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The Present Age Weekly Recap: August 26, 2022

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TPA Weekly Recap

The Present Age Weekly Recap: August 26, 2022

Very fine people, student debt, Salman Rushdie, history lessons, and more.

Parker Molloy
Aug 26, 2022
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The Present Age Weekly Recap: August 26, 2022

www.readtpa.com

Welcome to the weekly recap. In this post, I’ll be linking to my work from the week, sharing some stories from others I thought were interesting, and providing a few casual thoughts on [gestures at everything]. If you’d like to receive this weekly email ONLY, please go to your account page and under “Email notifications” uncheck every box except “TPA Weekly Recap.” If you don’t want to receive the weekly recap, leave all boxes except “TPA Weekly Recap” checked.


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From me this week (and last week): Salman Rushdie, fine people, student debt, and a very hoax-y history

Way back on August 15, I wrote a piece about the very bizarre attempts among center-right pundits to try to turn the attempted assassination of Salman Rushdie into some sort of odd referendum on “cancel culture” nonsense.

The Present Age
Stop trying to shoehorn the Salman Rushdie assassination attempt into your weird "cancel culture" BS
On Friday, author Salman Rushdie was stabbed multiple times ahead of a speech at western New York’s Chautauqua Institution. Rushdie’s attacker was arrested at the scene and charged with second-degree attempted murder and assault with a weapon. The author, himself, was rushed by helicopter to a hospital in Erie, Pa., where he was put on a ventilator foll…
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7 months ago · 48 likes · 13 comments · Parker Molloy

On the 19th, I published the first in a two-part series about the five-year anniversary of the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., how then-president Trump responded to it, and how his supporters tried to rewrite that history.

The Present Age
Donald Trump's "Very Fine People"
This is the first installment in a two-part series. This post details the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., and then-President Donald Trump’s multiple attempts to respond to it. Part two will be published next week, and will deal with the right-wing attempt to rewrite this history. If you enjoy or appreciate my work, please consider be…
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7 months ago · 28 likes · 3 comments · Parker Molloy

And then on Tuesday, I published the second installment, which focused on the rewrite campaign.

The Present Age
Donald Trump's "Very Fine People"
This is the first installment in a two-part series. This post details the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., and then-President Donald Trump’s multiple attempts to respond to it. Part two will be published next week, and will deal with the right-wing attempt to rewrite this history. If you enjoy or appreciate my work, please consider be…
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7 months ago · 28 likes · 3 comments · Parker Molloy

Next week, I’m publishing a not-so-secret “secret” part three that will be for paid subscribers only. If you’re a paying subscriber, keep your eyes peeled for that. If you’re not yet a paying subscriber, you can do that here:

And then on Wednesday, I published a few quick thoughts about President Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan, the underreported aspects of it, and double standards in media when it comes to discussing the “fairness” of public policy.

The Present Age
What's the deal with Biden's student debt forgiveness plan?
As you’ve probably heard, Joe Biden made good on a campaign promise today (mostly) and put forward an actual student loan relief plan. Yes, the big headlines have to do with the total amount of debt that will be forgiven (Biden ran on forgiving at least $10,000 in federal student loan debt per person, but activists and advocates for student debt forgive…
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7 months ago · 39 likes · 8 comments · Parker Molloy

Naturally, that announcement resulted in a bunch of people on the right recycling the one joke they have:

har har har, get it? like trans people. har har har. yawn.

Was there anything you read this week that you enjoyed and want to recommend to others? Let me know down in the comments.

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Posts from others I want to highlight:

Jessica Valenti broke a big story yesterday about an influential anti-abortion activist getting arrested for solicitation of a minor and his organization’s attempts to quietly scrub all references to him from their online presence.

All in Her Head by Jessica Valenti
Anti-Choice Leader Arrested for Solicitation of a Minor
UPDATE: Texas Right to Life says that Bowen’s employment was terminated on August 3. (The same day he was charged) The political director of Texas Right to Life, the state’s largest and oldest anti-abortion organization, has been been arrested for solicitation of a minor…
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7 months ago · 41 likes · 12 comments · Jessica Valenti

Over at her Lucid Substack, Ruth Ben-Ghiat had a great post about the centrality of self-victimhood within authoritarian movements.

Lucid
Always the Victim: A Century of Strongman Scams
Welcome back to Lucid, and a big hello to all new subscribers. Mark your calendars for our next Q&A, on Friday, August 26, 1-2pmET. You will receive a link to register for the Zoom gathering that morning. _________________________________ "I'm the most persecuted man in all of history," Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi…
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7 months ago · 77 likes · 56 comments · Ruth Ben-Ghiat

Stories by AI is one of my guilty pleasure newsletter reads. It’s exactly what it sounds like: short fiction, written by AI, illustrated by AI, and narrated by AI. Yes, there’s still a human element to it all. No, the stories aren’t necessarily what I would call “great.” But this is an interesting experiment and (I think) a really creative use of newsletters. I’m interested to see how much things change over time, for this and other similar projects.

Stories by AI
Tom and Jerry Get Existential
[Human-provided text is italic, AI-generated text is normal] Description: This is a story about Tom and Jerry, the cat and mouse from the cartoons. Tom has just read The Myth of Sisyphus, and talks to Jerry about the futility of their existence, and what they could do instead of their endless squabbling…
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7 months ago · Andrey Kurenkov

Dan Rather and Elliot Kirschner have a piece over at Steady on a topic I’ve written about on more than one occasion: the weaponization of words, the creation of all-purpose insults to apply to policy and people alike without ever having firm definitions.

Steady
Blowing the "Anti-Woke" Dog Whistle
Let’s get something straight. The weaponization of the term “woke” by the political right is not a joke. Far from it. It provides a window into the low regard (to say the least) these people have for human rights, empathy, and the truth. You can see the self-satisfaction, if not outright glee…
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7 months ago · 943 likes · 304 comments · Dan Rather and Elliot Kirschner

Earlier this week, I was about halfway through a piece about the sudden flood of articles about “quiet quitting.” The gist was that this term, which seems to mean simply doing the job you are paid to do, is being thrown around in the press for the sake of “lazy millennials/lazy gen-Z” articles. But as I was writing it, I saw that Ed Zitron had tackled the topic, completely nailing my exact thoughts. Rather than finish mine, I’m just going to recommend that everyone check out his story.

Ed Zitron's Where's Your Ed At
Quiet Quitting and the Death of Office Culture
I am sick, everybody. My tummy hurts, and I was sick yesterday, which was a Sunday. I wanted to sleep, but my stomach refused to let me, nagging me to get up. And this is exactly how I feel about Quiet Quitting, a term invented by bosses that refers to workers “only doing what they’re meant to at work” with a side helping of “finding their new work bala…
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7 months ago · 67 likes · 27 comments · Ed Z

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The Present Age Weekly Recap: August 26, 2022

www.readtpa.com
2 Comments
Brooke
Aug 26, 2022Liked by Parker Molloy

Loved the stuff this week, Parker!

Unsure if you noticed, but I think you linked the first part of the Tiki torch piece twice instead of linking part 2 second.

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