. But clearly such actions have not gone nearly far enough to quell public fears of a sharp uptick in attacks and the need for the military to use its considerable resources to maintain order.</p>
May 6, 2022
Reading the Globe #023: China Censors Spidey; NYTimes Wrong on Roe
<p><strong>Censorship in China</strong></p><p>Censorship in communist China extends further than some may realize. The repressive regime in Beijing seeks to extirpate not only speech and writing that contravene its dogmas, but even symbols that might give viewers the wrong idea.</p><p>An <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/news/sony-refuses-chinese-demand-to-delete-statue-of-liberty-from-latest-spider-man/">article</a> by Zachary Evans in National Review Online on May 2 details how China’s censors demanded that Sony cut the Statue of Liberty from the climax of Spider-Man: No Way Home. Evans notes that the monument is on view throughout the 20-minute climax. In the view of Chinese censors, it is unacceptable for viewers to take in, even subliminally, this image of freedom.</p><p><strong>The Times Gets It Wrong, Again</strong></p><p>Jesse Wegman of the New York Times Editorial Board believes that the Supreme Court, as currently constituted, is out of touch. The title of his May 3 <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/03/opinion/supreme-court-roe-wade.html">opinion piece</a> in the Times says it bluntly: “This Supreme Court Is Out of Step With Most Americans.”</p><p>Wegman complains at some length that the court has become increasingly politicized over the years to the point where it resembles Congress more than a body undertaking the review of laws and policies in an impartial manner and assessing their constitutionality. Hence it is ironic that Wegman’s objections to the pending ruling on Roe v. Wade are political rather than legal in nature. He sounds like a political partisan, indeed like an activist, when he lashes out at the court for its stance on Roe v. Wade. </p><p><strong>The Passing of Kathy Boudin</strong></p><p>The California Globe’s Evan Symon reported on May 2 that Kathy Boudin, the member of the Weather Underground who attained notoriety for her role in the deadly Brinks Robbery of October 1981, <a href="https://californiaglobe.com/articles/weather-underground-terrorist-kathy-boudin-mother-of-san-francisco-da-chesa-boudin-dies-at-age-78/">has died at age 78</a>. Boudin is the mother of San Francisco’s progressive district attorney, Chesa Boudin, who faces possible recall in an election scheduled for June 7 as a consequence of the disastrous policy of “decarceration” he has foisted on the city, which has driven crime way up and eroded the quality of life in what many long considered to be one of the most desirable places in the world to live.</p><p><strong>The World Outside</strong></p><p><strong> </strong>Maybe you remember that tender age when you were just barely old enough to begin to take trips by yourself. The literary journal Rosebud has just published <a href="https://www.rsbd.net/NEW/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=90&Itemid=30">its long-awaited 69th issue</a>, and on page 140 of this issue, you will find my short story “The World Outside,” which is an account of a boy’s trip by train from Chicago through a swath of rural Michigan and back. It evokes midcentury America and draws its inspiration largely from Theodore Roethke’s poem “Night Journey.” In Roethke’s poem, the narrator describes riding in a Pullman car through an alternately bright and misty part of the upper Midwest and conveys the depth of his love for a land that holds out such natural beauty to the observer.</p><p>I hope that “The World Outside” will evoke more wonder and terror on the reader’s part for what it prompts the reader to imagine than for what it actually shows. As readers of W.W. Jacobs’s classic story “The Monkey’s Paw” will affirm, this approach can be powerful indeed.</p>
April 15, 2022
Reading the Globe #022: Lachlan in the Fox Wings, Time for Adams to Deliver
<p><strong>Succession at Fox News</strong></p><p>Whether or not you are a fan of Fox News, it is reasonable to wonder, as Ken Lacorte does in <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/lachlan-murdoch-steps-into-the-right/">an April 12 article</a> on National Review Online, what will happen to Fox News after the reign of owner Rupert Murdoch, 91, comes to an end.</p><p>Lacorte finds cause for optimism in the person of the young and dynamic Lachlan Murdoch, who is executive chairman and CEO of Fox Corporation. The presumptive heir to the News Corporation empire recently gave <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KS64U2w_NjQ">a speech</a> at the Centre for the Australian Way of Life that harshly criticized woke culture’s attacks on figures and symbols of America’s past and what he termed “the destructive rewriting of its history.”</p><p><strong>Descent Into Hell</strong></p><p>Can Mayor Eric Adams reverse the decline of New York City?</p><p>The headline of columnist Michael Goodwin’s <a href="https://nypost.com/2022/04/12/clocks-ticking-on-hochul-adams-to-halt-crime-driving-nyc-under/">piece</a> in the New York Post on April 12 is “After latest bloodbath, time is running out for Hochul and Adams to save NYC.” The incident that shocked millions occurred on the morning of April 12 when a crazed lone wolf assailant set off smoke bombs and shot passengers on a Manhattan-bound N train in Brooklyn, wounding at least 29.</p><p>Goodwin thinks that Adams, who ran on a tough law-and-order platform, has moved away from the promises he made while campaigning and has turned into something of an appeaser of the wing of the Democratic Party associated with militants like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. If Adams continues to play this role, and to avoid being the kind of leader people sick of crime thought they were voting for, the rapid decline is likely to accelerate still further.</p><p><strong>Israel’s Third Way</strong></p><p>Ever since February 24, the blue and yellow flags of Ukraine have been ubiquitous in the news and on social media. People around the world are eager to show their support as Ukraine suffers ever-intensifying battering from Russian forces, including a recent missile attack on a train depot that killed at least 50 civilians. As Patrick Kingsley notes in an April 10 <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/10/world/middleeast/israel-ukraine-russia-oligarchs.html">article</a> in the New York Times, Israel has made serious efforts including setting up a field hospital in Ukraine, sending humanitarian aid, and joining diplomatic efforts at the U.N. to sanction Russia.</p><p>At the same time, Kingsley notes, Israel’s prime minister, Naftali Bennett, has largely refrained from demonizing Russia or blaming Russia for the crisis. The balancing act that Bennett has undertaken has drawn fierce criticism and charges of a conflict of interest. </p><p><strong>Golden State Buffoonery</strong></p><p>Now that ethnic studies courses are a requirement in California’s public schools, parents want to know what effect such courses are having on those subjected to them.</p><p>An April 12 <a href="https://californiaglobe.com/articles/cas-ethnic-studies-law-based-on-shoddy-works-distorted-data-research-quicksand/">article</a> by Katy Grimes on the website <a href="https://themediaglobe.com/podcasts/reading-the-globe-022-lachlan-in-the-fox-wings-time-for-adams-to-deliver/CaliforniaGlobe.comm">California Globe</a> recounts how Governor Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 101 into law last fall after having vetoed an earlier version, Bill 331, on the grounds of a lack of balance in the viewpoints and perspectives it would impose in California classrooms.</p>
24 total episodes available
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