April 23, 2023

Articles to Read

'Love Is Blind' is hell on earth: Contestants say producers deprived them of food and sleep, preyed on their anxieties, and refused to let them quit
by Katie Warren in Insider

Producers took contestants passports and phones, and crammed them all into two roach infested trailers. “Access to food and water was also a concern. Several former cast members said meals were insufficient and water wasn't easily accessible.”

They Saw the Horrific Aftermath of a Mass Shooting. Should We?
by Jay Kirk in The New York Times Magazine

“Art was the death guy. The one who was lowered into septic tanks to retrieve badly decayed body parts. He had seen everything imaginable and a good deal of the unimaginable. And yet somehow he managed to stay one step ahead of the crowd of ghosts that were always following on their heels from one death scene investigation to the next. But by the look of him now, in the parking lot of Sandy Hook Elementary on Dec. 14, 2012, the ghosts had caught up all at once.”

In a thriving Michigan county, a community goes to war with itself
by Greg Jaffe and Patrick Marley in The Washington Post

Spurred by a mask mandate at his kids school, Joe Moss helped lead a MAGA takeover of the Ottawa County Board of Commissioners. It’s going, uh, poorly. “Last November, commissioners backed by [Moss’s] Ottawa Impact won eight of the 11 seats on the county board. They were now in charge of a government that they feared, overseeing county employees they did not trust.”

Chief Justice John Roberts’ Mockery of Stalking Victims Points to a Deeper Problem
by Mary Anne Franks in Slate

“For nearly two years, Billy Raymond Counterman sent thousands of unsolicited and unwanted Facebook direct messages to C.W.” Most people would probably think this is bad, but apparently not certain SCOTUS judges. Jokes and laughs were had at descriptions of stalking during oral arguments, despite the fact that “stalking is so closely correlated with lethal violence that experts refer to it as slow motion homicide.”

News to Know

• This happened. I don’t know what it is, or if it is news. But it’s real, I guess, though it’s almost like Huckabee-Sanders was tricked.

• Bed Bath and Beyond finally filed for bankruptcy.

• On Twitter, Elon Musk and Dril are having some kind of shitposting battle (I’m sure you can guess who is winning). Musk has continued to saddle Dril with a blue checkmark in retaliation for Dril’s support of the Block the Blue movement. Block the Blue is inspired by the fact that most people paying for Twitter Blue are using service’s algorithm boost to call their ideological enemies names and spread 4chan talking points.

• RFK Jr decided to capitalize on the Max Blumenthal demographic of voters, and officially announced he will be running in the primaries against Biden. “Before a fire alarm in the building prompted Kennedy to finally, eventually come to a close, the speech was an excellent preview of what his longshot candidacy will probably look like,” writes Anna Merlan at Vice. Sounds like he’s off to a great start!