Category: USA

Activism, Big Banks, Money, Politics, USALeave a comment

Banks For The People

Fernando Kaskais

Ingo Pohl A movement is growing in the U.S. that seeks alternatives to traditional banks, replacing their total focus on profit with a devotion to community and justice. BY PIPER FRENCH – Piper French is an independent writer based in Los Angeles. Gregory Jost noticed the first two bank branches close in the Bronx about six months before the pandemic. They were right next to each other: a Chase and a Bank of America, about three blocks from his son’s school in Norwood, and one day, he walked by and saw they were gone. When COVID hit, the trend accelerated. “We … Continue reading Banks For The People

Curiositys, History, Media&Culture, USALeave a comment

Finding the First Americans

Fernando Kaskais

Footprints dated to 23,000-21,000 years ago at the White Sands National Park, New Mexico. All images courtesy Matthew Bennett/Bournemouth University Archaeology and genetics can’t yet agree on when humans first arrived in the Americas. That’s good science and here’s why Jennifer Raff is associate professor in anthropology and affiliate faculty member in the Indigenous Studies Program in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Kansas. She is the author of Origin: A Genetic History of the Americas (2022). The debate over how people first arrived in the Western Hemisphere continues to roil archaeology in the United States – and … Continue reading Finding the First Americans

Curiositys, Media&Culture, Psychology, USALeave a comment

WHAT KIND OF MAN WAS ANTHONY BOURDAIN?

Fernando Kaskais

He was so damaged, and yet he showed us so much of the world. By Ben Rhodes “Travel isn’t always pretty,” Anthony Bourdain once said, wrapping up an episode of one of his shows in his distinct staccato voice-over. “It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts; it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you.” Over his 15 or so years on television, Bourdain took Americans to places they were unlikely to go and introduced them to people they were unlikely to meet. At his best, he stripped away the filters that a superpower imposes on the world—good and … Continue reading WHAT KIND OF MAN WAS ANTHONY BOURDAIN?

Curiositys, Freak U.S.A, Living, Media&Culture, USALeave a comment

Why Do Americans Own More Guns Per Capita Than Anyone Else?

Fernando Kaskais

Why do Americans own more guns per capita than anyone else? BY BRIAN GALLAGHER One question for Jennifer Carlson, a 2022 MacArthur Grant-winning sociologist at the University of Arizona and author of the forthcoming book Merchants of the Right: Gun Sellers and the Crisis of American Democracy. The legal structure makes it possible. The social structure makes it urgent. If you talk to people who own and carry guns, their number one reason for doing so is for self protection. This is really clear if you walk into a gun store and start talking to people. It’s very clear from the survey … Continue reading Why Do Americans Own More Guns Per Capita Than Anyone Else?

China, Globalization, Politics, USALeave a comment

The Clash Of Two Gilded Ages

Fernando Kaskais

Despite their great-power rivalry, America and China are more similar than most people think. Both are living through a Gilded Age and struggling to end the excesses of capitalism. BY YUEN YUEN ANG Yuen Yuen Ang is a professor of politics at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. In 2021 she is named by Apolitical as one of the 100 Most Influential Academics in Government. Ang is also the inaugural recipient of the Theda Skocpol Prize, awarded by the American Political Science Association, for “impactful contributions.” Yet for all the advances in material and cultural life, there remained a feeling that … Continue reading The Clash Of Two Gilded Ages

Freak U.S.A, History, Politics, Psychology, USALeave a comment

When Domestic Unity Is Built On Foreign Enemies

Fernando Kaskais

Consensus on national security is a double-edged sword. BY NATHAN GARDELS Just when America’s dysfunctional democracy appeared to be headed toward its last gasp, it stirred to life and drew its next breath. For the moment at least, the promise that negotiation and compromise by sober, if inevitably transactional, minds could move the needle on critical issues and transcend partisan rancor seems to have been realized. The $280 billion CHIPS and Science Act that aims to move America back toward self-reliance and regional supply chains for semiconductors passed with a healthy bipartisan margin by both houses of Congress.  President Joe Biden’s … Continue reading When Domestic Unity Is Built On Foreign Enemies

Curiositys, Living, Psychology, USALeave a comment

Geopsychology: Your personality depends on where you live

Fernando Kaskais

The nascent field of geopsychology shows that the Big Five personality traits vary by region. But not all results conform to stereotype. KEY TAKEAWAYS Scientists in the relatively new field of “geopsychology” are seeing links between personality and location. A recent study found geographically significant variations in the distribution of the Big Five personality traits. It turns out that Southerners are more agreeable, while Northeasterners are more neurotic — but not all results conform to stereotype. The Big Five personality traits, a.k.a. the CANOE model. There is also a geographic component to their distribution, research suggests. (Credit: MissLunaRose12 / Wikimedia … Continue reading Geopsychology: Your personality depends on where you live

Climate Change, Future, Planet, USALeave a comment

La Niña is coming. Here’s what that means for winter weather in the U.S.

Fernando Kaskais

By Rachel Treisman/NPR (College Park, Md.) — La Niña will most likely be joining us for the winter again, according to federal forecasters. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Climate Prediction Center announced on Thursday that La Niña conditions have developed and are expected to continue, with an 87% chance that they will be in place from December to February. La Niña (translated from Spanish as “little girl”) is not a storm, but a climate pattern that occurs in the Pacific Ocean every few years and can impact weather around the world. The U.S. is expected to feel its effects on … Continue reading La Niña is coming. Here’s what that means for winter weather in the U.S.

Curiositys, History, Science, USALeave a comment

Native Americans Are Not Who We Thought They Were, Study Finds

Fernando Kaskais

By James Felton A widely believed theory about the origins of Native Americans has been dealt a huge blow by a new genetic analysis of ancient teeth, implying the ancient inhabitants of what is now America were not who we thought they were. Based on this and analysis of their migration across the continent, it’s been suggested that Native Americans made their way across the northern rim of the Pacific Ocean, across the Bering Land Bridge – dry land that connected Siberia and Alaska during the last ice age – until they reached the northwest coast of North America. That much may still be true, … Continue reading Native Americans Are Not Who We Thought They Were, Study Finds

Africa, History, Politics, Racism, USALeave a comment

The South African model

Fernando Kaskais

What the United States and other settler societies can learn from South Africa’s push to create a nonracial democracy Mahmood Mamdani is Herbert Lehman Professor of Government at Columbia University in New York City and executive director of the Makere Institute of Social Research in Kampala, Uganda. His books include Saviors and Survivors: Darfur, Politics, and the War on Terror (2009) and Neither Settler Nor Native: The Making and Unmaking of Permanent Minorities (2020) Edited bySam Haselby In the course of the struggle against apartheid, South Africans did something remarkable: they tried, with incomplete success, to destroy the settler and the native by reconfiguring … Continue reading The South African model