How Gerrymandering Negatively Impacts the Economic Development of a District

by Nomad

We all know that gerrymandering as a tool to win elections has proved advantageous. Some critics have claimed that this partisan tactic has in recent years become more extreme and has begun to warp democracy.

In a search for the facts, researchers at Boston College decided to look a bit closer. They began by asking a simple question: How does gerrymandering affect the quality of political representation in a district?

Sanity Sunday - A Selection of Dream Pop Songs

by Nomad  

I've long ago given up trying to follow musical genres and sub-genres. It just seemed impossible but it does help you find the type of music you like.
After listening to some music I enjoyed this week, I learned that alternative rock and neo-psychedelia (another unknown genre) hooked up sometime in the 80s and had a love child called Dream Pop.
As a subgenre, Dream Pop is all about atmosphere and often features "breathy vocals and processed, echo-laden guitars and synthesizers." The lyrics tend to be short poems.
I think you will find this style soothing on the nerves.

A Nation of Suckers: How a 1947 Film Exposes the Truth about Trumpism

by Nomad

Released in 1947, this 23-minute film, "Don't be a Sucker" was produced by United States Department of War. Its aim was to educate the American public about the dangers of fascism, racism empowered by prejudice and discrimination.

The Guys Who Stay Up Nights

In a real awakening of right-wing extremism, the message of this film has found a new audience. I found it interesting (and timely) how rabble-rousers were portrayed as swindling con artists, rather than just power-hungry politicians. "There are all kinds of games and all kinds of suckers." 

Extolling the beauty of American diversity, the narrator points out that America is composed of..

..all kinds of people, people from different countries with different religions, different colored skins, free people. They can live together and work together and build America together because they're free, free to vote to say what they please go to their own churches, to pick their own jobs.

But, the film reminds us, "there are guys who stay up nights figuring out how to take that away from [us]."

Speaking is Difficult

by Nomad

Directed and edited by AJ Schnack, this short but powerful film is very simple in concept: a catalog of the 911 calls of mass shootings in America since January 2011.  In reverse order, the first call is by a young man from Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

"Hate Was Their Handshake"

by Nomad

Recently I stumbled across a fascinating book called "Under Cover: My Four Years in the Nazi Underworld of America." One of the things you quickly learn from reading the book is that the techniques used in politics nowadays were used in the past- albeit primitively, by today's standards. The modus operandi never really changes.

In the years just before WWII, Armenia-American journalist Arthur Derounian (using the alias John Roy Carlson) went underground to investigate and to expose the various organizations that supported fascism and Nazi causes.

When it was published, the book served as a warning that fascism could flourish just as easily in Chicago and New York as it could in Rome or Berlin.